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

What part of pandemic do you not understand?

 

No it is not the point of this thread and your “what if” is fantasy material

 

The part where Im sposed to give up liberty for security.

What part of 'give me liberty or give me death' do you not understand?

 

Let's not forget, Australia was a former prison colony.

(That's where Bowerbird lives. From what I've seen, most persons in England and Australia have been conditioned to think this way)

 

America was sortof founded upon 'give me liberty or give me death.' Not many nations had a similar birth.

 

Wrong. Getting vaccinated or not is a matter personal choice. You either do or your don't. End of story.

The question of whether or not a large vaccinated population is a risk to a small unvaccinated one because of the potential for the vaccinated to pass on a disease is, on the other hand is a question of science, medicine and epidemiology. Your personal choice one way or the other is irrelevant to that question. The science decides, not you.

And the answer to that question is complex i.e. it depends on the vaccine and the type of disease. The vaccine because difference vaccines produce different levels of immune response. The disease because of variables such as the rate of mutation and things like the fact that vaccines for bacterial infections like TB tend to be less effective than vaccines for viruses. Add in other known variables like how long researchers have had to come up with the best vaccine possible (is this a new disease or an old one) and the answer to that question is that 'it depends'. I.E. it will depend on what disease your talking about.

But regardless of the disease there are some universal truths. One is that the vaccinated, if they get infected will normally carry lower viral loads and therefore usually (not always) be less infectious to others than the non vaccinated. The other truth is that (almost always) the vaccinated will also be far less likely to suffer serious illness even if they do catch it.

Lastly there's one other truth about the question. And that's the hypocrisy behind asking it in the first place.

It basically amounts to the unvaccinated whining about how suddenly they have become the 'victims' when most of the population get vaccinated. And its hypocritical because from the onset the mantra of the unvaccinated is that its their 'choice' whether or not to get vaccinated. (Which it is.) But the reverse is also. Its the choice of the vaccinated to get vaccinated. So boo hoo. If an unvaccinated person (there are some rare exceptions to which this argument does not apply BTW) catches a disease from a vaccinated person and gets very sick? Well sorry but if they'd been vaccinated in the first place they almost certainly wouldn't be that sick to begin with! So, given they deliberately chose to make their (sick) bed. They get to lie in it.

Proving yet gain that it pays to choose wisely. As you quoted 'give me liberty or give me death'. And in this case the unvaccinated risk getting both.

 

No. The unvaccinated arent commonly claiming they are at more risk of infection from the vaccinated than their fellow unvaccinated. The complaint is that the vaccinated are spreading covid to eachother and blaming the unvaccinated for it in attempt to pressure more vaccination, more lockdowns, more restrictions, all the while we're exempting the vaccinated from testing and restrictions as basically a reward since if we were basing it on science, they would also be tested since they can also contract and spread covid.

 

As I said it depends on the disease. But again if vaccinated the chances of getting seriously ill from disease X are greatly reduced compared to being vaccinated. That's the whole point of vaccination. Mathematically when vaccination levels reach a certain point depending on how much the vaccine reduces the viral load the vaccinated will spread it more often. But by that point most of the population is vaccinated and so in all likelihood won't get very ill from the infection. And on a person by person basis? An unvaccinated person will always be more likely to pass on the disease than a vaccinated person will be and by default the vaccinated person has already done what they can to reduce infection rates.

And the only way to protect a small vaccinated minority apart from vaccination is to impose lock downs, quarantines and mask mandates more or less indefinitely. ..... and we're back to 'give me liberty or give me death'.

 

Why arent we requiring the vaccinated to get regular testing like we are the unvaccinated?

 

I suppose you could but as I keep noting the unvaccinated are more likely as individuals to spread the disease. So testing them makes sense if the % of the population that is unvaccinated is large. We're at 90% plus vaccination rates and no-one here is forced to get tested unless they've just arrived from overseas. The only exception is if you attend a location at the same time as someone who later tests positive. It's been months since I've had to bother getting tested and in fact I only recently got a text telling me to go get one for exactly that reason, which was easy as. But even that requirement is set to end soon.

