Coronavirus

[cardinalkarp]

There is a great interview with a Mayo Clinic virologist embedded in this article. It touches on many of the things AW mentions about the Delta variant and how it is so much better at binding. They also talk about masks, vaccine hesitancy and several other things.

HuffPost: Delta Variant Will 'Find Everybody Not Immune,' Warns Mayo Clinic Vaccine Expert.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gregory- ... 153fbe23c1

Not a mention that the vaccinated also need to be careful….how convenient. These experts need to be honest w/ people, the vaccine isn’t your silver bullet either, and you need to be taking the same precautions as everyone else because not only can you catch it and possibly be hospitalized, but you can transmit is as well.

[GeddyWrox]

There is a great interview with a Mayo Clinic virologist embedded in this article. It touches on many of the things AW mentions about the Delta variant and how it is so much better at binding. They also talk about masks, vaccine hesitancy and several other things.

HuffPost: Delta Variant Will 'Find Everybody Not Immune,' Warns Mayo Clinic Vaccine Expert.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gregory- ... 153fbe23c1

Not a mention that the vaccinated also need to be careful….how convenient. These experts need to be honest w/ people, the vaccine isn’t your silver bullet either, and you need to be taking the same precautions as everyone else because not only can you catch it and possibly be hospitalized, but you can transmit is as well.

Did you watch the video? The doctor said he is wearing his mask EVERYWHERE.

[Arthur Dent]

On top of that, at Mrs. AW's hospital, 22% of hospitalized patients in Med Surge (non-life threatening, a step before ICU so to speak) are fully vaccinated. They've yet to have a fully vaxxed person admitted to ICU or die. So, that's good. Back to the 22%. There are some numbers floating around, but something like 44% of those eligible have been fully vaxxed in AR. So, yeah, the vax is preventing exactly 50% of vaxxed from being hospitalized (if 44% are vaxxed and it was zero percent effective, 44% hospitalized would be vaxxed, and it it was 100% effective, 0 percent would be vaxxed...Idk if that's how numbers work at the moment, it's late). I know these numbers don't mesh with published numbers, but whatever, I'll trust the anecdote here becasue the DOH isn't publishing the numbers.

I have to question this one in the strongest possible terms. To say that this doesn’t mesh with published numbers is an extreme understatement. Here’s the CDC count of breakthrough hospitalizations and deaths. Or here’s the same Ankansas med school dean who wrote the report containing your unlinked quote saying that COVID hospitalizations are 98% unvaccinated. 78% is WAY off here and should not be passed around as undocumented anecdote.

What's the point of wearing a mask? For me it's to be as safe as possible and prevent catching/possibly spreading the virus if I do. Like I said in a previous post, to me at least it's become relatively clear that even 50% vaccinated populations aren't immune to massive outbreaks. Who knows what the real number is for herd immunity is, but if r naught really is 6, the theoretical number is 83%. Daily cases are increasing in every state in the nation. The lowest infection rate at the moment is 1.1. For reference, over the past year, 1.1 would have been relatively high as most states outside the first couple months didn't reach it very often. Arkansas was only above 1.1 for a few days in November and we still managed to top out at over 100 cases per 100K people daily (along with the rest of the country). And, we're currently at 1.28 with 40 some odd cases per 100K daily.

As you wrote earlier, it’s totally clear that existing natural immunity plus achievable vaccination rates will not result in herd immunity. In that case, what’s the plan? Ideally, it would be to figure out how to get vaccination up to herd immunity levels, but we agree this is impossible, and no one is even bothering to claim they can produce a plan to get there. In ideal world, herd immunity would wipe out wide circulation of the virus, and most vaccinated people would never be exposed and have to find out their outcome. That would be wonderful. But in the existing world, this is not in the cards. That means basically every individual needs to assume they are going to be exposed. For the overwhelming majority of vaccinated individuals, this will be fine. If you don’t want to get the vaccine, you have to trust your luck. Masks are great, but at some point, you will absolutely be infected unless you decide to forge for yourself in the wilderness.

In that context, the only real point of precautions like masks is the old flatten the curve narrative from the very beginning of this — try to avoid overrunning hospitals — but ultimately the only way out is through. In the flatten the curve world, “everyone has to wear masks” would make sense on the grounds that we’re not able to do something like vaccine passports, so only blanket rules are possible and because vaccinated people do contribute to spread, albeit to a much lesser degree. But again in the real world, where we’re mostly not enforcing rules at all but relying on voluntary compliance, I’m skeptical much can be achieved especially given the strong correlation between vaccine opposition and opposition to non-vaccine measures.

