Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

“These are typically mild cases and individuals tend to recover within a short time following standard treatment and rest. The risk of myocarditis is substantially increased for those who contract Covid-19, and vaccination is the best way to protect against this.”

 

Well, some of the data is questionable. They are using "approximate" numbers. Those numbers look way off. The CDC estimates that only 1 in 4.2 cases are reported so the denominator could be much larger. Too much subjective data to make a conclusion.

Also attached the largest study in the world at this time on natural immunity. Should end any arguments on whether natural immunity is better than the vaccine.







Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections

"Conclusions This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant."

 

Here again is the largest study in the world to date on natural immunity. End of discussion.


Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections

 

Trust me I understand all of that.
I also understand MANY viruses also cause this as well not just COVID, I've treated numerous cases over the years.

 

No, you said the rate of infection for the vaccinated group was 5.35% and the rate for the natural immunity group was 0.68%. And you even drew little red lines on the image to show that natural immunity 'is around 8 times better than just having the vaccine'. But the 5.35% was the overall infection rate, not the vaccinated infection rate. You had it completely wrong. Anyone with any amount of credibility would man up and say 'yeah, I had it wrong, my bad'. But that's not how you operate.

 

That is great, but it does not say that there are no reinfections, and the real world data shows that rates of reinfection are increasing in Oklahoma. There is nothing in this paper that would refute that so I am at a loss to understand why you are posting it.

Further, no one was making a statement about what was better or what is not better, so again, while really interesting data in that pre-print it is completely not relevant to reviewing real world data.

 

That's the Israeli study. It looked at only Pfizer, not Modern or Astra-Zeneca, which are the other two-dose vaccines. You cannot draw conclusions between natural versus these other two vaccines from this study because the other two vaccines aren't identical to Pfizer.

This study also only studied Israelis. Over half of the Israel are 100% Ashkenazi Jews and most Israeli citizens have some Ashkenazi DNA. You cannot rule out that there may be something in the genetic makeup that when infected with COVID, this subgroup of people, for some reason, ends up have higher natural immunity that other subgroups from around the globe. In other words, if you ran the same study in India or Kenya, there is a chance you would get different results because of the small differences in genetic makeup.

In addition, this study looked at Delta re-infection. There may be a new variant on the way that could change things. In addition, what variant caused the initial infection in these patients? Was that tracked? Again, there could be a difference here. We just don't know.

What we do know is other data contradicts this study. Not saying this study is wrong at all, just making a definitive statement from one study where other has contradicting data is generally not a smart thing to do. If you want to say, for Israelis, natural infection is better than the Pfizer when it comes to re-infection versus breakthrough cases, that statement would be backed by this study. But world-wide, all vaccines, all variants? Not enough information to make that statement.

 

Yes people are making that statement. Why is no one accepting natural immunity instead of being vaccinated? It doesn't make sense. The data is indeed clear. It's not a debate.

 

Seriously? This is your argument? OK, now i've heard it all. Here is a detailed explanation of the study. I get that this isn't good for your argument, but this is borderline ridiculous. No one is saying don't get vaccinated(other than children), but having natural immunity is significantly greater than just having the vaccine. End of story.

AAAS

 

Might want to look at everything again. You are not only wrong, but ridiculously wrong. Not surprising though.

 

Why are you wasting your time arguing with gator95? There are two assertions that are important to every fiber in his being.

- masks don't work
- natural immunity is better than the vaccine.

Yes, the first is wrong, and the 2nd has mixed data, but is largely irrelevant anyway. But it doesn't matter. He will argue these things to the day he dies because these views define him.

 

Alachua County close to ending mask mandates for public schools:

OCTOBER 5 UPDATE: Student Mask Requirements

• Alachua County Public School families:
  
  After reviewing school COVID data and hearing from local medical experts during its public meeting on October 5, the School Board of Alachua County is changing its school masking protocols. The changes will take effect October 19.
  
