Coronavirus

[mikechamp]

Cause and effect?

One Trend Is Emerging About Vaccinations

The COVID news has been indisputably good across the US in the last few weeks, but USA Today reports that eight states are now seeing an increase in cases. And it appears the spikes have a common denominator: Of those eight states—Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Missouri, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming—seven have vaccination rates below the national average of 43%. (Hawaii is the outlier.) Related coverage:

https://www.newser.com/story/307355/one ... tions.html

[mikechamp]

This is an interesting "side effect" of the pandemic:

Resignations Are Up, and a 'Massive Shift' Is Expected

The seismic shift caused by the pandemic in regard to the American workforce is only now beginning to be fully understood, and a succinct new phrase might help sum things up: "the great resignation." Referring to the idea that lots of people have been, or will be, quitting their jobs, it appears to have been coined by Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M in an interview last month with Bloomberg Businessweek. Coverage:

https://www.newser.com/story/307325/new ... ation.html

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Cause and effect?

One Trend Is Emerging About Vaccinations

The COVID news has been indisputably good across the US in the last few weeks, but USA Today reports that eight states are now seeing an increase in cases. And it appears the spikes have a common denominator: Of those eight states—Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Missouri, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming—seven have vaccination rates below the national average of 43%. (Hawaii is the outlier.) Related coverage:

https://www.newser.com/story/307355/one ... tions.html

As has been the case throughout, there are so many variables it's tough to take one dataset and draw broad conclusions. I'm going to play devil's advocate on the article because, well, it doesn't really make a coherent argument. Thanks for posting, mike, hope you don't take offense. But, there are a lot of articles that can do what this one did over the coming weeks/months/years and I think it's important we all have a critical eye for seeing through bull [expletive].

It should be noted, obviously there is an overall premise that is probably already proven (idk stats) but there is an a seemingly overwhelming inverse correlation between vaccines and daily new cases. I think we all agree vaccines prevent spread. No further discussion needed. And, yeah, there's probably more spread in less vaccinated areas.

But, rising/falling cases is subjective. For example take two states. State A: 1 daily new case/100K increases to 2 daily new cases/100K over the course of a week. State B: 100 daily new cases/100K decreases to 25 cases/100K over the same week. State A has rising cases while State B has falling cases, but it's obvious State A has much less spread of the virus and is 'better' but by classifying them as rising/falling, the goalposts are shifted.

So, the first statement: "States where COVID cases are rising tend to have lower vaccination rates" is largely meaningless because it doesn't establish a baseline for how controlled the states are.

Also, I wouldn't call any of those states listed as experiencing 'spikes'. Some, at this point, aren't even experiencing an increase in cases (Texas, Alabama, Wyoming, and Hawaii at least - I quit looking). Covidactnow.org has all the states listed, with the exception of Wyoming, in the medium risk category which is the second lowest of the five tiers of risk. Every state in the union with the exception of Wyoming and Colorado are in that risk category as well. That risk category is associated with 1-10 new daily cases per 100K citizens. For reference, during the 'spikes' associated with the winter and other bad months, states saw upwards of 100 new daily cases per 100K citizens. Using even the broadest sense of the term spike, it really doesn't apply to what's happening.

It would be interesting to split the nation into different regions with similar weather patterns (eg, the northeast, midwest, southeast, southwest, northwest, etc), differentiate those states among highest to lowest vaccination rates, then compare the daily new cases amongst those subsets. Or you could even do it on a more granular level with counties within states that have mostly homogenous weather. Even that is still going to have a lot of variables, but it would be more meaningful.

That said, look at their list. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that at one point their statement that cases were rising was correct. I'm also throwing out HI because, well, they throw it out as well. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to clump the remaining states into two pretty distinct geographic locations. TX, MO, AR, AL are one clump and NV, UT, WY is another. What's to say weather, either hot temps, heavy rains, etc didn't push people indoors for extended periods where the virus spreads more easily?

Lastly, if rising covid cases are linked to lower vaccination rates, why doesn't the reverse hold true where lower vaccination rates are linked to rising covid cases (eg, MS, LA, GA, SC, NC, OK, etc)?

In the end, they took an already proven premise (vaccines prevent spread), poorly extrapolated it to possibly incorrectly associate rising cases with lower vaccinated states, and offered little to nothing to back that up with the exception of linking other news artciles and a hand picked, I'd argue, meaningless dataset. Then they threw in some scary words and call it a day.

I'm frustrated at the vaccination acceptance rate across the country, I wish it were higher. But, that doesn't mean we can just blame everything on anti-vaxxers and move on without actually figuring out what is happening. Or, worse, make stuff up to blame on anti-vaxxers to get clicks.

