A rare lay press article that gets everything right regarding Delta

See, that's what happen when a lay person - you - reads another lay person's - the journalist - account. You fail to understand the issue. They are saying that the vaccines don't prevent transmission because viral load is similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated... but what you and the journalist are failing to understand (in your case just a failure, in the journalist's case likely the desire to be bombastic and earn more clicks) is that this is only the case once a vaccinated person does catch the Delta... (for whatever reason, antibodies have faded, or the person is not very immune-competent, or took NSAIDs around the vaccination, or has an underlying medical condition, etc.). If the person DOES catch it, yes, the vaccinated person can transmit it... BUT the vast majority of vaccinated people do NOT catch it... So, that's what I've been saying, that the percentage of breakthrough infections among the vaccinated remains very small (and remains large among the unvaccinated) so yes, the vaccines STILL protect against Delta; just, a bit less so than for other variants, and not enough to stop the person from being contagious during a short period.

Do you get it now? (I don't hope that you will...)

By the way, you should brush up on the issue of neutralizing vs. non-neutralizing antibodies and the concepts of infection vs. disease, and the infection in the broad sense (any presence of the virus) versus the strict sense (the presence of exponentially replicating and circulating virus).

Oh well, I don't really expect that you'll get it...

 

What I'm saying is that it takes months or years for hard science to happen. In the beginning the hard science claimed that the virus was not transmitted by aerosols and that we didn't need masks, even as there was plenty of non-hard evidence that the virus WAS being spread by aerosols. That went on for months. Meanwhile, the virus was spreading exponentially around the world. What I'm saying is that if we don't smarten up and try to get ahead of science instead of waiting months or years for hard science, we will never get out from behind the eight ball. Most people are vaccinated and yet Delta is spreading faster and faster and a whole, whole lot of the vaccinated are testing positive. If we are too blind to see something that is right in front of our noses and be proactive instead of reactive, we aren't going to make any progress. And, we need to realize that Delta is being spread by both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. We don't have the time to wait for hard science but we can open our eyes and see stuff that is screaming at us while we sit on our asses waiting months and years for the hard science.

 

That's not what the "hard science" said, dammit!!! That's what stupid, politicized WHO said. We scientists protested immediately and kept pressuring the WHO and the CDC to acknowledge aerosol transmission until they did. And Fauci lied about the masks, not us!!! Politicians lie (these days I think of Fauci a lot more as a politician than as a scientist). We deal in facts. This said, science evolves because this is a new disease caused by a new virus (one that is very atypical as compared to previous coronaviruses, so our knowledge and our advice evolve as more data comes in.

Yes, Delta is being spread by both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. When have I ever denied that???

I'm just saying, the vaccinated still get much lower incidence of infections (and practically no hospitalizations and no deaths) so it is false to say that they vaccines are not effective against Delta. YOU were the one mixing up infectiousness with efficacy.

Look, I do NOT make mistakes about this. I've been doing this for a living for 40 years and I hold a PhD degree on this. Maybe you won't believe me because claiming these things in an anonymous board is cheap, but if you just take the time of exploring my posting history here, you'll see that my credentials are real. If you don't want to believe me, fine with me. I won't lose any sleep over it.

 

I'll leave it to the CDC director herself to tell you how the vaccine program has failed:

CDC urges vaccinated people in covid hot spots to resume wearing masks indoors

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/27/cdc-masks-guidance-indoors/

Speaking to reporters in an afternoon news briefing, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, expressed disappointment and dismay that the summer surge in cases, driven by the delta variant’s startling transmissibility and low vaccination rates in many areas, had forced her agency’s hand.

“It is not a welcome piece of news that masking is going to be a part of people’s lives who have already been vaccinated,” Walensky acknowledged. “This new guidance weighs heavily on me.”

 

I have acknowledged time and time again that the vaccines obviously make Covid and Delta cases a lot less severe with a whole lot less hospitalizations and deaths. But, in my opinion, a few months down the road you will see that a huge percentage of the vaccinated are responsible for spreading Delta. It has already been shown that the viral loads in both positive vaccine cases is similar to the unvaccinated. And, eventually, people will see that Delta is actually being spread more by the vaccinated than the unvaccinated because it is being spread by BOTH which means that since there are far more vaccinated than unvaccinated, the vaccinated are spreading it more than the unvaccinated.