  Parents of students in grades 9 through 12 will now be able to sign parent exemption forms on behalf of their children. The district will be developing and distributing an updated form for 9-12th grade students in the next week.
  
  The current masking policy will remain in place for students in kindergarten through 8th grade for an additional four weeks beginning October 19. Under that policy, kindergarten students will be ‘educated, encouraged and expected’ to wear masks, but failure to wear a mask will not keep kindergarteners out of school.
  
  Under federal regulations, all students must continue to wear masks while on school buses.
  
  The use of masks has helped bring our COVID case numbers down after the huge surge this fall. Weekly numbers are now about where they were in February, when masks were also required.
  
  We will continue to review case rates and COVID protocols with our medical experts and will update our protocols as soon as it is safe to do so. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and flexibility as we work to prevent the spread of COVID in our schools, protect students and staff and keep our schools open for in-person learning.
  

COVID Response & Recovery / COVID Response Updates

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Nope.
And Nope.

Florida showed no difference in covid cases in the counties with and without mask mandates. Since you and others are so adamant that masks work so well, we should see a huge discrepancy in the data. We don't. That's because masks don't work.



I've been adamant that anyone who is over 18 should be vaccinated. But arguing that someone like me(vaccinated, no natural immunity) is better protected against Covid than someone with natural immunity is a losing argument. The science is clear. It's not open for debate.

 

I like how they are trying to credit using masks as a reason why the numbers are down. Super funny.

 

Well, the good news is that we'll have a live trial run with the high schoolers soon enough. They'll have a basis for comparison that (if positive) should be able to alleviate the mask requirements for all children.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Tensions grow between Moderna, White House over vaccine production

Vaccine maker Moderna is resisting pressure from the White House to increase international donations of its Covid-19 shot in 2022, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The Biden administration has urged Moderna for months to increase its production domestically, in an attempt to help deliver on the president’s pledge to make the U.S. “an arsenal of vaccines” for the world. The White House has donated tens of millions of Moderna doses abroad. Its push for more comes despite the company’s agreement to supply 500 million doses to low- and middle-income countries, including 34 million doses this year, through the international vaccine aid program known as the COVAX Facility.

Moderna, which developed its shot with scientific and financial help from the government, has shied away making additional commitments, the two sources said. The company has cited worries about its ability to balance its domestic and international responsibilities.

But administration officials privately believe the reluctance is also driven in part by financial concerns: If Moderna agreed to sell the Biden administration doses for poorer countries it would likely be asked to do so at cost, one source said, putting pressure on its bottom line.

 

Thanks for making my point.

 

They should be.

There is something much bigger than covid going on. It makes no sense to force kids to be vaccinated for this virus. It makes no sense to force anyone to be vaccinated for this disease.

They are running out of time. Delta is dying out (still have some areas that will have to deal with it) but until the next variant comes covid is not a major issue right now. Outside trying to force people many of whom have natural immunity to take a new drug.

Very interesting times.

 

That is an interesting take on things. For some perspective, there were 107k new cases yesterday in America. Fortunatley that is a decline from the delta peak of 196k new cases in a day, but that is more than we ever had during the first two waves. 2,102 Americans reported dead from covid yesterday. Down from our delta peak of 2600 Americans dying in a day, but still way too many. Heart disease, the leading cause of death in most years, only kills about 1800 Americans a day.

I wouldn't call something that is currently the leading cause of death in the US "not a major issue right now".

 

It should end immediately. Trying to find a link but apparently one of the communications people for DeSantis tweeted that the data shows masks do not work. Of the apparent 15 districts that have mandated masks the data shows there is no difference in statistically a mask mandate slows the spread or helps in slowing the spread. In fact some of the data shows the districts without mask mandates performing better by a couple percent (think it was the no mandate districts are down a couple percent more than the mandate districts). The positivity rate was a percent of two more in no mandate districts but again statistically insignificant. They do not make it worse. They are pointless. Which actually means they are worse because kids need to see others faces for their development. But we have adults that need to virtue signal through them sadly.