 

That's actually not true for a number of reasons. In fact, the vaccinated are spreading the virus more than the unvaccinated are because there are many more vaccinated than unvaccinated and they have free reign to mass in numbers everywhere while the unvaccinated do not. Think about it. We let in 80,000 only vaccinated people into a football stadium, no unvaccinated. Who's spreading the virus more? It's like that pretty much everywhere. Stories abound everywhere where vaccinated people are spreading the virus to other vaccinated. It's no longer anecdotal.

 

I think only time will tell unless that info is not tabulated, studied or shared openly.

Logic would dictate that natural immunity would be the best form of protection if the virus has entered your body in the first place. If you are an asymptomatic carrier and never vaccinated, that would be the absolutely best form of immunity IMO, natural immunity. This most definitely should be studied and understood.

It would also be logical that some/many vaccinated folk are likely carriers, asymptomatic or with negligible symptoms.

The viral load factor has to be ultimately relevant in almost all circumstances, vaccinated or not.

 

I won't even read this whole thread, it will just make me angry to read Kazenatsu spouting his usual anti-vaxxer garbage that will distort everything and misinform. There isn't a single valid statement about Covid-19 that comes out of this user. Readers beware. If he types up something, it's misinformation, period. Full stop.

What I will say is this: Omicron has profoundly changed the game. I don't know if you all understand by how much the game has changed. Yesterday Omicron was at 74% of all new US infections (going from 0.4% to 2.9% to 13% to 74% in a matter of days). In a few days it will be 100%. Omicron has the capacity to re-infect anybody who has had Covid-19 before (it seems like it couldn't care less for the anti-vaxxers' praised "natural immunity") and it has the capacity to infect the vaccinated too. Most world vaccines are useless against Omicron (all adenovirus vector vaccines, all whole inactivated virus vaccines, etc.). Apparently two doses of an mRNA vaccine plus one mRNA booster offer some measure of protection (so, vaccination is still worth having, but it isn't great to avoid Omicron infection - may be helpful to avoid severe illness).

Now, the question examined by the Original Post - can vaccinated people infect more because they don't know they got Covid? - is largely an outdated question. Yes, Omicron will spread like wildfire, from the unvaccinated to the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, and from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated and the vaccinated. It doesn't really matter if one group is more of a danger to the other group because whoever doesn't get it one way, will easily get it some other way. With an R-naught of 12, we're in measles territory. Omicron is the second most infectious virus in the entire known history of humankind, only (barely) behind measles. There is no such thing as containing such virus, regardless of what measures will be in place, including vaccination with our current vaccines.

Now, here is what will likely happen: this thing spreads so fast, that it will reach an unbelievable peak relatively soon, but then it will fade relatively soon, too, running out of people to infect. In South Africa there are already signs that it is fading. While Omicron couldn't care less for natural immunity from past infections by any variant that was making the rounds before it, presumably people who get it will develop natural immunity to Omicron itself. And with its phenomenal infectiousness, it will bump out Delta and entirely substitute Delta. There will be no more Delta to go around. The game will be just an Omicron game. So, once the vast majority of the population gets it, it will fade.

So, there is now more solid evidence that Omicron is indeed milder than Delta. Some fragile patients will still get very sick with Omicron, but then, the FDA has just approved both oral antiviral pills, the one from Merck and the one from Pfizer. They are still scarce but once they get to more robust production, these pills will take care of the cases that might result in hospitalization or deaths (particularly Pfizer's, which is more efficacious and was approved more broadly - for anybody who is older than 12 and weights more than 88 pounds and has at least one condition that puts the person at high risk for severe Covid-19), effectively making of Covid-19 a case of the sniffles.

I think these two factors combined - milder Omicron displacing deadlier Delta, and oral antivirals that you take at home hitting the market - we'll see the end of the pandemic side of this disease, vaccines or not. Probably we'll still have a rough winter with quite overwhelmed healthcare systems, but the wave will pass, a lot of herd immunity will kick in, and the spring and summer will be a lot closer to normal.

The virus then will become endemic. We'll get annual updated shots to the latest variants, and those who will still catch it (or will refuse vaccination), if they get sick, they'll take the oral antivirals (which catch all variants present and future, because they target mechanisms that they all need for replication and those mechanisms are not subject to mutations). End of the story.

------------

I often berated people who prematurely celebrated the supposed end of the pandemic, because, as I said, the virus kept throwing curveballs at us, and kept resurfacing. But now I do believe that the two factors above, milder/highly infectious Omicron and oral antivirals, will make a real difference. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I hope that I'm right.