Same holds true for mask wearing. The left would have us believe that all masks are exactly the same so if you have a mask then cases will drop but, mask wearing gives people a false sense of security because (A) all masks are not equal (B) people go out circulating and spreading the virus because they falsely believe that just because they have a mask, they are safe and cases will drop - even as the figures prove that cases actually rise during mask mandates (C) we can blame all rising cases on the unvaccinated and the unmasked so the vaccinated and the masked can remove themselves from all responsibility when they are spreading the virus just as much or more than the unmasked and unvaccinated. Of course the left and lefty media will try their best to quash this information because it doesn't fit into their agenda. If 100% of us were vaccinated, Delta would still be spreading and seeing rising cases. The longer we ignore that the more we will fall behind, which is exactly what is happening now. Biden took a victory lap over Covid and now he is in the phase of it is all the unvaccinated's fault. Next will be the full on return of mask wearing and maybe even lockdowns because the professionals will eventually realize that Delta is being spread by most of the vaccinated. But, the left were fools all along to believe that they could get enough vaccinated to achieve herd immunity which, in my opinion, is impossible with Delta, even if 100% were vaccinated.

 

Breakthrough positives may pass the virus, but they're far less likely to become infected in the first place.

 

That is certainly true, but no need to grieve. As with all big changes/events, it ushers in an opportunity for new and better ways of doing things.

Even if it only reduces travel .. that will be a MASSIVE win for the planet and for humanity. Everything else is to play for .. we can find new and better ways of living - eg less people making the fatal mistake of living alone (even now, that habit is changing in Western nations where this particular hubris is prolific), and more people looking at ways to be more self-reliant. New ways to do business, work, etc etc.

 

Are you saying that you don't understand how vaccines actually work?

Where on earth did you get the idea that a vaccine provides an invisible forcefield around you, preventing the ingress of the virus? A movie? A dream?

 

This post of yours is a bit less clueless than your usual. Still, you are making mistakes. No, the vaccinated are not spreading Delta as much or more than the unvaccinated... because of the proportions. I'll say it once more, see if you get it this time: ONCE a vaccinated person catches the Delta, the viral load is similar to that of a Delta-infected unvaccinated person therefore it is fair to suppose that transmission is similar. But that's only ONCE a vaccinated person catches Delta, because vaccinated people are still MUCH LESS LIKELY to catch it.

Let me put it into simple numbers to see if you get it.

Say, compare 100 vaccinated people with 100 unvaccinated.

Say, 1 person among the 100 vaccinated catches Delta, while 10 among the unvaccinated do. Let's say the R-naught number for the Delta is 5.

So, that 1 person among the vaccinated transmits the virus to 5 people.

However the 10 people among the unvaccinated transmit the virus to 10x5 = 50 people.

So, the vaccinated were responsible for 5 transmissions... while the unvaccinated were responsible for 50.

Pray tell, which group is most responsible for transmissions???

So, look at this:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/symptomat...19-infections-rare-cdc-data/story?id=79048589

Breakthrough cases (meaning, the fully vaccinated catching the virus) were 0.098% as of July 26th. 153,000 cases out of 156 million people, which is 0.098%.

99.5% of the new Delta cases are being seen among the unvaccinated...

Come again, do you STILL think that the vaccinated are the ones driving the transmission??? If you do, sorry, I'll stop talking to you because this much blindness in one person will result in my complete loss of interest in still interacting with you.

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Now, what's not so clueless in your post?

What you said about masks.

I've been saying here over and over that only the right kinds of masks, and only worn the right way (with good seal, and good donning-doffing protocols) are highly protective. Less than that, and you risk the opposite, that is, over-confident people who think they are protected by a lousy mask or even a good mask but worn the wrong way, may tend to expose themselves more to risky behaviors, out of misguided over-confidence. Still, generally, there is some protective effect even of lousy masks which don't stop aerosol but stop droplets.

The masking issue is complex. Certainly the relative risk and odds ratio reductions occur a lot more with respirators with good seal, than with surgical facemasks with lousy seals, and both are better than cloth masks.

