Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Forogil]

CDC Reports vaccinated people spread Delta variant (but don't suffer as severe an illness) as unvaccinated people. And that it's as transmissible a chicken pox (that is, very.)
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/29/p...ons/index.html

This seems to contradict earlier studies
https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...-delta-variant
that suggested the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 64-88% effective in preventing infection (including asymptomatic); and I don't see how uninfected persons spread the disease.

I don't think all of the previous studies are plain wrong.

I see a number of possibilities:

• The new study is plain wrong
• Misleading reporting: the problem only occurs for the Janssen (or J&J) vaccine, not for the other ones.
• Misleading reporting, e.g. vaccines might reduce the risk of getting infected by 80% but the new study suggests that if you are infected you spread the disease as if you weren't vaccinated. (I doubt that is true, since the reduced risk of hospitalization suggest a lower viral load and thus it would seem that you spread the disease less.)
• It's actually a new variant based on Delta.

Oh, and whether it spreads like chickenpox is unclear. Wikipedia has R0 for Delta at 5-9.5 and for chickenpox at 10-12.
The reference for Delta is https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.c...f75165.#page=1

This also confirms that it is misleading reporting.

Delta variant vaccine breakthrough cases may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases

So, perhaps 80% reduction of cases - but the remaining 20% may be as transmissible if they were unvaccinated; but still 80% reduction in spread overall.
(And note: "may".)

Unwelcome news as this is for those looking to vaccinations for herd immunity, the important thing is that vaccines will still greatly reduce the chance of you ending up in hospital or dead, and should 100% get it done. But you shouldn't let having been jabbed mean you take your guard down on this or be thinking it'll be over any time soon.

Still true.

- - - Updated - - -

Positivity rate is currently around 12%. Higher than the State. The high positivity rate is attributed to the high testing rate and the City’s high population density (18,000 per square mile). Positivity among fully vaccinated population is 5%. Among not fully vaccinated 4-fold of that.

That seems partially wrong.

High testing rate usually lowers the positivity rate, because people who think they have very mild cases get tested, contacts get tested even without symptoms, and possibly mandatory testing of non-suspected cases. And 12% is a high positivity rate.
(High population density I can understand.)

[PhaelixWW]

Did you read the articles I linked above, from actual reputable sources?

I’m not speculating, as you are. It’s what Isreal is doing, it’s what the CDC have observed.

Hi. Welcome to the thread. You must be new here, because you don't seem to be aware of the countless times I've posted sources for the same damned things.

No, none of what I've said is speculation.

FYI, your first sources literally states:

Experts say it is not yet clear whether a third dose will reduce Covid cases.

But how about when I posted information on the same subject:

It's an older article, sir, but it checks out...

NYTimes: (Oct 2020) Why You Shouldn’t Worry About Studies Showing Waning Coronavirus Antibodies

Or when I referenced the same post here. Or when I posted a similar article from Yale here. Or how about yet another article I posted almost 10 months ago. And then there's the pre-print study I posted about the subject over a year ago.

My answer has been thoroughly sourced, thanks.


And as for the second source, you're not reading it correctly, either, as it says:

The Delta coronavirus variant surging across the United States appears to cause more severe illness and spread as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal document from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The document -- a slide presentation -- outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people.

So no, the CDC isn't "reporting" this, as you stated in your initial post. It's merely a slide in a presentation about unpublished material.

And, to be very clear, CNN's reporting is misleading. If you bother to follow the link to WaPo, you'll notice that CNN's statement of the claim is not exactly the same as what WaPo is reporting, which is:

It cites a combination of recently obtained, still-unpublished data from outbreak investigations and outside studies showing that vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated. Vaccinated people infected with delta have measurable viral loads similar to those who are unvaccinated and infected with the variant.

This doesn't mean that vaccinated people will become infected with the delta strain as easily as non-vaccinated people, it just means that once a breakthrough infection occurs (at a much, much lower rate than for non-vaccinated people), the infected person can still transmit virons at the same level. This still means that vaccinated people will greatly limit overall transmissibility simply because they're becoming infected less often.

So you'll pardon me if I continue to combat even well-intentioned misinformation on the subject of a global pandemic.

[Jessicka]

Hi. Welcome to the thread. You must be new here, because you don't seem to be aware of the countless times I've posted sources for the same damned things.

No, none of what I've said is speculation.

FYI, your first sources literally states:

Of course it does. They're not exactly going to guarantee it (and it'll be a fucking disaster if it doesn't help), but on the other hand..

