Coronavirus

[JRP3]

I interpreted it as you not having a strong immune response to Covid: "I was sicker from the vaccine than I was from COVID."

 

[bkp_duke]

@wdolson is correct. Their immune system was already properly primed, and a quick and strong immune response is indicative (but not conclusive) of prior COVID.

 

[Terminator857]

...Similarly, nobody has the right to infect other people with a deadly disease when the simple (and free!) alternative is to get vaccinated.

1. Why are you afraid if the vaccine works?
2. Study shows vaccine helps with death rate but doesn't help much with viral load. In other words vaccinated or not vaccinated you are still spreading the virus. No Significant Difference in Viral Load Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Groups Infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant
3. Should people who have real immunity because they already had Covid be excused from vaccine mandates?

 

[JRP3]

1. Why are you afraid if the vaccine works?
2. Study shows vaccine helps with death rate but doesn't help much with viral load. In other words vaccinated or not vaccinated you are still spreading the virus. No Significant Difference in Viral Load Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Groups Infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant
3. Should people who have real immunity because they already had Covid be excused from vaccine mandates?

This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

 

[daniel]

1. Why are you afraid if the vaccine works?
2. Study shows vaccine helps with death rate but doesn't help much with viral load. In other words vaccinated or not vaccinated you are still spreading the virus. No Significant Difference in Viral Load Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Groups Infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant
3. Should people who have real immunity because they already had Covid be excused from vaccine mandates?

The vaccine works. It is safe and effective. But it is not 100% effective, because nothing is. Every unvaccinated person is a threat to everybody.

There's another, larger issue: Viruses evolve! The more unvaccinated people there are, the bigger the pool of active and mutating virus. If you are unvaccinated you could be the petri dish in which the next variant evolves, and that could be the one that kills 25% of the people who get it, rather than 1%. And as reported above, having had covid and recovered still leaves you twice as likely to be re-infected as a vaccinated person is to become infected.

In you are a healthy person, vaccination reduces your chances of becoming infected and of spreading the disease, whether you previously had covid or not. Vaccinating everybody is the maximally-effective way to combat the pandemic. And the risk of severe disease if you are unvaccinated is many times greater than the risk of an adverse reaction to the vaccine.

There is no legitimate reason for an otherwise healthy person to refuse the vaccine. It's all just politics: The far-right has turned vaccine refusal into a political issue, and the extreme new-age types have fallen so far into the hole of the naturalistic fallacy that a mountain-climber's rope couldn't reach them.

 

[Terminator857]

The vaccine works. It is safe and effective. But it is not 100% effective, because nothing is. Every unvaccinated person is a threat to everybody.

There's another, larger issue: Viruses evolve! The more unvaccinated people there are, the bigger the pool of active and mutating virus. If you are unvaccinated you could be the petri dish in which the next variant evolves, and that could be the one that kills 25% of the people who get it, rather than 1%. And as reported above, having had covid and recovered still leaves you twice as likely to be re-infected as a vaccinated person is to become infected.
...

You ignored points 2 and 3. You are still a petri dish if you are vaccinated. Is every vaccinated person a threat to everybody?

 

[bkp_duke]

You ignored points 2 and 3. You are still a petri dish if you are vaccinated. Is every vaccinated person a threat to everybody?

Your article was not powered for quantitative data, only qualitative data (i.e. 0-10 scale, vs. yes/no). Multiple, well-conducted studies show that while vaccinated individuals DO shed virus, it is at a substantially lower level and for less time. That is a KEY distinction that you are glossing over. Yes, those people can spread the virus, but not nearly to the same degree as the unvaccinated.