 

all the answers but there is proof that the vaccinated can spread it period, this is the Biden cult trying to kill the elderly which Cuomo started

 

Logic doesn't always work with viruses. Some of them behave differently from what you'd expect. If logic prevailed, a whole inactivated virus vaccine (with all 29 viral proteins) like the CoronaVac should have better immunogenicity than mRNA vaccines, therefore should be more efficacious than the latter, but what we see in real life is the opposite: the mRNA vaccines beat the whole virus vaccines by far, very far.

As a matter of fact, the Omicron variant with its profound antigenic drift, seems to almost completely bypass natural immunity from previous Covid-19 infections by previous variants (convalescent plasma being practically useless against it, and having had Covid-19 before not avoiding Omicron at all), but surprisingly, still gets somewhat contained by 3 doses of an mRNA vaccine (while almost entirely bypassing adenovirus vector, and whole virus vaccines).

You make it sound like natural immunity isn't being studied. Of course it is. There are numerous studies focusing on it in itself, as well as numerous others comparing natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity. Results vary wildly with what variant was involved in the study, what vaccines were involved, and what different vaccination schemes were used.

Should I quote some studies? Nah. They're no longer important. Like I said in post #38, the game has profoundly changed with Omicron, and most studies are now utterly outdated, because they were not done with the now dominant and very different Omicron variant.

 

Sure, sure. What about all the other 209 countries in the world, where there is no Biden?
Any attempt to make of any of this, an American political plot, is utterly ridiculous.
Do you realize the meaning of the prefix pan, in pandemic?

 

has the Biden cult given me a reason I can trust them?

 

Probably not. I don't trust politicians, from any party. But don't explain the biological behavior of a virus and the biological countermeasures employed against it, via politics, because the virus couldn't care less if the president is called Biden or Trump, as demonstrated by its ability to infect all other populations in all other 209 countries and autonomous territories in the world whose presidents, monarchs, prime ministers, etc., are neither called Biden nor Trump.

 

You may have read my personal experience before because I have talked about it on PF several times. Short version ...

Fully vaccinated last February.
Got Covid last July during the Delta surge.
Mild symptoms, very quick recovery, and I’m 66.
I DID NOT PASS IT TO MY WIFE, even though I didn’t know I was infected for almost 3 days after I was exposed to it.

My case doesn’t prove anything. But that’s what happened.

 

People choose the vaccine so they can return to normal life, and the unvaccinated choose to remain exposed. If the un-vaxxed are worried and won't take the shot, they need to find other ways to not get infected. Staying home is an option. Wearing 2-3 masks and rubber gloves in public is another option.

Personal choice either way.

 

As you are noting the definition of "vaccinated" has become rather convoluted and strange with regard to the mRNA vaccines and COVID. In the past most vaccines were seen as sterilizing vaccines. You can't get the concern in question and likewise you can't infect others. I'm pretty much of the view that is the definition of a vaccine but in these political times that definition has been changed.

You are also correct in noting the concerns and requirements that don't seem to address much. I assure you if you dig in on this it gets profoundly stranger and more convoluted. Most hospitals allow the same sort of at home test that Biden is sending out to be used to go into the hospital. The test has no chain of custody or safeguards. It has no date or proof of who took it. It is like a home pregnancy kit. You take one and show it and you or whoever holds it can make whatever claims they want related to it.

Actions like this seem almost designed to confuse rather than clarify but when they do indeed confuse the clarification from the government is clear... you need to hate the unvaccinated and give up more rights and powers for this "emergency" for longer so we can keep you safe from them.

That part is profoundly disturbing.

The current vaccine immunity is very strange in that it is short and the body seems to really retain no memory of what it "learned" to fight. It is like it briefly produced some antibodies but has no T and B cell immunity.

We don't tend to keep antibodies around for anything our body isn't fighting. Our blood would become like syrup. Our current vaccines seem to generate that response, our body flushes it after a period of time and then it can't produce it again without a booster.

So hospital staff aren't really vaccinated because it is clear the vaccination fades very quickly and then become unvaccinated again at some rate largely dependent on their age, health and other factors. Those weigh in on the efficacy of the vaccine as well even at full strength, it just isn't discussed much. If you vaccinate 100% of 80 year olds, the efficacy isn't 95%. It's more like 65% from day one of fully vaccinated.

