Coronavirus

[G. Keenan]

Good interview here with Dr. Leana Wen on breakthrough infections, masks, and the unvaccinated peeing in the pool.

Think Of Your COVID-19 Vaccine Like A Very Good Raincoat, Says Dr. Leana Wen

The raincoat analogy is a good one for me. If you think of the vaccine like a raincoat, it keeps you dry when you go out in a light shower. It'll even keep you dry in the occasional thunderstorm. But if you're going out day after day into thunderstorms you're eventually going to get wet.

That's what's happening with Delta, which gives an infected person something like 1200 times the viral load of OG Covid. When the CDC lifted all masking guidance back in May only 36% of the population was fully vaccinated. This created a permission structure for the unvaccinated to go out and act like they were vaccinated. Delta is running wild among the unvaxxed, and even if you're vaxxed, spend enough time getting bombarded by unvaxxed people breathing Covid all around you and that's how you get a breakthrough infection.

The thing about vaccines is that for them to really work and suppress a disease fully, close to the whole population has to have them. That is fundamental to the technology. This is true for all vaccines. There is no vaccine for any disease that gives an individual person 100% protection against a virus. But if just about everyone gets a given vaccine, a given virus can no longer circulate.

So yeah, the unvaccinated are screwing this up for everyone else (no offense).

[Freed Roger]

Good interview here with Dr. Leana Wen on breakthrough infections, masks, and the unvaccinated peeing in the pool.

Think Of Your COVID-19 Vaccine Like A Very Good Raincoat, Says Dr. Leana Wen

The raincoat analogy is a good one for me. If you think of the vaccine like a raincoat, it keeps you dry when you go out in a light shower. It'll even keep you dry in the occasional thunderstorm. But if you're going out day after day into thunderstorms you're eventually going to get wet.

That's what's happening with Delta, which gives an infected person something like 1200 times the viral load of OG Covid. When the CDC lifted all masking guidance back in May only 36% of the population was fully vaccinated. This created a permission structure for the unvaccinated to go out and act like they were vaccinated. Delta is running wild among the unvaxxed, and even if you're vaxxed, spend enough time getting bombarded by unvaxxed people breathing Covid all around you and that's how you get a breakthrough infection.

The thing about vaccines is that for them to really work and suppress a disease fully, close to the whole population has to have them. That is fundamental to the technology. This is true for all vaccines. There is no vaccine for any disease that gives an individual person 100% protection against a virus. But if just about everyone gets a given vaccine, a given virus can no longer circulate.

So yeah, the unvaccinated are screwing this up for everyone else (no offense).

++
indeed they are. What sort of info will it take to convince a reasonable anti-vaxxer. ?

[Arthur Dent]

What sort of info will it take to convince a reasonable anti-vaxxer. ?

I don’t think public information is particularly helpful at this point. To make a difference, intervention needs to come in the space of people’s real lives, not it the world of public chatting. If you have personal relationships (friends/family) with unvaccinated people, that’s an opportunity, but public action needs to involve putting out carrots and sticks the unvaccinated regularly run up against trying to lead their regular lives, with employers, access to spaces and facilities, etc. The politics there are fraught and largely impossible in many cases, but it is the most meaningful path. Coming back to the mask thing, this is one reason why reimposing mandates is a bad thing. The freedom to not wear a mask if you get vaccinated really is a meaningful intervention in people’s ordinary lives!

Also, I hate drug advertising, but letting vaccine makers do aggressive marketing is probably a good idea, as they are good at it, and the commercial channel is at least somewhat orthogonal to the public discourse based persuasion efforts tried so far.

[ghostrunner]

I thought this was helpful in explaining the infections among vaccinated people and the change in risk after vaccination. I think it could be designed a little better, but it made sense after looking at it for a minute.

Basically 2 shots seems to drop your risk to that of someone about 20-30 years younger. So you can still die from it and it's still more likely if you're older, but the odds go way down.

If I've got it right, out of a million 80 year olds that comes out to going from 10,000 deaths to about 1500
Out of a million 70 year olds, from 5000 to 250
etc...

[cardinalkarp]

I thought this was helpful in explaining the infections among vaccinated people and the change in risk after vaccination. I think it could be designed a little better, but it made sense after looking at it for a minute.

Basically 2 shots seems to drop your risk to that of someone about 20-30 years younger. So you can still die from it and it's still more likely if you're older, but the odds go way down.

If I've got it right, out of a million 80 year olds that comes out to going from 10,000 deaths to about 1500
Out of a million 70 year olds, from 5000 to 250
etc...

