Coronavirus

[cardinalkarp]

610k died with mask and social distancing mandates

That’s being disingenuous, guidelines have been all over the place depending on where one lived and at different points in time.

Yes, many more died from COVID over the past year plus, but it’s not apples to apples if you’re comparing what was happening during the onset of the virus and what’s happening currently.

[haltz]

610k died with mask and social distancing mandates

That’s being disingenuous, guidelines have been all over the place depending on where one lived and at different points in time.

Yes, many more died from COVID over the past year plus, but it’s not apples to apples if you’re comparing what was happening during the onset of the virus and what’s happening currently.

OK, you have 6M cases and 110k deaths in NY and California which were masked up and locked down pretty hard from what I understand. Granted, plenty of other variables with that like population density, but there's a slice that represents about 18% of the US pandemic.

Just for fun we'll find another 50M people who perhaps handled it differently in Texas and Florida and you get a grand total of 5.6M cases and 100k deaths.

[Arthur Dent]

Karp, you’re very worried about the powerful cabal controlling corporations and government who push lies to serve their interests, right? We have to vigilantly defend our minds from their pervasive propaganda. They’re making us sheep who can’t think for ourselves. That’s why we can’t trust the data that continues to show vaccination is incredibly effective.

But these same forces have gotten you all mixed up! You’re reading official CDC reports suggesting you must hide out and be afraid and listening to pharma CEOs trying to push their product. They’re making you huddle up and be alone and frightened. I know it’s hard to fend off these mind forces, but I think they may have gotten to you here.

Or maybe it’s got nothing to do with any of that, and you’re happy to listen to CDC and drug pushers when they say things supporting your vaccine fears but go with Bret Weinstein instead when they don’t.

[cardinalkarp]

I think you’re a bit off base there.

I’m not huddled up and afraid of anything. I’m not for lockdowns, what I am for is being sensible if you go out and wear a mask and social distance when possible to make yourself and others safe.

That’s nothing that needs to be said by the CDC, it’s common sense.

I’m not afraid of the vaccine either, but I do think there’s a potential for it being harmful (both in the short term and long term). And without any long term data to evaluate right now I’m not comfortable getting it, it’s really that simple.

I’m sure a lot on here now see me as some crazy conspiracy theorist, but it’s simply not the case. I read all different viewpoints and what I do see is a lot of conflicting information from one week to the next coming from the “official” government agencies.

[Arthur Dent]

The narratives do shift a great deal, but the data really hasn’t that much.

I will say that it was a mistake to talk about vaccine effectiveness in terms of cases. If you think about how vaccines actually work, in a technical sense, they are all 0% effective as viruses can still be inhaled and do some replication. Vaccines aid immune response to shut down a growing infection but don’t prevent it from starting. So what does a case based vaccine effectiveness number mean? It depends on how hard you search for cases. Do you swab everyone daily, or does it only count if someone notices symptoms?

What actually matters is outcomes not cases. Do you get sick? Is the sickness serious, and can you infect others?

I think it’s fair to say this new data should revise upwards concerns about spreading by the vaccinated, though perhaps not as much as some of the more breathless narratives. They didn’t actually have good ability to track who spreads, so they use a proxy of PCR test measures of viral load. And we know Delta is vastly greater in this regard. But this measure is known to only weakly correlate with spreading and the data showing better individual outcomes for infected individuals remains highly robust, so this measure clearly does not track with that measure of seriousness of infection.

But let’s assume vaccination doesn’t reduce transmission because Delta is so incredibly contagious that spread cannot be contained with vaccines alone. What does that mean? It clearly implies less effective measures like masking will not prevent spread but only slow it. Those without vaccines should assume they will be infected quite soon no matter the measures taken. Being careful, as you call it, won’t protect you. It will only marginally delay the date of your coming COVID infection (if it has not already happened).

[cardinalkarp]

Really the best way of telling how effective the vaccine has been is to gather the amount of hospitalizations and deaths of the vaccinated/unvaccinated since let’s say the end of March/April and compare those two numbers. And that’s being generous as I think we can all agree that the vaccine is more effective over the Alpha variant, and I’m not 100% sure if that timetable aligns when Delta became more prevalent (which is what seems to be the greatest cause for concern for both the vaxxed & unvaxxed at this point)

Is that possible, I’m not sure?

The reporting of numbers has been pretty inconsistent when it comes vaccine breakthrough cases. And I’m speaking for myself here, but it really sucks that my trust in the government has fallen to a point where I have to be very skeptical of the information they are providing.

[Arthur Dent]

Really the best way of telling how effective the vaccine has been is to gather the amount of hospitalizations and deaths of the vaccinated/unvaccinated since let’s say the end of March/April and compare those two numbers. And that’s being generous as I think we can all agree that the vaccine is more effective over the Alpha variant, and I’m not 100% sure if that timetable aligns when Delta became more prevalent (which is what seems to be the greatest cause for concern for both the vaxxed & unvaxxed at this point)

Is that possible, I’m not sure?

Yes. If you’re willing to believe the CDC, there have been about 4600 total COVID related hospitalizations among the fully vaccinated (and less than 1,000 deaths). Compare that to average daily new COVID hospitalizations, which hit its minimum a few weeks ago at around 2,000 per day.

Or here’s a KFF report with lots of detail:

https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid- ... he-states/

[cardinalkarp]

Really the best way of telling how effective the vaccine has been is to gather the amount of hospitalizations and deaths of the vaccinated/unvaccinated since let’s say the end of March/April and compare those two numbers. And that’s being generous as I think we can all agree that the vaccine is more effective over the Alpha variant, and I’m not 100% sure if that timetable aligns when Delta became more prevalent (which is what seems to be the greatest cause for concern for both the vaxxed & unvaxxed at this point)

Is that possible, I’m not sure?

Yes. If you’re willing to believe the CDC, there have been about 4600 total COVID related hospitalizations among the fully vaccinated (and less than 1,000 deaths). Compare that to average daily new COVID hospitalizations, which hit its minimum a few weeks ago at around 2,000 per day.

Or here’s a KFF report with lots of detail:

https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid- ... he-states/

I appreciate you digging up the numbers. I am skeptical of the CDC’s numbers, but no matter how you slice it….there’s no chance it’s going come near the 2K per day (if those cases are all related to the unvaccinated). Again, I’m not here to argue that the vaccine is completely ineffective or that it doesn’t mitigate symptoms. I do believe that it’s not as effective as they are saying, and it’s effectiveness is dropping not only against Delta, but Alpha as well.

So it really just becomes a risk/benefit for myself. Are the potential unknown long term risks and potential short term risks of the vaccine greater than the risks of COVID. I’m sure you would argue they are much less, which is okay. But for nearly every healthy middle aged individual, COVID has mild symptoms (if any at all). Then there is the argument that you’re doing it to save others, which was a fine argument until the latest data has come out that the vaccinated are just a likely to transmit as the unvaccinated.

Again, I’m not out there going unmasked w/o a care in the world. I’m limiting exposure (not out of fear, but because I am choosing to be unvaccinated I don’t mind being extra careful), masking, and social distancing.

[GeddyWrox]

Click tweet for full thread.

[ghostrunner]

Long thread here from a pediatric doc in Houston. Sound like they’re getting many more kids in the hospital now with the delta variant.