You don't seem to clarify that the attributes you describe happen .4-.6% of the time. For me it was an evening with a fever and two days of low energy. For others they never even have symptoms.

You basically note the double standard. They make rapid antibody tests and many folks with natural immunity (myself included) have asked why we haven't turned to that instead. Simply having the vaccine isn't proof you have antibodies beyond 4-6 months. Likewise the claim with natural immunity is perhaps the "dose" wasn't strong enough via exposure to make sure you generated a robust and long lasting immune response. Rapid antigen tests would solve this and they do exist. As for why they aren't being advocated for to be a real solution to spread.. you'd probably have to get into the political motivations and authoritarian impulses of some people.

I mean seriously there isn't much that "protects" about anything we do. Even in places that require vaccine passes the "requirement" can be a photocopy or often even a photo on a phone of your "card" which is only 80lb cardstock paper and isn't anything hard at all to reproduce. Your test as I mentioned above is akin to accepting the validity of a home pregnancy test. It's great for you personally but we are talking about documenting legal proof. All these measures seem more about punishing certain people or bringing about compliance rather than protecting anyone. They are comical pretend protections.

I have no been here long enough to know where you live. I can simply share that it is profoundly different in some of the blue states including California where I live.

Do you have some sources for the natural immunity claims? I've read a half dozen articles and they assert it but never provide any citations, numbers or sources. They just assert it and then move on to the various vaccines, timeframes and efficacy against Omicron. I'm interested even though as you note, it might be for naught. (pun intended)

There is the question that should have been addressed in the past though... do we prolong COVID by hiding from it? Back when we were first "flattening the curve" it was well understood that you didn't change the total number of infections and deaths by flattening the curve and sheltering in place. You just picked WHEN and not IF you were going to get infected. The point was to keep the rate of infection below that which would overwhelm health services and thus have people needlessly "dying in the streets". Somewhere along the line that changed and people began to believe that by hiding you simply could wait out COVID. I don't think we need another round of that type of reasoning.

I largely agree. However the power made authoritarians seem to have other ideas. In fact I think you might have to ponder why almost all discussion of herd immunity has disappeared from public discussion while talks of changing levels of "vaccination", vax passes, and so on continue to grow.

I am firmly in the same camp as you. This will be an ugly winter and beyond that... COVID should be done in terms of pandemic level response. I agree with your timeframe as well. The point should be to discuss what happens when Spring and Summer arrive and the people with their emergency powers don't want to give them up and now start thinking of new rationales. I hope we are less scared and will wake up to that possibilty.

The few sources I have found are basically not even studies. They are assertions from some very preliminary numbers from one or two people out in South Africa. I'm not saying that to **** on their conclusions but rather to note how early we are in our understanding on this matter. Most of what I have read in the same vane for vaccines shows protection even when boosted fading in as little as three weeks.

Normal life? When have the vaccinated been allowed to resume normal life?

If anyone reads what I have posted above about the authoritarians and their control via emergency actions and questions it, just ask yourself how have the vaccinated returned to normal life. No one has been allowed to get back to normal.

 

I live normal life, and don't need people telling me that my life is not normal, and that I live in tyranny. If you want to feel that way, then so be it, but I'm not feeling it.

 

Did anyone else read the above as, "I live normal life, lieutenant Dan, and don't need people telling me that my life is not normal" in the voice of Gump?

 

Does the FL stand for Florida? If that is the proper guess then you are 100% right you get to live a normal life for now.

For us refugees in California, we need a little help.

 

Things would be a bit different if what is being inject was actually a 'vaccine'. Changing the definition doesn't make it fact.

Many of the injected still believe that they 'carry a lesser viral load', but in truth, they have no clue if they are carrying a viral load or not, as the injection they have received reduces symptoms (in the current version) to almost nothing at all, if anything. So they actually don't know if they are carrying or not.

That makes them just as bad, if not worse, then those who have not been injected and may also be carrying a viral load, but normally take at least minimal precautions.

So the blame for an injected person carrying, and transmitting a virus to someone who is injected, who gets sick, possibly dies is right up there on your bulletin board? I should hope so.