6 ms·

It most certainly is the point. Many other vaccines also do not provide sterilising immunity.

by ppf 6y ago

Dylan16807 6y ago
That makes them a significantly worse vaccine. If you had a vaccine that only prevented spread, not illness, it would still be useful.
- ppf 6y ago
  Well, it's what we got, and it's how we plan to get out of this (apparently). Also, what's wrong with a vaccine that stops people dying?
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    It still allows the virus to replicate and mutate, potentially into a variant that is different enough that the vaccine no longer prevents people from dying.
    - ppf 6y ago
      Like I said - so do many vaccines. I suppose we need to all lock ourselves back in our houses for a few more years while researchers make a new vaccine for Covid-19, that does provide sterlising immunity? This is why creating a vaccine for coronaviruses is a fool's errand. This is all very predictable. We have to look at the actual harm being done, and decide if all this is worth it.
      - sharken 6y ago
        Indeed, some realism to the coronavirus aftermath has been lacking. If the vaccines do reduce hospitalizations and ultimately deaths, then we can live with it and can forget about vaccine passes and restrictions. Getting your optional and yearly coronavirus booster is a likely and realistic outcome of all this.
    - Symmetry 6y ago
      Sure, but your normal immune response applies the same selective pressures and allows order of magnitude more replication prior to that giving the virus orders of magnitude more chances to come up with a mutation to circumvent them. Even without preventing infection entirely vaccination still seems drastically better than the alternative.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    > it's what we got Citation needed. (And I don't mean citing someone that says "not yet proven") > and it's how we plan to get out of this Are we hearing the same news? There is so much emphasis on stopping spreading. > Also, what's wrong with a vaccine that stops people dying? ...? Nothing. Where did you get the idea I was saying that? Vaccines have two primary goals. If a vaccine only does one it's a huge downgrade but still valuable.
    - ppf 6y ago
      It's what we have, according to the designers of the various vaccines. Unless you are suggesting that all things are true unless proven otherwise, in which case I'd ask you to go back and check some books on elementary logic. There is some work after the fact to measure the effect on Covid transmission of the vaccines, but even that isn't very promising. It's odd when "stopping people dying" is "a huge downgrade". I suspect what you mean is that the vaccines in their current form will not get us out of the restrictions we are currently living under, which is true (and incredibly predicable).
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        > It's what we have, according to the designers of the various vaccines. Unless you are suggesting that all things are true unless proven otherwise, in which case I'd ask you to go back and check some books on elementary logic. That's not a citation. And vaccines are designed with a very general goal of "make the body fight this". That can potentually affect both symptoms and transmission. Don't argue in bad faith and equate that to "anything could be true" > There is some work after the fact to measure the effect on Covid transmission of the vaccines, but even that isn't very promising. Huh? Checking if the vaccine does anything at all is after the design is done. The choice of when to test symptoms vs. spreading is more about difficulty of getting the data than anything else. > It's odd when "stopping people dying" is "a huge downgrade". Stopping one person from a chance of dying is a downgrade from both stopping that and stopping transmission to more people that have their own chance of dying.
        6y ago
- Symmetry 6y ago
  Vaccines generally drastically reduce the spread of disease with needing to provide sterilizing immunity. If you just reduce spread by a factor of 20 that's enough to bring R0 down below 1 for almost any disease. It's a numbers game.
  - ppf 6y ago
    "just a factor of 20" is a huge number. At this point, it's not even clear if the vaccines stop you becoming infected in the first place, or just reduces your symptoms. In that case, a vaccinated person is no better for transmission than an unvaccinated, "asymptomatic carrier".
    - Symmetry 6y ago
      I chose that number because people who are infected but remain asymptomatic through their infection seem to cause 20 times fewer infections according to a couple of contact tracing studies I saw. It seems pretty clear that the amount of fluid you have to get from an infected person, droplet or aerosol, has to be inversely proportional to their viral load if you're to get infected. Current guesses of an infectious dose I've seen are 100 to 1000 virions via the aerosol route. We can see that different people reach peak viral loads that are orders of magnitude apart which helps make sense of why this disease has such a high k, driven by superspreaders whereas half of people fail to infect anyone else even without protective measures.
      - ppf 6y ago
        So if I promise to isolate myself if I get symptoms, and am not concerned about Covid, why should I get vaccinated?
        Symmetry 6y ago
        It's the people who remain asymtomatic through their infections who barely infect others. For people who end up becoming symptomatic their viral load and infectiousness peaks somewhere in the day before symptoms first appear. That's the one thing we've found about this virus so far that's genuinely weird. It seems to be very good at evading the automatic immune system but once the Interferon starts flowing the viral population starts crashing immediately.