Reduction in infectious SARS-CoV-2 shedding in vaccine breakthrough infections

In a paper recently uploaded to the preprint server medRxiv*, breakthrough infections are compared with infections in immunologically naïve individuals

www.news-medical.net

Initial report of decreased SARS-CoV-2 viral load after inoculation with the BNT162b2 vaccine - Nature Medicine

Breakthrough infections of SARS-CoV-2 occurring 12 or more days after the first dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine were associated with lower viral loads than those found in unvaccinated individuals, suggesting that the vaccine might reduce infectiousness.

www.nature.com

Despite the important logic failure above, Point 3 is very much valid and is highly politicized right now and over-looked. Those with PROVEN (and that is an argument in and of itself) COVID should absolutely be excused from any vaccine mandates.

 

[Terminator857]

...

Reduction in infectious SARS-CoV-2 shedding in vaccine breakthrough infections

In a paper recently uploaded to the preprint server medRxiv*, breakthrough infections are compared with infections in immunologically naïve individuals

www.news-medical.net

Initial report of decreased SARS-CoV-2 viral load after inoculation with the BNT162b2 vaccine - Nature Medicine

Breakthrough infections of SARS-CoV-2 occurring 12 or more days after the first dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine were associated with lower viral loads than those found in unvaccinated individuals, suggesting that the vaccine might reduce infectiousness.

www.nature.com

...

Thanks, the above two articles are interesting. Another difference between the studies, is one is comparing with the predominant delta variant while the two above are not.

 

[bkp_duke]

Thanks those articles are interesting. Another difference between the studies, is one is comparing with the predominant delta variant while the above are not.

Yes, and these kinds of nuances will continue to change as different variants evolve and propagate.

 

[Terminator857]

Yes, and these kinds of nuances will continue to change as different variants evolve and propagate.

I would describe it as of paramount importance rather than a nuance. It makes a huge differences if the vaccinated shed as much virus as the unvaccinated. That does much to nullify the arguments for vaccine mandates.

I wouldn't discount a study because it is qualitative, given that there isn't evidence to the contrary with the delta variant. Instead I would use it to encourage a similar quantitative study.

 

[Doggydogworld]

It seems more complicated than that:

"The peer-reviewed study of 246 Kentucky residents concluded that unvaccinated people who already had COVID-19 were more than 2 times as likely than fully vaccinated people to get COVID-19 again."

The pro-mandate crowd is lying about this study. They want you to believe it shows vaccination alone is more effective than infection alone. But the study says nothing of the sort. They did not even look at vaccination alone. Everyone in the study had a previous confirmed infection. The study shows the vaccine provides some additional protection for people who already had Covid, nothing else.

The Kentucky result is consistent with the Israeli study. That one found prior infection was 13-27x more effective than vaccine alone, but prior infection plus one shot was even more effective. To summarize:

Vaccine alone - effective
Infection alone - more effective
Infection and vaccine - most effective

 

[alloverx]

The folks "in charge" should speak the truth to the people. Something like,

We expect a percentage of folks who have already had covid will have developed natural resistance (antibodies) to avoid getting infected again.
This is similar to the resistance that the vaccines produce.
However, the only way to be sure would be to analyze a blood sample and right now that is not practical/quick for a large number of people.
Hence for the best protection for the country, we recommend at least one vaccine shot for folks who have had COVID previously.

 

[Technophile]

1. Why are you afraid if the vaccine works?
2. Study shows vaccine helps with death rate but doesn't help much with viral load. In other words vaccinated or not vaccinated you are still spreading the virus. No Significant Difference in Viral Load Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Groups Infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant
3. Should people who have real immunity because they already had Covid be excused from vaccine mandates?

You seem to be under the impression that vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are just as likely to spread the disease. But the study you referenced compared viral loads in those that were infected, not a sample of the general population. Guess what. Those who are vaccinated are much less likely to be infected in the first place, and obviously those individuals who avoided infection altogether will have zero viral load. So basically the idea that getting more people vaccinated results in less dead people is still true.

 

[bkp_duke]

I would describe it as of paramount importance rather than a nuance. It makes a huge differences if the vaccinated shed as much virus as the unvaccinated. That does much to nullify the arguments for vaccine mandates.

I wouldn't discount a study because it is qualitative, given that there isn't evidence to the contrary with the delta variant. Instead I would use it to encourage a similar quantitative study.

