A rare lay press article that gets everything right regarding Delta

There is so much misinformation and distortion circulating, intentionally or not, that I thought that this rare article that is 100% correct in what it says, should be celebrated by making a thread specifically to highlight it.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/m/288...332c8cea01e/as-the-more-contagious-delta.html

 

it's so sad people did not get vaccinated to prevent a lot of this, we though distribution and 3rd world countries would be the biggest issue, but here we are, at only about 50% vaccinated

the good news is, we are now up to about 70% with one shot, so in about 6 weeks they too may be fully vaccinated

 

Yes, and this would have been sufficient for herd immunity (added to the people who got the natural infection) if Delta had not surged. Now with Delta we'd need 85% to 90% of populational immunity to achieve it, and given that Delta is infecting even the vaccinated, this goal is likely kaput and the virus will remain endemic.

We could have dodged this bullet if we had rapidly vaccinated everybody... but the stupid vaccine hesitancy and the anti-vaxxer propaganda prevented this from happening.

 

yep, that is what I heard as well

 

Isn't there another one coming along? Will this just keep mutating until none of the original vaccines are effective?

 

It's damned frustrating! I was hoping to get life back to normal by the fall, but because of the mutations and spike in cases due to lack of vaccinated, we are being held back.

 

Probably, but we'll "mutate" the vaccines too. The mRNA technology is flexible and new batches of vaccines can be produced, targeting the mutated spike proteins these new variants have.

 

I've already started the grieving process for what our lives was like before COVID. Clearly, we are never going to be in that world again.

 

This will probably sound incredibly dumb (but remember I'm not a doctor , why doesn't that help against Delta?

Also, @Pro_Line_FL posted earlier about pediatric cases going through the roof. According to his linked article they aren't even approved for the vaccines yet.

Heartbreaking. It makes my heart so sad for people suffering because of this.

 

from what I heard the vaccine targets the spikes as as those are the keys into the cells, it's hard to mutate to a version that has different spikes (where the key still works to get into our cells), but it is possible

 

Blaming the unvaccinated for the failed vaccine program is like blaming the cattle for the barn collapsing on them. It's all on you and those who bet it all on a vaccine with no long-lasting immune response, and one that generates multiple variants as well. No matter how many you get vaccinated, the new variants alone would likely still sink your ship.

 

Why do you keep repeating something that is not true? [Bold]

 

In what way is it not true?

There are thousands of different types - or variants - of Covid circulating across the world. One of them, known as Delta or B.1.617.2, appears to be spreading quickly in many countries including the UK, where it has become the dominant variant.

The UK classes Delta as a "variant of concern" - these are kept under the closest watch by health officials.

Other current variants of concern also include:

• Alpha (B.1.1.7), first identified in the UK but which spread to more than 50 countries
• Beta (B.1.351), first identified in South Africa but which has been detected in at least 20 other countries, including the UK
• Gamma (P.1), first identified in Brazil but which has spread to more than 10 other countries, including the UK

Viruses mutate all the time and most changes are inconsequential. Some even harm the virus. But others can make the disease more infectious or threatening - and these mutations tend to dominate.

 

the unvaccinated are hindering herd immunity, that is just a fact, all about the percents

about 70% of Americans have gotten at least 1 shot, 50% are fully vaccinated, Delta seems to be increasing people wanting the shot, but it will still be about 6 weeks until that addl 20% is fully vaccinated

 

For those who might hit a paywall, this is the article:


As the more contagious delta variant circulates, public health experts say herd immunity has become an even more distant goal

By Jaimy Lee
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Experts are now saying up to 85% or 90% of the population will need to be immune to the virus for herd immunity to take hold

The delta variant is twice as contagious as the original strain of the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19, and its ability to infect so many more people, including a small number of the fully vaccinated, is going to make it even harder to achieve herd immunity.

“Delta is here, vaccinations have stalled, and breakthrough infections are happening,” Dr. Ricardo Franco, an associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said Tuesday at an Infectious Diseases Society of America briefing on the definition of herd immunity.

Getting infected with delta means that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people carry higher viral loads compared with other strains of the virus. If it’s easier for the virus to spread, that means the threshold for herd immunity is even higher than it had been before, experts say.

Up to 85% or even 90% of the population will likely need to be immune to the virus to achieve herd immunity, compared with estimates of 50%, 60% or 70% to 85% for earlier strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. “For delta, threshold estimates are well over 80%, maybe approaching 90%,” Franco said.
“The more infectious the strain, the higher the number,” Dr. Gabor Kelen, who chairs the department of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said in an interview last week. (He predicts the new threshold is at least 85%.)