My math could be wrong but in the US w/ it’s deaths being at 610,000 and it’s population being 330,000,000 you basically have a .0018 chance of dying from COVID. Of course that number is misleading, since the older and unhealthier you are the greater risk of severe symptoms/death.

That graph very well could be correct, but it seems high for the younger age groups.

My argument in not getting the vaccine has never been that it doesn’t help mitigate symptoms, I think it’s pretty clear it does that. But it’s also not nearly effective as what they thought it was going to be at keeping you from contracting/transmitting. They have some short term data (and one could say it’s relatively safe, but IMO they are sweeping lots of vaccine issues right under the rug), but when it comes to them saying it’s safe long term, it’s a total hypothesis….they have ZERO clue.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

My math could be wrong but in the US w/ it’s deaths being at 610,000 and it’s population being 330,000,000 you basically have a .0018 chance of dying from COVID.

Correct. To be most accurate, remember that most of that 610k were with a much less virulent form of the virus then the Delta strain now making up the majority of infections. That will change the chances going forward.

And as long as the virus is circulating widely, what will the next variant bring?

[G. Keenan]

I thought this was helpful in explaining the infections among vaccinated people and the change in risk after vaccination. I think it could be designed a little better, but it made sense after looking at it for a minute.

Basically 2 shots seems to drop your risk to that of someone about 20-30 years younger. So you can still die from it and it's still more likely if you're older, but the odds go way down.

If I've got it right, out of a million 80 year olds that comes out to going from 10,000 deaths to about 1500
Out of a million 70 year olds, from 5000 to 250
etc...

My math could be wrong but in the US w/ it’s deaths being at 610,000 and it’s population being 330,000,000 you basically have a .0018 chance of dying from COVID. Of course that number is misleading, since the older and unhealthier you are the greater risk of severe symptoms/death.

Well no, because not all 330,000,000 million people have been infected. I think you need to re-run that calculation using deaths among reported infections.

[mikechamp]

Did someone say something about "the next variant"?

Another coronavirus variant has reached Florida. Here's what you need to know.

A coronavirus variant discovered in Colombia is showing up among patients in South Florida, increasing infections and putting health officials on alert as calls grow louder for unvaccinated individuals to get inoculated.

Carlos Migoya, CEO of Jackson Health System, told WPLG in Miami earlier this week that the B.1.621 variant has accounted for about 10% of coronavirus patients, trailing behind delta, the now dominant variant in the United States that's been ravaging the nation's unvaccinated, and the gamma variant. B.1.621 has yet to receive a Greek-letter designation as more prominent variants have.

Migoya told the news station that he speculated B.1.621 is likely rising in South Florida because of international travel between Colombia and Miami, which serves as a gateway to Latin America.

Health experts will keep B.1.621 on their radar as the fall season looms and as parts of the country still lag in their vaccination efforts, experts told The Post.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/another-coro ... 54583.html

[mikechamp]

Could relief already be on its way? I'm a little skeptical due to the vast differences in population size between the UK and US, but still, it could be a promising development.

U.K.'s Delta wave seems to have peaked sooner than expected. Could the same thing happen in the U.S.?

After surging for months because of the hypercontagious Delta variant, COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom are rapidly plummeting, raising the question of whether America’s Delta wave could also peak sooner than expected.

The U.K.’s turnaround has been startling in its abruptness and speed. Last week, the leading British COVID modeler told the BBC that the country was “almost certain” to hit 100,000 cases per day — a number that could soar, he added, to 200,000 by the end of summer. U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid made a similar prediction. Around the same time, the U.K.’s daily case count crossed the 50,000 threshold for the first time since January, and more cases seemed inevitable.

But ever since July 20, the opposite has happened: Cases have fallen for seven straight days, and they have fallen fast. From a high of nearly 54,000 on July 17, the daily tally slid to 43,404 last Wednesday; 39,315 on Thursday; 35,654 on Friday; 31,285 on Saturday and 28,652 on Sunday. This Monday, the U.K.’s case count slipped below 25,000 — a 50 percent reduction in a single week. It fell further on Tuesday before rising slightly on Wednesday (though to a level still 36 percent below last Wednesday’s mark).

Since it’s premature to offer definitive answers, experts are wary of over-interpreting this steep and unexpected decline — assuming it continues. The U.K. repealed its last remaining COVID restrictions on July 19, and experts warn that unmasked young Britons crowding back into nightclubs could theoretically undo any progress the country has made.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-ks-delta-w ... 08129.html

[Leroy]

I think just keep telling people that they are stupid and borderline criminal for not getting vaccinated. That should get them to come around.