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n664

We've been talking about the need for boosters since long before this article from March. Indeed pretty much since the first confirmed reinfections last summer we've had questions about the longevity of vaccine efficacy. That should hardly come as a shock. The only shocking thing is how frequently Israel have chosen to administer it.

At this point, suggesting we may not need boosters at all sounds more like disinformation and potentially damaging in the long term.

But how about when I posted information on the same subject:

Or when I referenced the same post here. Or when I posted a similar article from Yale here. Or how about yet another article I posted almost 10 months ago. And then there's the pre-print study I posted about the subject over a year ago.

My answer has been thoroughly sourced, thanks.

Older sources, that no longer check out. Especially with the frequency of mutation.

And as for the second source, you're not reading it correctly, either, as it says:

So no, the CDC isn't "reporting" this, as you stated in your initial post. It's merely a slide in a presentation about unpublished material.

And, to be very clear, CNN's reporting is misleading. If you bother to follow the link to WaPo, you'll notice that CNN's statement of the claim is not exactly the same as what WaPo is reporting, which is:

This doesn't mean that vaccinated people will become infected with the delta strain as easily as non-vaccinated people, it just means that once a breakthrough infection occurs (at a much, much lower rate than for non-vaccinated people), the infected person can still transmit virons at the same level. This still means that vaccinated people will greatly limit overall transmissibility simply because they're becoming infected less often.

So you'll pardon me if I continue to combat even well-intentioned misinformation on the subject of a global pandemic.

Whether the article is misreporting or not doesn't change that they confirmed the data, which is based on Delta rather than other variants. We can see in Israel and other highly vaccinated countries that there is clear breakthrough (and Beta has higher breakthrough against the AZ vaccine). I'm not disputing whether it's lower than in the unvaccinated population, but it is there and it spreads like wildfire and absolutely does not change my statement that:

the important thing is that vaccines will still greatly reduce the chance of you ending up in hospital or dead, and should 100% get it done. But you shouldn't let having been jabbed mean you take your guard down on this or be thinking it'll be over any time soon.

Maybe you should stop trying so hard to be right, and focus on what I'm actually trying to discuss. That the approach can't be that vaccines will ultimately do all the work.

[Forogil]

Of course it does. They're not exactly going to guarantee it (and it'll be a fucking disaster if it doesn't help), but on the other hand..

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n664

We've been talking about the need for boosters since long before this article from March. Indeed pretty much since the first confirmed reinfections last summer we've had questions about the longevity of vaccine efficacy. That should hardly come as a shock. The only shocking thing is how frequently Israel have chosen to administer it.

I note that this is in the British context (it's BMJ after all) where many have the AZ vaccine that seems to be slightly less effective against Delta. This will also be relevant in the EU; even if AZ isn't purchased anymore (afaik) it has still been used a lot.
In the US there seems to be a related concern for the Janssen (or J&J) vaccine: https://www.pharmalive.com/booster-m...y-taking-them/ - but some suggest that it is not needed.

This indicates that there are two reasons for a booster: the vaccine effect waning over time, and using an updated vaccine based on the Delta-variant. In the latter case we obviously need updated vaccines! As far as I understand it is fairly simple to modify the mRNA and viral-vector vaccines for a new variant - but I don't know how much regulatory hurdle there will be.

We don't know how the effect has waned over time - T-cells likely last longer (perhaps a year, perhaps a decade), but it's problematic to test and starting the vaccination once we know it may be too late to start production and give everyone a jab.
However, a different perspective is that it's a bit of fear-mongering from the pharma-companies to sell more.
It may be that Israel will once more be used as a guinea-pig to see if a booster helps.

Additionally boosters are actually problematic as vaccine supplies are limited world-wide. Should we use doses for children in the developed world (who are unlikely to get very ill), as boosters for the elderly (who are already fairly well protected), or send them to the poorer countries so that all adults in the world have been fully vaccinated once (even if many of the adults in those countries are younger and thus less likely to be seriously ill - but the health-care system is lacking)?

[Omega10]

It still spreads well in a highly vaccinated population. And there are still questions in most countries over whether to vaccinate children. Finally, trying to keep on top of boosters every 6 months is a lot of work.

We need better treatments, because on this basis, it isn't going away through vaccination alone.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/leaked-cd...194348973.html

The above is a video rather than printed material, but basically the title pretty much summarizes it pretty well:

Title: Leaked CDC report says COVID Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox

The CDC seems to recently have increased the expected danger levels of the delta variant, especially in transmissibility.

