People need to recalibrate vaccine expectations

https://www.yahoo.com/news/infectious-disease-expert-americans-must-184335144.html

The above is a short and important read; try it.

If you don't want to click on it and read it, here is what it says:

The initial efficacy data on Pfizer and Moderna set the expectations too high. Delta came to change that. So, it is clear now that with the much more infectious Delta, even fully vaccinated people are catching it (although still at lower raters than unvaccinated ones, and almost always with milder disease).

There is a delay between the virus entering the organism, and the secondary immune response (ready to go after being primed by the vaccine) kicking in and beating the virus, given that this is a virus that reproduces fast, unlike measles and smallpox.

So people can get infected and even pass it on to others... but they are still much less likely to end up clogging overwhelmed hospitals and dying, when their immune system primed by the vaccines goes and beats the virus.

Let's suppose, when the vaccines first came out, the publicity around them only said the following (similar to the flu shot): "take the vaccine; it won't absolutely guarantee that you won't catch the virus but if you do, it will be a much milder case and most likely you won't need to be admitted to a hospital and die."

Seen this way, all this publicity about breakthrough infections wouldn't be seen by the population as the vaccine not working. It is working where it matters: reducing hospitalizations and death.

 

So, the long sought after "herd immunity" is currently a non-achievable goal?

 

Yes, I'd say so. We won't eliminate this virus. It will become endemic and will flare up periodically (likely, more in winters). We will need the vaccines to be given from time to time, hopefully updated shots to new variants, like we do for the flu. We'll need to learn to live with this virus which is here to stay.

Herd immunity is not possible for a virus that has the ability to reinfect people who already had it, and to infect people who are vaccinated against it (even though the latter do still get significant protection from the vaccines, against hospitalization and death).

I mean, the concept is not foreign. Nobody pretends that taking a flu shot will prevent the person from catching the flu. We say to patients that they may still catch the flu but they'll be miserable for 3 days instead of being miserable for 7+ days, and won't end up in a hospital with a case of severe flu-related pneumonia or myocarditis.

That should be the approach for the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, as well.

I remember that when the vaccines were still in development, we set the efficacy bar for approval at 50%, and we said that if we were extremely lucky, we'd see at best the vaccines being efficacious at 70% which would be a blessing. Then Pfizer and Moderna shattered this ceiling with efficacy of 95% and 94% respectively, and people created high expectations. Delta cut this down to size, and brought this down to what we'd originally anticipated (about 50% efficacy being good enough as long as the vaccines also prevented most of the hospitalizations and deaths).

But to get the public to accept that, after the initial high expectations, is an uphill battle, so the poorly informed public is now thinking that the vaccines are useless. They are far from being useless; just, they are less efficacious than it seemed when Pfizer and Moderna first came out, with data that applied to the ancestral Wuhan variant, not to this more aggressive Delta variant.

 

Amen. This is what I have been saying all along. And, since the unvaccinated are kind of one set of mind, we need to change the message from it being a patriotic duty or doing to for the greater public good or doing it for others, to instead being, "Do it for yourself". The right get really, really annoyed with bullshit like, "My mask protects you and your mask protects me or similar messages on vaccines. Don't blow sunshine up their asses, tell them the truth that vaccines don't stop the spread of Delta, but explain to them that they need to do it for themselves and no one else and hammer it into them that everyone dying are the unvaccinated.

 

OK, I find this ironic. No one vaccinated is dying?

 

Besides, people should know that actually Bill Gates hid those microchips not in the vaccines, but in horse de-wormer paste ivermectin.

 

I don't think it's clear that Delta is "much more infectious". The evidence only suggests it is more infectious, not much more.

What's that supposed to mean, exactly?
It was not uncommon for vaccinated people to catch the regular version of the virus too, before Delta came on the scene.

 

Why are you highlighting this without comments? Were you under the impression that I was seeking to deny that fully vaccinated people can still catch it? This is known since even very early on, in the phase 3 trials, given that the initial efficacy of the Pfizer and Modern vaccines were not above 95% so 1 in 20 vaccinated people (5%) could still catch the virus. Delta of course made it more frequent.