I was trying to be polite, so let me just be blunt and to the point. Vaccinated do NOT shed as much as the unvaccinated, period. The quantitative data are clear on that, and that Nature study I posted was very clear about that.

This is also consistent in how vaccines work, in general, if you think about it. By priming the immune system to respond and "clean up" the viral infection for which we are immunized, there is less time of viral shedding, and lower levels of virus in our system (duh, right? If we hit the same viral loads as someone un-immunized we would become sick like they do - and that just doesn't happen).

 

[bkp_duke]

The pro-mandate crowd is lying about this study. They want you to believe it shows vaccination alone is more effective than infection alone. But the study says nothing of the sort. They did not even look at vaccination alone. Everyone in the study had a previous confirmed infection. The study shows the vaccine provides some additional protection for people who already had Covid, nothing else.

The Kentucky result is consistent with the Israeli study. That one found prior infection was 13-27x more effective than vaccine alone, but prior infection plus one shot was even more effective. To summarize:

Vaccine alone - effective
Infection alone - more effective
Infection and vaccine - most effective

Excellent summary. Could not have said it better myself.

I think of it this way - the more exposure you have the better your immune system is prepared to fight it off. "Natural" exposure provides a better immune response because there are more viral proteins to form antibodies to, but there are obvious risks to that which most "sane" individuals won't want to risk.

 

[winfield100]

The pro-mandate crowd is _interpreting differently_ (lying)about this study.

To summarize

Vaccine alone - effective
Infection alone - more effective
Infection and vaccine - most effective

Vaccinations. you most likely won’t get Covid _or_ be a mutation petri dish, armored up with free vaccinations

infection alone. you survived dying, lucked out for whatever reason, possibly were in an ICU, using scarce resources, maybe got long Covid and were a mutation petri dish, but hey didn’t die, maybe living an adolescent libertarian “self made” fantasy

infection and vaccinations. you survived dying, same as above, chose to “armor up” and such,
except, shouldn’t it be,
vaccinations and rare breakthrough infection

 

[Terminator857]

I was trying to be polite, so let me just be blunt and to the point. Vaccinated do NOT shed as much as the unvaccinated, period. The quantitative data are clear on that, and that Nature study I posted was very clear about that.

I was trying to be polite, so let me just be blunt and to the point. Vaccinated do shed as much as the unvaccinated, period. The study I posted shows that. The quantitative studies are irrelevant since it is not testing on the predominant delta variant.

Vaccines don't work well when there are significant variations. How well does the flu vaccine work? 40%?

 

[Terminator857]

You seem to be under the impression that vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are just as likely to spread the disease. But the study you referenced compared viral loads in those that were infected, not a sample of the general population. Guess what. Those who are vaccinated are much less likely to be infected in the first place, and obviously those individuals who avoided infection altogether will have zero viral load. So basically the idea that getting more people vaccinated results in less dead people is still true.

Thanks for that opinion. Do you have a study that shows that to be true for delta variant? Studies from Israel suggest that to be false. That is why there are booster shots required and vaccine passports have been nullified and now are required to have a booster shot.

 

[bkp_duke]

*snip* Vaccinated do shed as much as the unvaccinated, period. *snip*

BS. Again, like many, you are cherry-picking ONE study to support you hypothesis and ignoring the broader landscape of the data in the other studies that argues against this. Novice mistake, plain and simple, or just pure bias where you hope for one outcome and are not objective. Early on during research it is common that the studies to not completely align in results, with follow up researching being necessary, etc to further tease out the truth. What you quoted was NOT a well-performed study, and here is why:

It looked at "viral load" by PCR from nose swabs. Both the vaccines and natural immunity do not induce the production of the IgA sub-type of antibodies (few vaccines do, and natural infection does not either - FYI). ONLY IgA subtype antibodies are secreted from nasal and other mucosa to neutralize pathogens. Classically we really only see IgA production against parasites, not viruses and bacteria, so this is not surprising.