My own feeling is that the delta variant is slowly getting better at its job, and is thus gaining in both transmissibility and also in power. I think it is also gaining in power because the percentage of breakthrough cases is steadily increasing over time. On the other hand, both India and UK have recently had dramatic decreases in number of cases and deaths recently. No one really knows what really is happening. It's possible that certain people have a predisposition to getting a worse version of the virus - and once they have been infected and either survived or not, well the rest of the population is far more resistant to it. But this is just conjecture. This WOULD explain both the explosions in the virus in UK and India as well as the dramatic decline afterwards. Another possibility is that masking and social distancing work greatly. When numbers are low, masks come off, social distancing goes away, and the virus thrives. When numbers are high, masks go back on, social distancing comes back in style, and the virus tapers off.

Whatever is really happening, it seems likely that the US will have an explosion in the number of cases that will both rise exponentially, and then fall exponentially after that. The only real question is how many people will die, and how many people will have long lasting medical ailments after recovering from the virus.

Be safe. Be one of the survivors.

[Granyala]

That the approach can't be that vaccines will ultimately do all the work.

Vaccines are only there to accelerate the process until every one of us has had Covid. Either vaccinated or not.
Then the virus is known to our immune systems and no longer poses a healthcare system crashing threat.
If your country has a healthcare worth a damn, that is.

It doesn't matter how many cases there are, it doesn't matter how fast it spreads, if the probability of ending up in the ICU is negligible.

[Santti]

Vaccines are only there to accelerate the process until every one of us has had Covid. Either vaccinated or not.
Then the virus is known to our immune systems and no longer poses a healthcare system crashing threat.
If your country has a healthcare worth a damn, that is.

It doesn't matter how many cases there are, it doesn't matter how fast it spreads, if the probability of ending up in the ICU is negligible.

Why would you assume everyone will get Covid? This is not our first vaccination. Has everyone had smallpox? Polio?

[PACOX]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cd...ies/ar-AAMInaF

CDC now says 70% of US counties need to be masked up. Most of the country. I don't know how to express the words I have for the CDC right now but they are the range of disappointment, obviously, and 'you're not without blame' when it comes to people not wanting to mask back up.

[PACOX]

Why would you assume everyone will get Covid? This is not our first vaccination. Has everyone had smallpox? Polio?

Because you have a stealthy virus that's now even more contagious in an environment where people resist, fatigued, or reluctant to return to precautions.

A vaccinated person can easily spread it without even knowing they have it. It's so contagious that being unvaccinated means you will probably get it. In the past 48 hours I know of a handful of I guess you could call acquaintes who are 'breakthrough' cases. At no fault of their own they've probably spread it to some unvaccinated people (who should be vaccinated) before realizing they were carriers. Word of mouth is that it's running through daycare around here, some people with kids are anxious.

Even if you develop systems as a vaccinated person you might just think it's season allergies because symptoms for a vaccinated person are similar.

[Masark]

And in Louisiana, cases in children are soaring.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/30/us/ba...rge/index.html

[Omega10]

And in Louisiana, cases in children are soaring.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/30/us/ba...rge/index.html

This is why I think the Delta variant is steadily getting stronger. This was not happening before. And the advice?

Dr. Trey Dunbar, president of Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital, said the spike in Covid-19 cases right now is twice what they saw in the pandemic's initial surge last year.

The children's hospital treats children as young as 4 weeks up to 17 years, she said.
The hospital is currently treating seven Covid-19 patients, but Dunbar said they've had anywhere from eight to 12 patients per day. The hospital is up to about six admissions per day with about 50% of those patients going to the ICU, Dunbar said.

For keeping kids safe at school, Dunbar said students 12-years-old and older should get vaccinated. For students who are ineligible for the vaccine, Dunbar said the answer is masking and social distancing.

should???

[caractacus]

And in Louisiana, cases in children are soaring.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/30/us/ba...rge/index.html

That could be partly due to "imunnity debt" In New Zealand and Australia I believe also, they are having a lot of trouble with RSV

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-immunity-debt

[Granyala]

Why would you assume everyone will get Covid? This is not our first vaccination. Has everyone had smallpox? Polio?

I'm sorry, it was late and I was tired. Brain was wonky and wording was imprecise:

Everyone's immune system gets the information about SARS-CoV 2, some via vaccine, some via natural infection.
Was what I meant in that statement.

Though it's yet to be determined how effectively Delta and later variants can infect people that are vaccinated.

It might be that we will get it regularly like the common cold. Upside of that would be that there is no need for booster shots, because the virus provides them by itself.