Still, some studies have shown a smaller, but still existing RR reduction, even for facemasks. Here, look at this table. The third column, 0 stands for facemasks, 1 for respirators. Observe that even with the 10 first studies listed, all done with face masks, there was reduction of relative risk, respectively to 70%, 54%, 21%, 40%, 25%, 13%, even 3% (the Hainzerling study, USA, Covid-19), 79%, 36%, and 34%.


The average of all studies in this meta-analysis showed an adjusted relative risk reduction to 18%. That's EXCELLENT!

We can't completely extrapolate the above meta-analysis, because these are mostly healthcare settings. The 3 studies that addressed non-healthcare settings, looked at respirators. But still, you'll see from these studies that even facemasks do decrease transmission.

So, no, masks are still helpfull... although this meta-analysis only addressed respirators (N95 and similar) and surgical facemasks; didn't address cloth masks which perform worse.

Therefore, yes, Biden took a premature victory lap... he sure did, and his CDC was extremely stupid in advising people to drop the masks.

But you're approaching this from the standpoint of leftists versus rightists... I'm approaching this from the standpoint of science, not from partisan talk, but if you want to talk about premature victory laps, have you somehow missed Trump's various ones? "We have this under control... there will be zero cases, soon... It's going away... By April 1st it will be magically gone... " and so on and so forth. OK, Trump took some 10 premature victory laps... Biden took one.

Another idea you got right: no, we won't have herd immunity.

But you seem to ignore, too, that the attempt to shift everything to herd immunity actually was a hallmark of the Trump administration and his STUPID adviser, that freaking moron called Scott Atlas.

You talk about "the left..."

Look, masks, vaccines, they shouldn't be about the left or the right. They should be seen as public health measures that would help ALL Americans, leftists, centrists, or rightists, to defeat a common enemy.

I couldn't care less for the left-right debate... I look at individual politicians and their actions and inactions, and what outcomes they achieve. That's why I've extensively criticized Cuomo, Pelosi, and DeBlasio for their comments and blunders, and also criticized the Biden CDC for their blunders... But yes, I also criticize Trump, Scott Atlas, and DeSantis for their blunders. In this, I couldn't care less if they have Ds or Rs attached to their names. What I want is logical, consistent, science-driven leadership. Neither party has done it right.

To start with, if we wanted any chance that masks might actually work, we should have done a number of things:

1. Very early and very strongly, invoke the Defense Production Act to dramatically increase domestic production of high quality masks
2. Teaching people about simple devices (like the 3-rubber band technique) that can enhance the seal of masks (it's so obscure that people don't even get what I'm talking about... a tiny percentage of Americans know about these simple and cheap techniques that can make a huge difference in mask efficacy)
3. Strong and pervasive educational campaign in all media, teaching Americans what masks work, and how to wear them, and how not to be over-confident by wearing them
4. Politicians from both parties getting together and saying in ad campaigns "let's put our political differences temporarily to rest; we're all Americans and this virus is a common enemy like we had enemies in WWII; so here it is: both me and my opponent here, are together asking you to wear masks - and the right kind, and the right way." So, we should have had Trump AND Biden getting together and saying so... we shouldn't have had a divide where the rightists think masks are BS and the leftists think they need to be authoritarian about masks.

The same should have applied to vaccines.

 

Anecdotal nonsense.

Very few breakthrough cases, even fewer end up in hospital.

 

That's just not going to be found true. Just read this:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m-not-dying-m-pretty-080000596.html

They claim breakthrough cases are just 1% but if you do the math, 14/17 is NOT 1%. People need to wake up.

 

The left have been saying nonstop that if we get enough people vaccinated it will put up your shield to protect us all. Are you now admitting that this simply isn't true, particularly with Delta? Are you finally admitting that the vaccine won't stop Delta from spreading but merely makes cases less severe?

 

People need to wake up and see the information that is right in front of their noses.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m-not-dying-m-pretty-080000596.html

This very article repeats the same nonsense that only 1% of the vaccinated become infected with Delta (while also admitting that they really don't know how many people there are because many don't get tested). The article also talks about this particular group where 14/17 vaccinated people who follow all the rules tested positive for Delta after being together. 14/17 is not 1%. Come on man, you've got to put 2 and 2 together. These articles are getting to be more and more every day. I've already posted several. They are not uncommon occurrences.

 

"Failed" is your assessment.

