Are the vaccinated 'hidden carriers' and therefore a greater danger to the unvaccinated?

You would think the vaccinated were the last people we would expect to be hidden harbingers of Covid, yet I'm having difficulty emphatically arguing that case. Let me take you through where I am up to so far.

These excerpts are from a correspondence that I had on another forum.

My opener: "The overall effect of the vaccine mandates in health have been to boost vaccination rates. And so it should. While I don't always support mandatory vaccination in every saying, I absolutely DO in health. The notion of sick, old and immune compromised people attending clinics and hospitals with unvaccinated staff attending them is patently absurd."


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A member replied:

"Devil's advocate, but this question has been on my mind and confuses me. The vaccinated staff in these hospitals and other institutional settings can still contract the virus and still transmit the virus while having minimal symptoms with (as is the case with my current employment) no testing requirements for the vaccinated staff. But the unvaccinated staff is required to test and will likely show heavy enough symptoms to have to isolate and get treated if infected. From that perspective, is it possible that the vaccinated staff poses a higher risk to [quoting you] "old and immune compromised people attending clinics and hospitals" because they have may have no idea they are infected, not get tested, and continue to spread the virus?

I have not seen data to tell me that the transmission risk is reduced. And that is the piece of risk you assign solely to the unvaccinated in your post."

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I replied:

Vaccinated people clear the virus faster, with lower levels of virus overall, and have less time at peak viral load.

Within days of infection, the viral load in vaccinated people drops much more rapidly and therefore makes them much less likely to transmit and much less likely to be hospitalised or die.


Therefore, vaccinated people are, on average, likely to be less contagious.


https://www.newscientist.com/article...accinated/amp/

And there's your data

https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/90800

https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/73/6/e1365/6188727


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Another member shared an anecdote:

"We were all exposed yesterday.. Kid that exposed us is vaxxed and has no symptoms (had to get tested for B-ball) so off 'X's post I would wager that vaxxed people are far more dangerous to the unvaxxed because we transmit and have no clue."


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Frankly, I've lost my steam a bit. Because even though I can dig up more data to throw at them - AND it makes absolute sense that hospital staff should be vaccinated - I can see their point. The vaccinated can still contract the disease and transmit. And vaccinated hospital workers would have a decent amount of exposure, in both directions, to sick people. Because they're not getting tested and are less likely to have symptoms they might be unknowing vectors for transmission of Covid to the unvaccinated/ill. It's a bit of a cherry-picked demographic - transmission from vaccinated to unvaccinated - but nevertheless probably relevant in the US at the moment.

Does anyone have any thoughts or a better argument than I was able to put up?

 

I think we could all use some common sense and guess that vaccinated people are a little bit less likely to become infected (how much exactly we may disagree on and it is not really well studied), but they are also more likely to be infected without showing symptoms. If they don't know they are infected, obviously they are not going to be staying home. Some people speculate that this might create an increased risk. We can also guess that persons who are vaccinated but infected and not showing symptoms might possibly be less likely to spread the virus to others than persons who are unvaccinated, infected, and not showing symptoms. But there could be a lot of disagreement about that, and actual studies that could answer that question are probably lacking.

So it does seem to me this is complicated.
Probably some mathematical studies using different parameters to run simulations could help answer the question.

 

The first link does not seem to be working for me.

I will point out is one of the problems with these type of studies are that they only check viral load on patients who are symptomatic. This could easily be leading to selection bias in the statistics. (That doesn't seem to be an issue in this study)

One problem with this study is that only 15 persons tested positive. So it is not a huge study.

According to the study: "Five residents with asymptomatic COVID-19 received a first dose of the vaccine on 16 December 2020, which was 12–15 days prior to detection of SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal samples. The 5 other residents with asymptomatic COVID-19 were unvaccinated prior to diagnosis."

So they got the vaccine and then it seems about a week after the second dose they tested positive?
Doesn't that seem to indicate that maybe the vaccine might be somehow causing the positive test result?

 

Why don't we vaccinate whoever we can and then test everybody too? Yes , it seems a bit much but COVID is agonizing,, fatal AND terribly contagious so iit seem nature is going out of her way to screw us as well here..

 

I think that is an ignorant comment. Adequate testing facilities/capability to constantly be testing everyone in the population do not exist.
Right now it would be economically infeasible, for one thing.

Or are you okay paying $100 every 3 days?

 

Lol, we are done. Not even going to entertain your other bullsh*t

 

Well, look at the study you posted.

Don't you find that suspicious, or at least interesting?

What percentage of the people in that study who tested positive tested positive just right after they had fully taken the vaccine?

 

**** the economics, take it from the Defense budget.. Take it out of the 25 billion Biden didn't even ASK for

 

On re-reading the second study I noted the unvaccinated have a much higher viral load - per say.

If this is reflected in the wider community that would almost sink the ship of the notion of overlap of peak viral load between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

 

In other words "someone else will pay for it, not me".

If you think it's such a great idea, why don't you do YOUR duty as a "responsible citizen"?

 

If you stop slipping anti-vax agenda into every post I would take your other points more seriously. Clearly you have an agenda.

 

If it's "just a coincidence", it demonstrates how weak that study is, how it was done over such a short time interval.

 

I did, I'm well vaccinated

And I've bought and taken more than a few tests

 

That's too much, far more than I've ever paid

Somebody's mulcting you, maybe.

 

Yeah, you want all sorts of stuff that you would never personally pay for.

That says lots of about your political persuasion.

 

Not in Australia

The problem with Covid has always been the high numbers of asymptomatic carriers. We got around that in a fairly unique way….we started testing the sewerage. As far as I can find out this is unique to Australia (we invented it BTW) and although it has given some false positives it has been highly effective at pinpointing early outbreaks. Of course it only really works where the background community levels of the virus are low but…….

 

Your speculations have zero credibility.

 

That is a sh*tty solution

 

All I have is anecdotal. I've known several vaccinated people who have contracted Covid. I don't think vaccinations prevent a person from contracting and spreading. I do think it helps the outcome. I don't think they are more of a "spreader".

 

You could say we were getting to the bottom of the problem……..

 

It only matters because of the coersion and stigmas being created by politicizing medicine. Vaccine passports, segregation, exemptions... these things are designed to create division. We're living in a Dr. Seuss 'star' vs 'no star' story. If we just let people choose (and by 'choose' I mean with fully informed consent and without social, legal or financial repurcussions) whether to vaccinate or not, like has been the case with vaccination for decades until about a year ago, it won't matter 'who is putting whom at risk.' This is what happens when a personal choice is framed as a communal obligation.

 

You all still haven't answered the question.
"What percentage of the people in that study who tested positive tested positive just right after they had fully taken the vaccine?"

 

If there are health repercussions to others, why exclude accompanying social, legal or financial repercussions?

I think the vaccinated are less of a spreader than unvaccinated due to significantly less viral load and duration of symptoms. However, the vaccinated are scrutinised less often (less mandatory testing, etc.), so Covid might be picked up later. That was my friends' argument.

 

What if the health repercussions to others between vaccinated and unvaccinated are not very big? Isn't that the whole point of this thread?

 

Are the vaccinated 'hidden carriers' and therefore a greater danger to the unvaccinated ?

~ Yes ! They should be quarantined with masks for their own safety. Biden can mandate it . ✔