How can there not be a COVID-19 thread?

Herdfan said:
I think it was the original Dr. who discovered the mutation who said it was much milder symptoms.



I am thinking you mean it is 10x better to be exposed artificially (vaccinated) and not that the vaccine is 10x better. Please clarify if I am wrong.

But this leads to a second question of why here in the US we do not seem to be treating recovery from it and being vaccinated equally. In the article I posted a week or so ago about the "Cure" from the German paper where cure was poorly translated from recovered. And now Switzerland is coming up with a COVID Certificate where you need to be either vaccinated, recovered or proof of negative test.

So it seems Europe is treating recovered equally with vaccinated, and your post seems to equate the same thing. Why is this not the case in the US. I know many of you hate Rand Paul, but this is one of his main criticisms of Fauci in that he is not treating recovered equally with vaccinated.

Any idea why we here in the US seem to be treating it differently?
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Vaccination offers >2x better protection. I thought most people were aware of this, but perhaps not.

www.cdc.gov

Coronavirus Disease 2019

CDC provides credible COVID-19 health information to the U.S.
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov

In today’s MMWR, a study of COVID-19 infections in Kentucky among people who were previously infected with SAR-CoV-2 shows that unvaccinated individuals are more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting the virus.
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And Rand Paul is completely and utterly full of 💩... Which is another thing I thought most people were aware of, but perhaps not.
 
As per @Herdfan , it's all over pretty much every news site coming from one of the South African docs dealing with it.
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You mean the one with young healthy patients, who was worried that the new variant could hit older people with comorbidities much harder?
 
Pumbaa said:
You mean the one with young healthy patients, who was worried that the new variant could hit older people with comorbidities much harder?
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Yeah, I'll be waiting for broader studies before making any snap judgements on this being less lethal.
 
theSeb said:
As per @Herdfan , it's all over pretty much every news site coming from one of the South African docs dealing with it. It also stands to reason. Mutations which allow the virus to spread are the ones we are most likely to see, because they will be the "most successful" from a virus point of view. In order to spread the virus must not kill the host (too quickly). It's also beneficial to not make the host very sick (before it can spread). An able and slightly inconvenienced host is likely to continue mixing with others, thus allowing the virus to spread further.

The reality is that this new variant has probably been around for quite a while and there are others. South Africa detected it because it has very strong genomic surveillance, unlike the majority of the rest of Africa. Africa is also a perfect breeding ground for new mutations. Low vaccines rates coupled with high rates of diseases, such as HIV (around 20% of South Africa's adult population has HIV for example), is basically a playground for viruses like COVID.
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If you follow omicron-related threads by epidemiologists, virologists, computational biologists, and other experts on social media and elsewhere as I do, you'll find:
  1. There is considerable divergence of opinion regarding omicron's ability to evade immunity.
  2. Estimates of its transmissibility compared to the wild strain or the delta variant similarly differ.
  3. Nobody knows if COVID-19 caused by omicron is the same, worse, or milder.
As I said before, the data are just not available yet. However, given the near certainty that omicron is already widespread and the uncertainty about its implications, governments should give this the attention it needs by making current vaccines available broadly, doing what they can to speed development of omicron-specific vaccines and therapies, and promoting interventions like mask-wearing.

But there is much evidence that infection confers less immunity than vaccines.
 
Roller said:
But there is much evidence that infection confers less immunity than vaccines.
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But I'm not sure immunity is the issue. We know vaccinated people can spread it, but what about those who have had it? How does the spread differ, if it does, between those who have had it and those who are vaccinated?
 
Herdfan said:
But I'm not sure immunity is the issue. We know vaccinated people can spread it, but what about those who have had it? How does the spread differ, if it does, between those who have had it and those who are vaccinated?
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One thing they've always stated is that those who have had it have inconsistent antibody levels, they could have more than enough or not enough to fend off another exposure. With the vaccine it's always consistent no matter what. This is why they recommend it in all cases.
 
Herdfan said:
But I'm not sure immunity is the issue. We know vaccinated people can spread it, but what about those who have had it? How does the spread differ, if it does, between those who have had it and those who are vaccinated?
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How can there not be a COVID-19 thread?