 

OK, it seems like you don't know how to do math. You can't understand that you can find some clusters of people (and the newspapers will make a big fuzz about it), because 153,000 people are still a bunch of people so you can find some clusters of 300 of them somewhere like in Massachusetts... but 153,000 out of 156 million people is still only 0.098%.

And where are all the people we are missing, according to you? 156 million people is HALF of this country's population!!!! There is only another half left. Do you know how many tests have been performed already? 542,891,847. That's right, 542 freaking million tests and change. Where the hell are all the undiagnosed cases that would SIGNIFICANTLY change the numbers??? Are you still one of those silly people who think that we are missing 9 cases for each diagnosed one? That was in the very beginning when we lacked tests. No, we're no longer missing this many. These days, most people who get the sniffles, get a test. Countries like Denmark that have performed 13 tests per inhabitant, that is, have tested EVERYBODY thirteen times over, have NOT found that the missed cases in the first phase of the pandemic, were that numerous after all (9 missed for each diagnosed? No, not even close, more like 1 or 2). Take a country like Sweden - they tried to go for herd immunity. Then they tested for antibodies. Do you know how many positives they found? 6% of their population. So, no, they were also NOT missing 9 cases for each diagnosed case...

I estimate that AT MOST we're missing 3 cases for each diagnosed one (probably less than that, more like 2). So, we'd have 0.098 x 4 (1 diagnosed, 3 missed) = 0.392%.

Do you want to still think we're missing 9 cases for each diagnosed case? Great. Insert rolling eyes here. We have diagnosed 36 million people. We have a population of 333 million people. This would mean, then, that EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN, baby, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, middle-aged adult, older adult, senior citizen, EVERYBODY would have to have caught Covid-19 already, some twice, because we don't have 360 million people here (36 million times 10, being 1 diagnosed, 9 missed, equals 360 million which is above our total population. Hey, THAT would have been herd immunity... something you acknowledge yourself that is not possible. If we all had caught the disease already, why in the hell are we still getting 100,000 new cases per day????

So, that's utterly impossible, right? But even if you wanted to go to this ABSURD notion, OK, multiply 0.098% x 10... you'd get 0.98%. That is, less then 1%.

Are you freaking starting to realize how INSANE what you are thinking, is? Even if we were missing an ABSURD (and frankly impossible) number of cases, we'd still have less than 1% of breakthrough infections!!!!

So, no nonsense in what I'm saying. It's YOU who are spouting nonsense.

I'll tell you what: I'm losing patience. You can't be THIS blind and THIS primitive in missing the simple truth of simple math.

So, one last opportunity: DO YOU GET IT NOW??? Because if you don't, I'm done with you.

PS - How ironic that you say that people need to wake up and see the information that is right in front of their nose... Wow.

 

I don't where to begin explaining it you you, so I don't think I'll bother.

 

14 out of 17 is not 1%... but 153,000 out of 156 million is 0.098%... Even if you multiply this by 10 for an absurd number of undiagnosed cases, you still get a bit less than 1%.

 

I hear you. I did explain it to him, in detail, but he still doesn't get it. It's quite incredible, isn't it? I guess it's the kind of poster one needs to ignore completely... I've rarely seen someone so blind to the simplest facts... wow.

 

It looks like you may be crunching the numbers incorrectly, IndependentThinker.

1. Think of an article as a "snapshot" of a specific time and place. It isn't necessarily "global". [The numbers don't just follow that pattern across the board].

2. Also, the vaccines are said to lessen the degree of infection but does not PREVENT infection (from any of the strains). What this means is an unvaccinated person is more likely to catch the virus or variant and will become sicker from it while a vaccinated person is less likely to catch the virus, but, even if they do, they are less likely to become extremely ill from it.

3. Keep in mind that a person can have the virus and be contagious while remaining asymptomatic. This means there is no way for us to know how many people have had it and overcome it because they were never tested or hospitalized. Can you see how not knowing that would make the positive tests seem higher than they actually are?

Does that make sense? If not, I'll try again until you get it.

 

OK, after a friend warned me of other positions adopted by this poster, all right, I'm done with him. No point in trying to inject some sense into his skull.
So, @independentthinker , I wish you a long and happy life. Be safe. Take the vaccine (it will still protect you against the Delta). Wear a good mask, with a good seal. Stop reading the lay press and stop paying attention to your handlers' partisan talking points. Brush up in math. It's not that difficult if you stick with just understanding percentages. So, over and out... From this point on, I won't be reading you. Thankfully.

