9 ms·

Is this surprising? That’s right in line with the expected herd immunity threshold for the sars-cov2. Epidemiology works.

version_five 5y ago
That's the first thing I thought when I saw this (hopefully your detractors will explain themselves). It seems almost tautological. If you've accepted that the vaccine is effective, then it's effective when it gets used at scale.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  You're going down a dangerous road with that "seems almost tautological" perspective, because it is only one step away from "it's tautological, why bother checking?"
  - version_five 5y ago
    Interesting, and I agree. The opposite result, mass vaccination and no change in outcome would have been important news, because it's new and unexpected information. But news that a vaccine that is shown to work works is a much less interesting outcome.
  - monkellipse 5y ago
    Yes. Sometimes science seems silly for confirming things we think we already know. But if we don’t confirm them scientifically (especially when the stakes are high) we aren’t much better off than the magically-minded folk… Also, vaccine effectiveness in the real world is an important area of study, surely it’s good to know with higher certainty that the vaccine is effective against today’s disease, no?
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    It is not tautological. Vaccines are designed and created based on enormous body of knowledge gathered over the past century. We know it works for sure because of trust in all that knowledge. We know what viruses are, how they work in principle. We can use that knowledge to predict what is going to happen if we disrupt how they multiply or spread or gain access to our cells. That knowledge is not self evident -- it has been hard won by generations of scientists.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      >We know what viruses are, how they work in principle. We can use that knowledge to predict what is going to happen if we disrupt how they multiply or spread or gain access to our cells. I think that's a misapprehension of how drug development works in practice. The models can lead towards discoveries, but most drugs fall out of the pipeline due to being unexpectedly unsafe or ineffective. The "checking if it actually works" step is the most important part of medicine by a large margin.
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        What I meant is we know what happens if we have working vaccine. Meaning that working vaccine leads to less people being sick and that leads to less deaths from virus. As to the vaccine itself it is usually easy to come up with a formula that can disrupt the virus (any potent poison or lava flow can do that). The difficult part is that the formula must also not disrupt anything important. No amount of knowledge about virology can help with the second part, human body is vastly more complex than the virus.
    - version_five 5y ago
      I should have been clearer. I meant that if it was shown to be effective in clinical trials, then it's unsurprising that it worked when deployed in practice.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        The strains in the wild at the time of the clinical trials are different from the strains in the wild now. Furthermore, the trials did not test herd immunity, only direct immunity.
refurb 5y ago
No one knows the herd immunity threshold for these vaccines. Based on cases of vaccinated people getting Covid infections, this is just the vaccine preventing serious infections.
- standardUser 5y ago
  Vaccines prevent infections in the vast majority of cases, not just severe infections. Not why this misinformation keeps being spread around. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vaccines.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacci...
  - refurb 5y ago
    Your link doesn't contradict anything I said so I'm not sure why you are claiming it's "misinformation". A 90% reduction of infection means vaccinated individuals still get infected. That's what other countries have seen as seen.[1] 300 unvaccinated COVID-19 cases in current Singapore outbreak vs 78 vaccinated If vaccinated people still get infected (even asymptomatically or at a lower rate) then they can transmit to the unvaccinated. There is no sterilizing immunity therefore the herd immunity threshold is likely much higher than 75%. Basically if you aren't vaccinated, you aren't protected. [1]https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-vaccination-effectiveness-moh-ong-ye-kung-14869342 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-vacc...
lmilcin 5y ago
The anti-vaccine movement is not going to stop because these people are not persuaded by facts or arguments. Yes, we know epidemiology works. No, this proves nothing to people who do not listen.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tobesure 5y ago
  It's dishonest to conflate people who are hesitant about covid vaccines with anti-vaxxers. No amount of "listening" will change the fact that all three vaccines are untested (it will take time for manifestation and detection of possible long term side effects), and the two primary vaccines are novel technologies. The truth of the matter is that covid vaccination has its risks and they need to be weighed against those of the virus. And when you make an honest effort to perform such an evaluation, the choice is not quite so clear cut.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    > No amount of "listening" will change the fact that all three vaccines are untested They've had significant testing, similar to other medications of a similar type. Do you have an actual threshold you think would be a reasonable amount of "testing" and a reasonable argument as to why that is an appropriate amount as oposed to just picked at random? Or is this the sort of thing where someone could run a 100 year study, and you would still object, because what-if i live to a ripe ole' 150 and the long term effects only start 110 years later?
    - totony 5y ago