Don’t let it dominate your life!

[cardinalkarp]

There is a great interview with a Mayo Clinic virologist embedded in this article. It touches on many of the things AW mentions about the Delta variant and how it is so much better at binding. They also talk about masks, vaccine hesitancy and several other things.

HuffPost: Delta Variant Will 'Find Everybody Not Immune,' Warns Mayo Clinic Vaccine Expert.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gregory- ... 153fbe23c1

Not a mention that the vaccinated also need to be careful….how convenient. These experts need to be honest w/ people, the vaccine isn’t your silver bullet either, and you need to be taking the same precautions as everyone else because not only can you catch it and possibly be hospitalized, but you can transmit is as well.

Did you watch the video? The doctor said he is wearing his mask EVERYWHERE.

I’m working so wasn’t able to watch the video, but I read the article and its completely about how the unvaccinated will not be able to escape the delta variant.

[cardinalkarp]

I have to question this one in the strongest possible terms. To say that this doesn’t mesh with published numbers is an extreme understatement. Here’s the CDC count of breakthrough hospitalizations and deaths. Or here’s the same Ankansas med school dean who wrote the report containing your unlinked quote saying that COVID hospitalizations are 98% unvaccinated. 78% is WAY off here and should not be passed around as undocumented anecdote.

Have you checked into what other countries like the UK and Israel are reporting when it comes to those kind of statistics? Is it not the least bit strange to you that the US numbers are vastly different? Why would that be?

At some point we have to potentially think that something “off” is happening w/ the numbers being reported in the US.

AW reported some real life numbers as to what his wife is seeing in the hospital in their area and they are vastly different that what the CDC reports. And as “conspiracy theory” as it sounds I think we as the public are being lied to, and this wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened durning this pandemic.

[cardinalkarp]

And I know I’m on the opposite side of the fence w/ how pretty much everyone on the forum feels, but I’m enjoying the debate and the opinions of others.

I know I get heated and say some things I may not always mean when it comes to other posters, so for that I apologize.

[AdmiralKird]

TL;DW: The vaccinated are going to start infecting and killing the unvaccinated.

[Smith Corks One]

Interesting. If his conclusion regarding the time between doses is accurate, would anything prevent someone from just getting a third shot? Guess they would need to peel the second sticker off their card and say that they just forgot to get the second one or something. My understanding is they’re not tracking who has had what vaccines, correct?

Also, with all this data that keeps coming out about Pfizer, I wonder why we haven’t heard any studies about Moderna yet. That’s the one almost everyone in my family/extended family has.

[Arthur Dent]

Let’s actually take the time to check in with the UK statistics office on this one:

Two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine are estimated to be 96% and 92% effective against hospitalisation with the Delta variant, respectively.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... s/vaccines

AW’s undocumented assertion of a 50% overall (delta and otherwise) effectiveness against hospitalization is off the map low and completely inconsistent with the available data.

And again, what’s the case here? We’re thinking of holding up until we get a Delta specific booster vaccine that might be able to push those numbers up a bit? Is anybody claiming that this is a real thing that could really happen to reduce the toll, or are we just waiving our arms around while we actually have no plans at all to substantially reduce the death and suffering? What does waiting buy us when most increases in immunity come from natural infection among vaccine refuseniks? Everyone is going to be exposed unless there’s a plan to get sufficient vaccination for herd immunity, which again, remains implausible and is a completely incoherent view when you’re personally refusing to get a vaccine.

[AdmiralKird]

Interesting. If his conclusion regarding the time between doses is accurate, would anything prevent someone from just getting a third shot? Guess they would need to peel the second sticker off their card and say that they just forgot to get the second one or something. My understanding is they’re not tracking who has had what vaccines, correct?

Also, with all this data that keeps coming out about Pfizer, I wonder why we haven’t heard any studies about Moderna yet. That’s the one almost everyone in my family/extended family has.

I suspect we'll start hearing about a third dose booster to the Dec/Jan vaccinated once there is enough data to confirm the first reporting of these findings. The last thing you want from a healthcare perspective are doctors and nurses (those who were first vaccinated) in a hospital to start infecting the already sick.

Moderna wasn't in Israel or the UK in bulk so we don't have enough varied studies, at least not on this scale. Now that they know what to look for they'll probably start scavenging for data from the cases that match similar profiles, and that will tell whether or not Moderna's is the same.