I think it was the original Dr. who discovered the mutation who said it was much milder symptoms. I am thinking you mean it is 10x better to be exposed artificially (vaccinated) and not that the vaccine is 10x better. Please clarify if I am wrong. But this leads to a second question of why...
talkedabout.com talkedabout.com
 
Herdfan said:
I am thinking you mean it is 10x better to be exposed artificially (vaccinated) and not that the vaccine is 10x better. Please clarify if I am wrong.
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Well, when you get 1 in 50 killed to get natural immunity, the bar is low..."Better" can be defined by safety, efficacy, cost effectiveness, or durability. Vaccines are winning in 3 of these and the jury's only out on the least predictable: durability.

To me being fiscally responsible means preventing unnecessary medical spending by pushing cost effective interventions.
To me being pro life means preventing unnecessary deaths by pushing 10,000x safer interventions.

Herdfan said:
But this leads to a second question of why here in the US we do not seem to be treating recovery from it and being vaccinated equally.
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Herdfan said:
So it seems Europe is treating recovered equally with vaccinated, and your post seems to equate the same thing.
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No they don't equate the two.
1: Recovery certificates are not universally accepted/weighed in the EU.
2. Most countries I looked at that do recognize recovery, provide 180 days eligibility for recovery and 360 for vaccination. See the difference?


Herdfan said:
Why is this not the case in the US.
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Well, in an ideal world, we'd have a cheap, prospectively validated serum biomarker that we could use to assess present and long-term immunity. So we'd know who are still at risk post recovery or vaccination.

Herdfan said:
I know many of you hate Rand Paul
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I'd say he doesn't meet the ethical, credentialing and competency standards for me to consider his opinions that of a physician.


Herdfan said:
but this is one of his main criticisms of Fauci in that he is not treating recovered equally with vaccinated.
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Because it's not the same. Also, Paul was insinuating a year ago that his mild COVID is the equivalent of lifelong immunity, which tells you about the standard of evidence Paul holds himself to.

In reality we need those prospectively evaluated biomarkers and if Paul cared about this issue, he could use his disproportionate power to push for those studies with the same energy he libels Fauci.
 
P_X said:
No they don't equate the two.
1: Recovery certificates are not universally accepted/weighed in the EU.
2. Most countries I looked at that do recognize recovery, provide 180 days eligibility for recovery and 360 for vaccination. See the difference?
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Thanks. That was the answer I was looking for.

Following up, reading about the Omicron variant, it almost seems these viruses can think. Several stories have comments about how viruses can become less lethal over time as they mutate, ie they can't kill off all the hosts or they can't survive. Is this by design or are the mutations just random?
 
Herdfan said:
Thanks. That was the answer I was looking for.

Following up, reading about the Omicron variant, it almost seems these viruses can think. Several stories have comments about how viruses can become less lethal over time as they mutate, ie they can't kill off all the hosts or they can't survive. Is this by design or are the mutations just random?
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Evolution, baby
 
P_X said:
I'd be extremely cautious with those statements. This article lacks timeframe, sample size and pretty much everything that would allow one to assess for selection bias.
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Fair enough, taking with a grain of salt (as I am with all early data) but it seems like they're honestly reporting on what data they do have.
Reporter indicates that: Boosted vaccination protection from infection is 90% Previously sick has twice the chance to get infected then delta variant. R is 1.3 faster than Delta Unvaccinated has 2.4 times the chance of becoming seriously sick then original strain
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Eric said:
Fair enough, taking with a grain of salt (as I am with all early data) but it seems like they're honestly reporting on what data they do have.
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To be clear, I don't question the honesty of reporting. Israel has been a bastion of COVID reporting because 1) they have socialized healthcare (at least for the chosen people) and 2) they are world-leaders on vaccinations 3) they had an agreement for post-marketing data collection and publication.

The concern is that if the exposure to Omicron is of non-random distribution (e.g. young socialites), and you compare this group to the general population, the differences may reflect the population differences rather than the differential characteristics of Omicron. I made sure to look at the translated article to draw my conclusion, which is, there is zero conclusion. It might keep mass panic at bay but that's all.
 
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