Experts say that a higher threshold may mean we’ll need a higher rate of immunization, and that is going to create a challenge for a country that has struggled to get shots in arms. Although vaccinations are ticking up of late, they have largely remained flat for weeks, and only 58.2% of qualified people in the U.S. — those who are 12 years old or older — were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday.


“The higher the threshold, the better your vaccination campaign has to be,” Franco said in an interview.

Here’s how herd immunity works:

Herd immunity is an epidemiological concept, and not a “mathematical certainty,” as described by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, back in June. It evaluates how many people need to be immune to a disease to establish a baseline of protection for the community as a whole. At least 95% of the population has to be vaccinated against the measles to prevent outbreaks, for example.

Herd immunity, which takes into account a combination of vaccine-induced protection and natural immunity from infection, is calculated based on infection rate. It uses the basic reproduction number, which is often referred to as the R0.

The original strain of the virus has a R0 of 2.5, and the alpha variant, which was first identified in the U.K., has an R0 between 4 and 5, Franco said. Delta’s R0 is thought to be between 5 and 8.

“Because this [strain] is more infectious, it just means you have to achieve a higher level of immunity to battle it,” said Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

That means one person infected with delta could transmit the virus to five to eight other people if there are no other mitigation measures such as masks or vaccination in place.

In addition, new research indicates that some people who are fully vaccinated can get infected with delta. A study published Friday found that 74% of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 in a recent outbreak in Massachusetts had been fully vaccinated.

“The delta variant may be transmissible to a smaller degree, but to some degree, in people who are vaccinated,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams told MarketWatch this week. “So the previous idea that with 60% or 65% of the population exposed to the virus or having been vaccinated, that would be the threshold — that’s probably not exactly the case anymore.”

That said, there are other factors to consider. We don’t know how many people have been infected with the virus. At the outset of the pandemic it took months to get testing up and running. Not everyone gets tested. About 40% of people who contract the virus are thought to be asymptomatic; they may only get tested as part of workforce or school surveillance or if they are exposed to someone who tests positive. The results from convenient at-home COVID-19 tests aren’t tracked.

“We may be closer to that [threshold] than the case numbers might actually predict,” Abrahams added.

Here’s why medical experts are worried about delta:

The immediate concern for healthcare workers is the number of people who are getting sick, being hospitalized and dying.

The average number of new cases every day this week tracks with the number of people who were testing positive back in late October. None of the COVID-19 vaccines had been authorized for use in the U.S. at that time.

The moving seven-day average is 84,389 cases per day and 354 deaths per day, as of Aug. 2, according to the CDC. When it comes to hospitalizations, the moving seven-day average is 40,453 per day, as of Aug. 1.

But public health experts are also concerned that letting the virus circulate and infect more people will lead to more mutations that could evolve into more efficient and dangerous forms of SARS-CoV-2. (Not all mutations turn into variants, and not all variants are more harmful.)

“We can only hope that vaccinating people will put greater pressure [on the virus] and decrease the chance that variants continue to emerge,” Franco said. “The more virus circulation you have, the greater the likelihood that you’re going to see more variants with that ability. The less circulation of virus, the lower that chance is going to happen.”

(When asked if he thought the virus can mutate in the small number of vaccinated people with breakthrough infections, Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said he thinks that’s “unlikely in any material way unless that person is immunocompromised.”)

The current surge isn’t expected to peak until some time in September. Experts say that data from the delta-driven surges in India and the U.K. indicate that new cases may suddenly drop off once delta peaks.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Kates said one theory floating around is that the infectious period for delta may be shorter than it was for the original virus.

For now, much of the public health focus remains on encouraging or mandating that unvaccinated people get a shot or reintroducing mitigation measures like wearing a mask or social distancing to protect both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated against delta.

“Being vaccinated is really the ticket out of this,” Kates said. “The vaccines are working as well as almost any vaccine that we have. In fact, I think people forget that many vaccines work by preventing disease. They don’t always prevent the actual infection.”