It most certainly is the point. Many other vaccines also do not provide sterilising immunity.

by ppf 6y ago

It most certainly is the point. Many other vaccines also do not provide sterilising immunity.

That makes them a significantly worse vaccine. If you had a vaccine that only prevented spread, not illness, it would still be useful.

ppf 6y ago
Well, it's what we got, and it's how we plan to get out of this (apparently). Also, what's wrong with a vaccine that stops people dying?
- nicoburns 6y ago
  It still allows the virus to replicate and mutate, potentially into a variant that is different enough that the vaccine no longer prevents people from dying.
  - ppf 6y ago
    Like I said - so do many vaccines. I suppose we need to all lock ourselves back in our houses for a few more years while researchers make a new vaccine for Covid-19, that does provide sterlising immunity? This is why creating a vaccine for coronaviruses is a fool's errand. This is all very predictable. We have to look at the actual harm being done, and decide if all this is worth it.
    - sharken 6y ago
      Indeed, some realism to the coronavirus aftermath has been lacking. If the vaccines do reduce hospitalizations and ultimately deaths, then we can live with it and can forget about vaccine passes and restrictions. Getting your optional and yearly coronavirus booster is a likely and realistic outcome of all this.
  - Symmetry 6y ago
    Sure, but your normal immune response applies the same selective pressures and allows order of magnitude more replication prior to that giving the virus orders of magnitude more chances to come up with a mutation to circumvent them. Even without preventing infection entirely vaccination still seems drastically better than the alternative.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  > it's what we got Citation needed. (And I don't mean citing someone that says "not yet proven") > and it's how we plan to get out of this Are we hearing the same news? There is so much emphasis on stopping spreading. > Also, what's wrong with a vaccine that stops people dying? ...? Nothing. Where did you get the idea I was saying that? Vaccines have two primary goals. If a vaccine only does one it's a huge downgrade but still valuable.
  - ppf 6y ago
    It's what we have, according to the designers of the various vaccines. Unless you are suggesting that all things are true unless proven otherwise, in which case I'd ask you to go back and check some books on elementary logic. There is some work after the fact to measure the effect on Covid transmission of the vaccines, but even that isn't very promising. It's odd when "stopping people dying" is "a huge downgrade". I suspect what you mean is that the vaccines in their current form will not get us out of the restrictions we are currently living under, which is true (and incredibly predicable).
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      > It's what we have, according to the designers of the various vaccines. Unless you are suggesting that all things are true unless proven otherwise, in which case I'd ask you to go back and check some books on elementary logic. That's not a citation. And vaccines are designed with a very general goal of "make the body fight this". That can potentually affect both symptoms and transmission. Don't argue in bad faith and equate that to "anything could be true" > There is some work after the fact to measure the effect on Covid transmission of the vaccines, but even that isn't very promising. Huh? Checking if the vaccine does anything at all is after the design is done. The choice of when to test symptoms vs. spreading is more about difficulty of getting the data than anything else. > It's odd when "stopping people dying" is "a huge downgrade". Stopping one person from a chance of dying is a downgrade from both stopping that and stopping transmission to more people that have their own chance of dying.
      - 6y ago
Symmetry 6y ago
Vaccines generally drastically reduce the spread of disease with needing to provide sterilizing immunity. If you just reduce spread by a factor of 20 that's enough to bring R0 down below 1 for almost any disease. It's a numbers game.
- ppf 6y ago
  "just a factor of 20" is a huge number. At this point, it's not even clear if the vaccines stop you becoming infected in the first place, or just reduces your symptoms. In that case, a vaccinated person is no better for transmission than an unvaccinated, "asymptomatic carrier".
  - Symmetry 6y ago
    I chose that number because people who are infected but remain asymptomatic through their infection seem to cause 20 times fewer infections according to a couple of contact tracing studies I saw. It seems pretty clear that the amount of fluid you have to get from an infected person, droplet or aerosol, has to be inversely proportional to their viral load if you're to get infected. Current guesses of an infectious dose I've seen are 100 to 1000 virions via the aerosol route. We can see that different people reach peak viral loads that are orders of magnitude apart which helps make sense of why this disease has such a high k, driven by superspreaders whereas half of people fail to infect anyone else even without protective measures.
    - ppf 6y ago
      So if I promise to isolate myself if I get symptoms, and am not concerned about Covid, why should I get vaccinated?
      - Symmetry 6y ago
        It's the people who remain asymtomatic through their infections who barely infect others. For people who end up becoming symptomatic their viral load and infectiousness peaks somewhere in the day before symptoms first appear. That's the one thing we've found about this virus so far that's genuinely weird. It seems to be very good at evading the automatic immune system but once the Interferon starts flowing the viral population starts crashing immediately.