So, in a nutshell, there is nothing to prevent viral replication on the nasal mucosa, which allows for both groups to have the virus, for a time, in their nasal mucosa.

What SHOULD have been measured is serum (i.e. blood) viral loads. Why? Because both the vaccine and natural immunity create IgM and IgG antibodies that circulate in the blood to cells to fight infection. This causes viral loads to drop quickly in the vaccinated population, but not in the unvaccinated/never infected with COVID population.

And before you say "well, since there is nothing to prevent nasal mucosa viral loads, I'm right", I'll explain why you are wrong - the virus can only live a limited time on the nasal mucosa before it must enter a cell to replicate, or die. Being outside of a cell is not a pleasant environment for a virus, so time is limited. People that are not actively infected can, for a time, have nasal mucosa viral loads that are high, but they will not PERSIST. Viral loads only persist if there is a cellular "factory" cranking out new viral particles. That doesn't happen in vaccinated individuals to the same degree as unvaccinated, because they can more rapidly mount an immune response.

Another GLARING flaw in this study was how the PCRs were done. They used a cutoff for "positivity" of 40 cycles. We never do that in the real world, because it picks up so much background noise that the false positives are unacceptably high. Someone should have known better, as this is probably the single most glaring fault of the entire paper, and throws into doubt the entire dataset.

Additionally, the statistics on this paper leave a LOT to be desired. Their antibody study compares 10 infected individuals with 30 uninfected, vaccinated individuals. I'm sure they did this for cost reasons, as quantitative antibody studies are not cheap, but this sample number does not give them the statistical power to make the conclusions that people are trying to draw from this study.

Finally, they use as their base group "Oxford-AstraZeneca" vaccinated individuals. Frankly, this vaccine has been shown to be FAR INFERIOR to the two mRNA vaccines that are being used in the United States, in regards to coverage for variants. Antibody levels for this vaccine are simply lower after 2 doses (Comparison of Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, AZ vaccines for neutralization titer, against Delta and other variants). Again, they don't have the statistical power to reach the conclusions they want to, but even if they did this is a glaring error because this vaccine, frankly, is not that good and has shown to allow for a lot higher rate of break-through infections compared to the mRNA vaccines.

"Four weeks after full dosing, mRNA vaccines had significantly higher neutralization titers compared to adenovirus-based vaccines. However, antibody responses decreased in individuals who received the AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine."

In a nutshell - this was a half-baked paper and the reviewers should have done their job and had more data from the researchers before they allowed publication.

Vaccines don't work well when there are significant variations. How well does the flu vaccine work? 40%?

This also beguiles your limited understanding of physiology. So here's a primer for you on seasonal Influenza Vaccines.
1) seasonal influenza vaccines take a LONG time to make (~6 months), because they are grown up in chicken eggs. This means researchers must make an EDUCATED GUESS as to what variants to target 6 months in advance. They do this by looking at what is circulating in the southern hemisphere, and assuming it is going to move up to the northern hemisphere during the winter months. Normally this is true, but not always.
2) The seasonal influenza vaccine is actually 4 vaccines in one (ever noticed how they call it the "quadrivalent" vaccine?). It literally is a vaccine against the 4 most common variants in circulation at the time of "go to production".
3) If the researchers get lucky and the variant circulating in winter in the northern hemisphere is covered, effectiveness is high at ~80%. But if it is not, it is much lower but still not completely ineffective, but it depends upon the specific sequence of the proteins, in the case of influenza the hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase proteins (N).

Classic example - H1N1 of 2009 was a strain that was not included in the seasonal influenza vaccine of that year, and subsequently there was poor coverage (but not none - the vaccinated had markedly lower rates of hospitalization and death than the unvaccinated).


Also, comparing influenza vaccine to the mRNA vaccines for COVID is like comparing a Ford model T to a Plaid Model S. The mRNA vaccines are THAT good, and have good effectiveness still against all the variants to date.

 

[EVNow]

Has anyone looked at Singapore lately ?