Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Ah, the "I know i'm wrong but i'm going to keep making up crap" routine. You seem to have a lot of experience doing this. Keep up the good work.

 

Two doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca shots effective against Delta variant: study

Pfizer is 88% effective against delta per this article.

 

Meanwhile, doctors are advising people not to travel to Florida

Delta variant: Doctor cautions Americans about traveling to Florida (msn.com)

As the highly transmissible Delta variant spreads nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the State Department are urging Americans to avoid traveling to the UK.

But that’s not going far enough, U.S., Dr. Ebony Jade Hilton, GoodStock Consulting co-founder and medical director, told Yahoo Finance Live. In fact, Americans should be careful traveling to certain areas within the U.S.

“If we’re going to talk about traveling to the U.K., then we should also caution Americans about traveling to Florida,” Hilton said. “Right now, one in every five new COVID cases are coming out of Florida.”

 

effective at preventing symptomatic disease does not mean effective against preventing infection. Some will not be able to distinguish between the two and will scream fake news as more vaccinated test positive, but without major symptoms.

 

You keep telling me I'm wrong, but don't take the time to explain why. In elementary school, this is known as the, "I know you are but what am I" defense.

Vaccine efficacy is different against the wild type versus variants, such as delta. And nobody knows just how long, on average, vaccine efficacy will last past about 9 months, because the vaccine isn't that old!

As for natural immunity versus vaccine against delta, in terms of getting infected, both immunity seem equal. Considering the vaccine proved more effective against the wild type, this should be cause for concern. Fortunately, the vaccine does well against delta when it comes to preventing the worst. But what's to stop the next variant from being even more vaccine resistant and causing the worst symptoms?

 

I provided data showing the vaccine isn't as effective as natural immunity. Case closed. Just say you were wrong and move on.

 

Why brother. You have been saying since the vaccines started that if we don’t race to herd immunity levels, that a variant might develop that eludes the vaccine or weekend its efficacy. So, when some of it starts to happen, that doesn’t make you wrong. And, of course, hospitalizations and deaths are way down from their peaks, particularly among vulnerable groups. And these reduced rates have maintained even among those who are vaccinated and test positive. The only change has been the vaccines, which train the immune system.

 

This is completely wrong by the way. Peer reviewed research published in Nature magazine showed that antibody formation was nearly equivalent between natural infection and vaccine. However, the natural infection provokes weak, and often times in victims no T-cell formation at all. Vaccines provoke an overwhelming T-Cell response that early data suggests may last our entire lifetimes.

Prior SARS-CoV-2 infection rescues B and T cell responses to variants after first vaccine dose | Science

 

And against the delta variant, it's true that the vaccine is about as effective as natural immunity. But as other have posted, and I have posted, there are studies that show the vaccine to be more effective than natural immunity against the wild type COVID. This shows the delta variant has some sort of resistance against the vaccine that the wild type does not have. Which begs the question, why can't the next variant be even more vaccine and/or natural immunity resistant?

As @duchen points out, a few months ago, I posted articles stating we're in a race between vaccine and variants. You found those articles funny. Well, today, the race is still on. Delta has a modicum amount of vaccine resistance, but fortunately, the vaccine still protects the majority of recipients from the worst that COVID can do. Again, what's to stop the next variant from also being able to beat this protection the vaccine offers?

I'm not wrong. And neither are your numbers. But your analysis of what the numbers actually mean? Your conclusions leave a lot to be desired, are sophomoric at best, and at worst, dangerous to anyone to subscribes to your interpretations.

 

The numbers are all preliminary as to The efficacy of vaccine vs natural immunity. What we do know is that the vaccines currently protect against severe illness. It makes no sense to me that there should be a difference since all the vaccine does is introduce the protein of the disease. Either way, the immune system should recognize the virus and respond as it learned. Unless the protein is changing.

 

Nope.

 

Not even close to being right. I do like the "about as effective" as a quasi admission that natural immunity is better than having the vaccine. Israel and the UK data shows this. The US will also start showing this. Problem is the US is using a starting point of Jan 1st forward to calculate how many people are hospitalized with and without the vaccine. Well, as anyone with a brain would know, we had hardly anyone vaccinated by Jan 1. So using artificially inflated numbers to make it seem like the vaccines work better than they do is at best stupid and at worst fraud. But hey, lets get those booster shots going!