I do imagine all states will se a rise in cases in the fall, and there will likely be less cases per capita amongst those areas with higher rates of vaccination. How many cases will there be and will that overwhelm hospitals again in areas with lower vaccination rates? Is there a percentage that exists where X% vaccinated has a quantum effect on daily new cases? Is the correlation linear? What amount of breakthrough infections originate in non-vaxxed people? How many breakthorugh cases are there. Etc etc etc. All this can be discussed and we need more information. But, to reiterate, I'd caution against just blaming the unvaxxed for all the worlds problems at this point.

[mikechamp]

No offense taken, man.

I post this stuff for everyone to read through for themselves, and as you can see, I put a question mark at the end of my comment because I didn't know if it was really cause & effect or not. I thought "maybe", but I took statistics in college and know they can be distorted in various ways.

[Jocephus]

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

No offense taken, man.

I post this stuff for everyone to read through for themselves, and as you can see, I put a question mark at the end of my comment because I didn't know if it was really cause & effect or not. I thought "maybe", but I took statistics in college and know they can be distorted in various ways.

Not an article, but as of June 28th, roughly 2 weeks after the originally quoted article, there are now 6 states in the 'high' risk category which is the middle category on covidactnow.org (Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma). All of these states have under 50% vaccinated with the first dose.

Meanwhile, Vermont, MA, and Maryland have moved into the 'low' risk level which is the lowest risk category. VT and MA lead the nation in highest vaccinated rates and MD ranks 11th. Of the states in the high risk category as of right now, 2 rank in the 30-40 range and 4 rank in the 40-50 range of vaccinated percentage.

I don't know if that is statistically significant, but, uh, it sure seems like it should be.

[GeddyWrox]

No offense taken, man.

I post this stuff for everyone to read through for themselves, and as you can see, I put a question mark at the end of my comment because I didn't know if it was really cause & effect or not. I thought "maybe", but I took statistics in college and know they can be distorted in various ways.

Not an article, but as of June 28th, roughly 2 weeks after the originally quoted article, there are now 6 states in the 'high' risk category which is the middle category on covidactnow.org (Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma). All of these states have under 50% vaccinated with the first dose.

Meanwhile, Vermont, MA, and Maryland have moved into the 'low' risk level which is the lowest risk category. VT and MA lead the nation in highest vaccinated rates and MD ranks 11th. Of the states in the high risk category as of right now, 2 rank in the 30-40 range and 4 rank in the 40-50 range of vaccinated percentage.

I don't know if that is statistically significant, but, uh, it sure seems like it should be.

Yep.

Also, this Delta/Delta+ variant means business. Read an article in the India Times about health-care providers there having breakthrough case hot spots. So essentially, the fully vaccinated health care workers are getting mild(ish) breakthrough cases and then transmitting to patients.

All these unvaccinated folks are going to keep fueling mutations and variants, and people are going to keep dying. States with low vaccination rates (cough cough MISSOURI cough cough) are going to get hit HARD again late summer/early fall, I fear. Sigh.

[Famous Mortimer]

This is an interesting "side effect" of the pandemic:

Resignations Are Up, and a 'Massive Shift' Is Expected

The seismic shift caused by the pandemic in regard to the American workforce is only now beginning to be fully understood, and a succinct new phrase might help sum things up: "the great resignation." Referring to the idea that lots of people have been, or will be, quitting their jobs, it appears to have been coined by Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M in an interview last month with Bloomberg Businessweek. Coverage:

https://www.newser.com/story/307325/new ... ation.html

It's an article about a possibility, more than an actual trend, though. I wish we had world socialism, but writing an article about the hot new trend of wealth redistribution sadly will not make it so.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

No offense taken, man.

I post this stuff for everyone to read through for themselves, and as you can see, I put a question mark at the end of my comment because I didn't know if it was really cause & effect or not. I thought "maybe", but I took statistics in college and know they can be distorted in various ways.

Not an article, but as of June 28th, roughly 2 weeks after the originally quoted article, there are now 6 states in the 'high' risk category which is the middle category on covidactnow.org (Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma). All of these states have under 50% vaccinated with the first dose.

Meanwhile, Vermont, MA, and Maryland have moved into the 'low' risk level which is the lowest risk category. VT and MA lead the nation in highest vaccinated rates and MD ranks 11th. Of the states in the high risk category as of right now, 2 rank in the 30-40 range and 4 rank in the 40-50 range of vaccinated percentage.

I don't know if that is statistically significant, but, uh, it sure seems like it should be.

Yep.

Also, this Delta/Delta+ variant means business. Read an article in the India Times about health-care providers there having breakthrough case hot spots. So essentially, the fully vaccinated health care workers are getting mild(ish) breakthrough cases and then transmitting to patients.

All these unvaccinated folks are going to keep fueling mutations and variants, and people are going to keep dying. States with low vaccination rates (cough cough MISSOURI cough cough) are going to get hit HARD again late summer/early fall, I fear. Sigh.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the fall even if it's a morbid experiment.