[Jessicka]

Vaccines are only there to accelerate the process until every one of us has had Covid. Either vaccinated or not.
Then the virus is known to our immune systems and no longer poses a healthcare system crashing threat.
If your country has a healthcare worth a damn, that is.

It doesn't matter how many cases there are, it doesn't matter how fast it spreads, if the probability of ending up in the ICU is negligible.

Reduced severity in infection is only really documented after vaccination, not from prior infections. I know several people who had it twice, had it worse the second time. I don’t think the data is there to suggest catching it without vaccination, whether you’ve had it before or not, is a good thing.

[Ursus]

The communication and messaging coming from the CDC has been abysmal. In its latest display of incompetence, the CDC released the new mask guidelines, but inexplicably sat on the data it was using to inform those guidelines and didn't release the data until it "leaked" yesterday. This gave the anti-vax and anti-mask nutters time and ammunition.

Rochelle Walensky has been CDC director for 6 months now and in that time she shown herself to be completely in over her head. She may be a very good doctor/scientist, but she has proven that she has absolutely no fucking clue what she is doing as director of the CDC.

She needs to either resign or be fired immediately. Every day she continues in her position, it is literally costing people their lives.

[cuafpr]

I fear how far a 2nd lockdown (which i think is coming in the US) will divide people and states. The media here is doing a shitty job with things, one story is about things opening up, saying people should go out to events, concerts, sporting events, or festivals.. then the next story is about the spread of the COVID variant and how numbers are skyrocketing. It's a total mixed message. Now let's add in a possible 100.00 a month/week/whatever bonus might happen so anyone on the fence for a vaccination is likely waiting to see if they will get paid to get the vaccine vs just getting it now.....

[Zan15]

I fear how far a 2nd lockdown (which i think is coming in the US) will divide people and states. The media here is doing a shitty job with things, one story is about things opening up, saying people should go out to events, concerts, sporting events, or festivals.. then the next story is about the spread of the COVID variant and how numbers are skyrocketing. It's a total mixed message. Now let's add in a possible 100.00 a month/week/whatever bonus might happen so anyone on the fence for a vaccination is likely waiting to see if they will get paid to get the vaccine vs just getting it now.....

seriously, if this country paid 500 dollars for each person to get vaxxed, it would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of another lockdown or even a surge without a lockdown.

Also the money has already been authorized and is there to be spent, why not use it? A lot of states haven't touched a dime of the money given to them by the federal funding on covid that was passed. A lot of them want it on the books so they can claim there is no deficit for election/re-election purposes. Some of them are spending it on non covid reasons to try and lower taxes or prevent them from being increased.

[Poopymonster]

I fear how far a 2nd lockdown (which i think is coming in the US) will divide people and states. The media here is doing a shitty job with things, one story is about things opening up, saying people should go out to events, concerts, sporting events, or festivals.. then the next story is about the spread of the COVID variant and how numbers are skyrocketing. It's a total mixed message. Now let's add in a possible 100.00 a month/week/whatever bonus might happen so anyone on the fence for a vaccination is likely waiting to see if they will get paid to get the vaccine vs just getting it now.....

It won't. Too many Governors are up for re-election, and they won't push a lockdown.

[cuafpr]

seriously, if this country paid 500 dollars for each person to get vaxxed, it would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of another lockdown or even a surge without a lockdown.

Also the money has already been authorized and is there to be spent, why not use it? A lot of states haven't touched a dime of the money given to them by the federal funding on covid that was passed. A lot of them want it on the books so they can claim there is no deficit for election/re-election purposes. Some of them are spending it on non covid reasons to try and lower taxes or prevent them from being increased.

agree with be cheaper but the possibility of is causing people I know to wait and see (yes they should be vaxxed already but they haven't yet)

- - - Updated - - -

It won't. Too many Governors are up for re-election, and they won't push a lockdown.

that's exactly the division I'm talking about... Joe says lock down some states refuse and causing further divide

[Yunru]

Well i got a dose of Janssen vaccine and i am still alive after 4 days. (day 2 sucked with 38*C and the other usual high temperature stuff)
Its more of a forced short sickness (usualy that one lasts a week -- but this one 3 days)

However just getting a vaccine here is freaking hell (forget abauth reserving it on phone calls at doctor, they never had any) and while i would rather go with moderna is had no choice due to my work . Same goes for online registrations.

But yeah standing in line of 500 people on a very hot summer day with mask on and no water or shade-giveaways was not fun one bit (not to mention there was a public pool close to it to add to suffering). And some people getting very impatient, security getting called, people trying to push themselfs in lines and so on.