 

How much does the vaccine immunity drop? At what point? And how does this compare to natural immunity? This statement answers none of these questions, and is therefore rather useless in our discussion.

There are a lot of variables when discussion natural versus vaccine immunity. T-cells and B-cells play a part, and a body's reaction to natural infection versus mRNA vaccine can differ when it comes to these antibodies. This is a good discussion, and the true answer is, outside about 18 months, we have no answer. We do know natural immunity breaks down, as does vaccine immunity, and we'll likely need boosters in the coming months. We also know the vaccine, so far, stops almost everybody from getting the most severe symptoms of COVID, and as the link I just posted states, the vaccine acts as a booster for those already once infected.

If you have already had COVID, there is no reason not to get the vaccine. It will boost your immune system and give you an even better chance at having only a mild case if infected again. The vaccine will also give you a record of when you received the shot, so you'll know if/when it is time to get a booster. Or, you could rely on your memory when you got sick, and hope you don't get infected again when your natural immunity wanes to the point it is no longer effective.

And still no answer as to the issue with variants. The mRNA vaccines had an over 90% effectiveness of preventing someone from contracting the wild type of COVID. But delta knocked that number down to 70% or below. What's to stop the next variant from having even more vaccine resistance? Or worse, find a way to infect even the vaccinated and causing the worst of symptoms in similar numbers to those who are unvaccinated?

 

Who said to not get the vaccine? Only people i've been against getting the vaccine are children. And most of the EU agrees with me. Glad you are coming around on the "vaccines don't work as well as thought" train. Good for you. We will never get rid of variants because we need to vaccinate the whole world. That will literally take years.

 

Um.....antibodies naturally wain over time. If your body maintained super high neutralizing antibodies to every virus you ran across, you would die from all of the protein in your system. That is why your body makes "memory" cells that "remember" the virus next time and signals for the production of antibodies and T-cells for the next go around.

Further, that tweet did not support your previous argument in the least.

The most commonly reported data is the neutralizing antibodies against the Spike Receptor Binding Domain (s-RBD). The data in yet another study (graph below and study linked) shows what is commonly understood around the world, even in the UK.

Also, no one in the US cares about the AZ vaccine since it is not approved here.

Finally, here is the biggest one. I actually know about this data that I am discussing because I am a volunteer through a program at Wake Forest Baptist Medical to have my IgG level measured every month during the pandemic, both before vaccination and after vaccination. On July 7th, I was 3 months from my 2nd dose. My IgG level has not wavered one bit, so the eventual reduction in neutralizing antibodies has not happened yet for me and most of us receiving the mRNA vaccine after 3 months. As a participant, I get to view the data in the portal after it is coalated each month and guess what.....you are wrong about vaccine vs. natural infection, and whomever "tweeted" whatever in your follow up post while correct about antibodies eventually waning, he is likely very wrong about the need for the boosters unless you are over the age of 65.




Study evaluates neutralizing antibody responses elicited by the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

 

Yes it did support my argument. Real world data shows that the vaccines don't hold up over time. The rest is theory. And the CDC's numbers are garbage. Using Jan-March hospitalization data is useless when such a small percentage of the US was vaccinated at that time. Also, can anyone explain why we have 2 different PCR thresholds? One for someone who is unvaccinated and one who is? There literally is zero valid reasons to have 2 different parameters. We are spreading more fear when in reality the vaccines do a great(not 90-95% though) job of protecting people. My argument was with some posters saying the vaccine is the end all when real world data shows otherwise. Only healthy kids shouldn't get the vaccine in my view.

 

A tragedy in four acts.



¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Where is the "real world" data that actually says "vaccines don't hold up over time"??

?

Where is the data that shows "vaccine isn't as effective as natural immunity" I just showed you data that says the exact opposite. In true Trump fashion you dismissed it as "garbage" because it proved you wrong. Then lurched off into a totally different topic.

So, let's stay focus and please produce the data to support both of your statements above and can contradict the data that I have shown in both posts that says the opposite.

 

N12 - משרד הבריאות: יעילות החיסון במניעת הדבקה ירדה ל-39%

Here ya go. Just translate over to English.


Breakthrough Infections of SARS-CoV-2 Gamma Variant in Fully Vaccinated Gold Miners, French Guiana, 2021