 

MJ Davies, even if we were missing 9 cases for each diagnosed case (which is not possible because we've diagnosed 36 million cases already and our population is 331 million people, and obviously not all of us have caught the virus already - we'd have to have had 360 million infections while we only have 331 million people), the percentage of breakthrough infections, which currently sits, based on diagnosed cases, at 0.098%, would be at most 0.98% (or 0.098 x 10) or a bit less than 1%.

So, regardless of this guy (and the lay press) finding some clusters of breakthrough cases, the national number of breakthrough cases, statistically speaking, can't be much higher than 1% of all vaccinated people...if that many.

He can't understand this... so, don't bother. I gave up, already (which is good for my own sanity, as you know).

 

Yes, your sanity is important. Hold onto that.

He'll come back and ask or he may not. I don't know and I don't mind being patient with people as long as they remain respectful. You know that.

Go have some ice cream or whatever you do to get to your Happy Place!

 

You do what you can.

 

That's all any of us can do, LangleyMan.

 

Sorry, for budding in, but I came upon this very important article about the real reasons for the mass vaccinations:

Doctor Exposes Anti-Human Endgame Behind Vaccines
Dr. Carrie Madej is an Internal Medicine Specialist in Georgia with 19 years in practice. She’s concerned about the transhumanist agenda behind the push for the COVID vaccine and the biological, legal and spiritual ramifications of all of it....

She says the vaccine roll-out has nothing to do with a virus....

“Just look at the big picture. The data doesn’t make sense. The death rate was the same as all the previous five years. Why are we doing this? Why are using something experimental? Why is the benefit maybe a partial immunity for 2 months – maybe. And the risks are astronomical.....

“Because the endgame is getting these jabs inside of you, so they can introduce this kind of technology inside of you. Also, to thin out the herd, get rid of the weak ones. And who ever’s left over will have this technology – it’s really Artificial Intelligence – that can be used for good or bad. And right now, it looks like they’re going to use it for bad: to control you, to surveil you,....

“Please look at what’s going on, because if we consent to these things; we consent to more and more of this technology, to these digital passports, accept these experimental things inside of us, one day, it’ll be too late, we won’t be able to act on it. We won’t be able to think enough to act on it.”
.....
Dr Madej has inside information about the nature of the vaccines from a recruitment session she went through outside of Atlanta in 2014, in what was supposedly a Business Owners’ meeting. “We had to be bused into the location, our cellphones were jammed…and we were locked in the building until the meeting was done. And this was a lot of Big Tech people, CNN, etc… and in there, they talked about how they were going to change and modify the behavior of the people of Georgia, using their smart device, a ‘health app’ on there and somehow getting – they didn’t tell us how – a substance in our body that would be used as biosensors....

“This is how I know about all these substances inside these injections…They said these substances would analyze your data, your thoughts, your emotions, they knew if you were lying,....

“So they were going to analyze this data and then, they had an algorithm that a computer would be in charge of. And every time you lied, even a little white lie about where you were, the smart phone would know it immediately by these parameters and give you an instant repercussion and then also, over say 1-3 months, all the lies would be added up, and then you would be considered either a good human or a bad human and the computer would allot you a social credit system or cryptocurrency.”
.....
“So, I say that this is the endgame of all games. This is do or die, right now. It’s about Human 1.0. Do you value being a human? Do you value having freedom of thought and to love? If you do, then you stand up now, you say ‘No!’ You say ‘No!’ and take our human rights back. We gave them away. And we stand together, because we are powerful beings. We are made in the likeness of God. We actually have energy and light within us. We don’t need their technology. We are magnificent beings. And stick together, because we have power in that…


Read more here:
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/doctor-exposes-anti-human-endgame-behind-vaccines/
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It is too late for millions already.
I hope I live to find out the truth.
It now seems very likely that the pandemic was created on purpose as a means to manipulate our feelings and our minds. Make happy slaves out of us who just love to shovel sh*t!!!
Have you noticed, how they at first assured us there was no pressure to get vaccinated, totally voluntary, but now we get threatened and punished if we don't get vaccinated asap.