 

That's the problem with Socialism. People's bodies are no longer their own, when we can justify making them do stuff because of the impact it might have on the healthcare system.

 

The question is how well is it working?
The answer is we don't exactly know with precise numbers.

All the numbers that we do have statistics for do not give us precise answers to this question.

 

People also need to recalibrate their expectations because the latest research shows the protective effects of the vaccine start wearing off after two to six months.

 

Well, it is a very small number.

 

What socialism? These vaccines are being given everywhere including in countries with right wing governments.

 

The idea that the impact of the healthcare system can be considered when deciding whether to coerce individuals to get the vaccine.

 

This research is not taking cellular immunity under account. Neutralizing antibodies present in circulation for sterilizing immunity are not all, if the person develops T and B memory cells. You're an anti-vaxxer so you'll zoom into any negative side and will deny and ignore any positive side. No surprise, here.

 

One doesn't need extremely precise stats. It is VERY clear that hospitalizations and deaths have dropped dramatically among the vaccinated. That's the vaccine working.

 

Hospital covered up Covid deaths in vaccinated patients

 

Given the absence of herd immunity there is a point to be made that coercing the vaccine is no longer justified. I was never for mandates anyway. But that's not to say that the vaccines are not extremely useful.

 

Again, you wouldn't miss any opportunity to be negative about the vaccines... Yeah, there are bad apples and some people screw up. It doesn't mean that ALL the people are doing it.
Do you think that there is a vast international conspiracy trying to hide deaths? LOL. The vast majority of the reporting is accurate. Exceptions, fringes, and bad apples will continue to happen like they happen in all fields of human activity.

 

CDC study shows 74% of people infected in Massachusetts Covid outbreak were fully vaccinated

 

By the way, your link doesn't work. Made-up? Wouldn't surprise me.

 

Oh stop it. This has been commented upon to death. This doesn't take into account the number of people who did NOT catch the virus and were fully vaccinated. As usual, the press never plots these numbers against the total number of vaccinated people. Local clusters and conditions that are superspreaders do happen and are hard to understand but this particular bombastic headline never looked at the denominator. These 300 some people who caught it in that beach party, were out of how many??? And out of how many in the whole state? Also, only 4 were hospitalized and nobody died. Your posting of biased material is by now well-known and very silly and annoying.

 

Look, @kazenatsu the issue is not how many vaccinated people catch the virus... the issue is, what happens to them in terms of outcome. Also, the issue is, out of how many? If 300 people catch it but it's out of 10 million vaccinated people in Massachusetts then it's a very different ball game, isn't it? But as a good anti-vaxxer you'd never approach the situation any other way except the way that depicts the vaccine in the worst possible way.

Also if 74% of people who caught it were vaccinated, what if only a few unvaccinated attended and most of them were in the other 26%? See how it all gets muddy if you don't know the denominator? Maybe, say, 100% of the unvaccinated people in that party caught it, while 33% of the vaccinated did, but since the vaccinated far outweighed the unvaccinated in attendance, you end up with this 74%.

I'm curious, are you being paid to do this? Because, you know, there are lots of scams of people going against the vaccine to promote lucrative "alternative" treatments. Your anti-vaxxing crusade is so intense that one wonders. No offense, I'm just asking a question: are you being paid? Or do you have any ties with the Kremlin? One wonders.

 

Your link doesn't work. Hey, I know there is a lot being swept under the rug that the left don't want the public to know but, overall, the vaccinations are tremendous at cutting down hospitalizations and deaths, and overall, the vaccines are relatively safe. However, I wholeheartedly believe that Americans should know the whole truth on both sides and be allowed to make the decision they feel is best for them without being blamed, harassed, intimidated, or discriminated against.

 

Kind of a pointless question. If he is being paid by alternative treatments or Russia he would never admit it. He would either lie or not say anything. If he was to admit it, it would render all of his post on the subject irrelevant and pointless.