Saw this article while scrolling through msn.com

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medica ... li=BBnb7Kz

The study, published Monday in the journal Nature, adds to a growing body of evidence that the protection from the virus induced by the vaccines could be long-lasting. It may mean that booster shots for the mRNA coronavirus vaccines aren't needed anytime soon.

"It's a good sign for how durable our immunity is from this vaccine," Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study, told The New York Times.

Researchers found that the so-called germinal centers in participants' lymph nodes were highly active nearly four months after the first dose of vaccine, suggesting that fully vaccinated people could have long-term protection.

"Germinal centers are the key to a persistent, protective immune response," Ellebedy said in a statement.

And, directly from the study itself...no idea if n=41 is significant or not nor do I understand anything in this paragraph, but here you go. No idea if it's peer reviewed either.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03738-2

Abstract
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccines are ~95% effective in preventing coronavirus disease 20191–5. The dynamics of antibody secreting plasmablasts (PBs) and germinal centre (GC) B cells induced by these vaccines in humans remain unclear. We examined antigen-specific B cell responses in peripheral blood (n=41) and draining lymph nodes (LNs) in 14 individuals who received two doses of BNT162b2, an mRNA-based vaccine encoding full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) gene1. Circulating IgG- and IgA-secreting PBs targeting the S protein peaked one week after the second immunization then declined, becoming undetectable three weeks later. These PB responses preceded maximal levels of serum anti-S binding and neutralizing antibodies to an early circulating SARS-CoV-2 strain as well as emerging variants, especially in individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, who produced the most robust serologic responses. By examining fine needle aspirates (FNAs) of draining axillary LNs, we identified GC B cells that bound S protein in all participants sampled after primary immunization. Remarkably, high frequencies of S-binding GC B cells and PBs were sustained in these draining LNs for at least twelve weeks after the booster immunization. S-binding GC B cell-derived monoclonal antibodies predominantly targeted the receptor binding domain of the S protein, with fewer clones binding to the N-terminal domain or to epitopes shared with the S proteins of the human betacoronaviruses OC43 and HKU1. The latter cross-reactive B cell clones had higher levels of somatic hypermutation compared to those that only recognized SARS-CoV-2 S protein, suggesting a memory B cell origin. Our studies demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-based vaccination of humans induces a persistent GC B cell response, enabling the generation of robust humoral immunity.

A quick google search leads me to believe the GC B cells are akin to the guard dogs in a previous analogy I made. Antibodies aren't actively floating around in the bloodstream, but due to the training the body received via vaccines (probably natural infections as well), antibodies can be made quickly enough to ward off serious infection.

Maybe.

Going back to that analogy here it is from a post in October, I just like the reference to The Sandlot so I'll repost it:

[analogy] a virus (sars-cov-2 in this case) is a home intruder. An antibody (IgG) is a guard dog. Ideally, the intruder tries to come into your house, but the dog sees him, latches onto his arm in the front yard, and the intruder doesn't come inside the house.

But, at first because you live in a nice area and intruders are a novel thing in your neighborhood, your dog is simply Hercules and not yet The Beast. He isn't a trained assassin and is used to idly sleeping and drooling on baseballs that wonder into the backyard every now and then. He isn't trained to detect intruders and he isn't living outside. However, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me; and you get broken into. At which point, over the next couple weeks you train the dog to become aggressive towards inruders and put him outside. You have to teach him to be The Beast. OVer the next couple weeks, that dog is a killing machine and at watch 24/7. As a matter of fact, you create a couple thousand clones of The Beast to put in the front yard. But, with time and no intruders around, the dogs become lazy. Some of them run away. Your yard starts to smell and complaints are filed with the City. The City comes by and says, yo, you can't have this many dogs so you find them nice homes down the street. But, of course, you're going to keep Hercules plus a couple and even if they return to their previous life as inside dogs and don't stand at watch 24/7, they haven't forgotten about the threat of an intruder. If one so happens to come around and tries to steal a Babe Ruth signed baseball, even if the dogs are back to being Hercules, they are ready to turn back into The Beast in a heartbeat.[/analogy]

It does seem, from my very, very, very limited understanding of all this, Hercules has been trained to be the Beast and while he goes back to being house dog Hercules some time after the vaccination/training, his ability to spring into action to ward off intruders remains strong well past the date of vaccination.

Again, it is worth noting, this doesn't guarantee protection against variants. But, for a variant to escape the protections offered by vaccines, the S protein aka the spike has to mutate. The spike protein is specifically why this virus is so effective at transmission among humans. So, while scary, the question still remains, can the spike mutate, maintain transmissibility, and avoid recognition by the immune system? Seems like a tall task.

[GeddyWrox]

Good info. I had seen a similar headline about the mRNA vax longevity, but hadn't had a chance to digest a full article on it yet. Encouraging - for us microchipped folx anyway!