 

My personal opinion is that the vaccines really don't have much effect on stopping you from getting Delta and even getting sick (more than the sniffles), although there is abundant proof that hospitalizations and deaths are greatly reduced in the vaccinated. From the article: "A study published Friday found that 74% of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 in a recent outbreak in Massachusetts had been fully vaccinated". That means that these 74% weren't helped at all by the "herd immunity" of the vaccines. They still contracted Delta even when fully vaccinated. To me, we have started playing a whole new ball game. Not only isn't it possible to get 80%-90% vaccinated in the first place, but even if we had 100% vaccinated, apparently with Delta, there really is no such thing as herd immunity when 74% still contracted Delta even after being fully vaccinated. The government needs to change the messaging now to totally giving up on herd immunity, blaming the unvaccinated for the spread of Delta when their own facts show that 74% contract Delta even when fully vaccinated, and concentrate on the message that we can't reach herd immunity, and we can't stop Delta but that we can stop people from being hospitalized and dying.

 

Maybe you're expecting the impossible.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2

 

yep, sadly we may not of got enough vaccinated fast enough, only time will tell

I just hope more get vaccinated soon

 

If you look at the demographics, it sure does indicate that a lot of the democratic party big tent folks are refusing to get vaccinated. Sad, for sure.

 

To put a super fine point on it, the democratic party wasn't an advocate. Why? Cause they just couldn't let Trump have a win. So, as demographics now demonstrate, the party faithful ignored the policy flop by Biden and Harris, and continue to not be vaccinated. Why? Because the party said it was a "trump" vaccine, and of course, they, being faithful folk, aren't about to get it. In the world of irony, this has few competitors....

 

Who says it is not good for the Delta? We haven't adapted the vaccines to new variants yet but it can be done. It takes 6 weeks, the scientific part. But then you need production, vats, raw materials, vials, syringes, distribution, and new FDA and CDC approval.

We do not yet have a vaccine adapted to Delta. I'm just saying, it *can* be done and probably *will* be done.

I expect this thing to need annual boosters with updated vaccines just like we do for the flu shot.

 

No, the "variants of concern" are exactly the ones that have already shown significant spike mutations.

 

No, independentthinker. I can understand why you think so but it isn't necessarily so because we were never told about the denominator in the Massachusetts outbreak.

That is, some 300 some people who were fully vaccinated got the infection and this happens to be 74% of those who were spotted with the infection... but we don't know how many people would have gotten the infection if they weren't vaccinated, and how many vaccinated people did not get the infection. Do you get it? It's a way for the sensationalistic bombastic media to present this piece of info but it DOESN'T mean that the vaccine is only effective at a rate of 26%.

Actually the Delta has increased breakthrough infections but these remain below 2%!!! So a cluster in Massachusetts had a worse result... who knows what the local conditions were? What the behaviors were? If they were out of the ordinary? We aren't seeing similar numbers elsewhere... But we still need to compare this to the FULL SETT of vaccinated people who did not get the infection... which is how we end up with less than 2%. Actually in some populations, 0.08%. But I'd say, between this and 2%.

Yes, the vaccine does significantly decrease the likelihood of catching the Delta... but does not eliminate it, and seems to be less efficacious in doing so than what it did for the previous strains. But not as low as 24% as this misleading piece of info will seem to suggest to lay people.

I respect the fact that you are saying "in my personal opinion" and you do have a right to it, but science is not a matter of opinions, it is a matter of demonstrable facts. The facts so far do point to this being an anomaly and we don't even know what the denominator was. The facts point to the vaccines decreasing the likelihood of contagion EVEN for the Delta, although less so than for other previous strains.

And yes, the facts point to it still being very protective regarding hospitalizations and deaths.

So, if one gets the Delta but has a case of the sniffles instead of ending up in an ICU or a cemetery, that means that the vaccines remain highly efficacious against Delta.

Will another variant make this result, worse? It's possible and even somewhat likely but it hasn't happened yet.

 

Mark my words, a couple of months from now the new science will show that I am correct. From the very beginning of Covid, when they were saying that it was not transmitted by aerosols so we didn't need masks, the so called experts couldn't see something that was right in front of their faces while I saw that it WAS indeed transmitted by aersols. Hell, the first major outbreak in the state of Washington was a church choir where many got sick and died after singing. It was right in front of their noses and they couldn't see it! For some unknown reason they must have thought these people all caught the virus by touching the wrong door knob. It was transmitted by aerosols which, after many months, they finally realized, after the cat was already out of the bag and I'm telling you now, vaccinations don't stop Delta, not one bit. They do greatly decrease the symptoms causing far less hospitalizations and deaths, but they don't protect you from Delta, not even if 100% were vaccinated. And, no matter what, we aren't going to hit 80%-90% vaccinated anyway so you might just as well chase a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Mark my words.

 

which ones have shown significant spike mutations, the vaccines still work against the spikes of all the variants