      Not parent, but I think it's pretty clear (at least) mRNA vaccines have not had "[testing] similar to other medications of a similar type," because they are quite novel and the first of their kind that has been approved for widespread use. (Aka they had testing, but not as strong historical real-world testing as others) As for the other available vaccines, I'm not as familiar, but they seem more tested (although less efficient afaik). Although they also have their risks, especially for younger people, which one may want to factor in their risk/cost analysis.
beervirus 5y ago
Moderna works. Pfizer works. JJ works. Chinese vaccines though…
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mchusma 5y ago
  Works? This study showed a Chinese vaccine worked.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- bsder 5y ago
  Except the first vaccines mentioned require functional cold chains, which a country like Brazil does not have. While things like the Gamelaya vaccine deserved the slagging it got, that in no way makes me any happier. We need vaccines like the ones from China and Russia that don't require negative stupid Celsius to store and distribute so we can get everybody on this planet vaccinated.
  - cromwellian 5y ago
    That's all well and good, but Seychelles is the most vaccinated country on earth, got the Chinese vaccine, and had another COVID surge, leading to a Chinese authority advising them to give everyone a THIRD DOSE of the vaccine. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56992121 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56992121
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - bsder 5y ago
      That's ... unfortunate. I was really hoping that someone was going to have a useful inactivated virus vaccine as storing and transporting those is much easier. It looks like J&J is going to have the field to itself for a single dose, reasonable storage vaccine.
paxys 5y ago
We know it works only because there are scientific studies confirming it. If we stop doing the studies just because the results are "obvious" by now, we won't know if/when something changes and our assumptions don't hold anymore. Not every new study has to be a surprise. Ones that confirm the status quo are equally valuable.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  Okay? Nobody suggested the study wasn't worth doing. But reporting on the non-surprising result as if it's surprising is weird.
  - ycombigator 5y ago
    The BBC is a state broadcaster, not just a news agency. It has social goals.
    - h0l0cube 5y ago
      What are ulterior motives you see here?
      - nexuist 5y ago
        Increasing vaccination rates? It shows that the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks.
bawolff 5y ago
My understanding is that the estimated range for herd immunity was quite a large range, from 60-90%. I suppose 75 is right in the middle of that, but given the big range, getting more data seemed prudent. Edit: i missed that we're talking about CoronaVac, where the range i cited was for a different vaccine.
- totony 5y ago
  75% seemed to be from immune people (from that nature article that showcased the maths). It's curious to me a 50%(correct me if I'm wrong) efficiency vaccine would work at 75%. I guess they had some natural immunity already? EDIT: Nevermind, it would work anyway because the vaccines prevent more dangerous effects. So if you vaccinate at-risk people, ofc your deaths would lower
  - h0l0cube 5y ago
    > It's curious to me a 50%(correct me if I'm wrong) efficiency vaccine From the article that's the lowest estimate: > The results of the experiment could give a boost to the CoronaVac, which is being used by dozens of developing countries. There was some controversy about the vaccine this year, after clinical trials in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey put its efficacy in a range of 50% to 90%.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    75% of population getting a vaccine with 50% efficacy could induce heard immunity, it depends what the reproduction rate is. Covid has a fairly high reproduction rate so it seems unlikely (although the 50% number might be incorrect), but as a general principle its possible for 75% of pop with 50% efficacy to trigger heard immunity if the viruses reproduction rate was low enough.
    - mjevans 5y ago
      Mixed with other efforts, E.G. masking and social distancing, create sufficient reduction to make previously stalling campaigns sufficiently effective. Maybe enough to strangle the disease out if those other measures are held long enough.
smnrchrds 5y ago
> Is this surprising? To an extent. Just a couple of weeks ago, this was in the news: "Why the world’s most vaccinated country is seeing an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases" [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/06/seychelles-vaccines-covid-cases/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/06/seychelles-v...
- adventured 5y ago
  Britain - which is of course highly vaccinated - is seeing recent small (so far) problems with spikes as well [1], due to the Delta (India B.1.617.2) variant now spreading there. There doesn't seem to be much consensus as to what a high-vaccination (and, in theory, high herd immunity) location like Britain might expect against that variant. The US will find out pretty soon how the mRNA vaccines hold up against it, as I imagine it'll blanket the US in the coming months. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/scientists-call-uk-speed-up-second-covid-jabs-india-variant-spreads https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/scientists-cal...
ufo 5y ago
It's not surprising, but it's very good to see an experiment confirming that prediction.
apatheticonion 5y ago
> Epidemiology works. Not according to my colleagues who, to my frustration, believe podcasts are more credible than scientific literature. Which surprised me. They are intelligent people, how does that happen?

version_five 5y ago

That's the first thing I thought when I saw this (hopefully your detractors will explain themselves). It seems almost tautological. If you've accepted that the vaccine is effective, then it's effective when it gets used at scale.

whatshisface 5y ago
You're going down a dangerous road with that "seems almost tautological" perspective, because it is only one step away from "it's tautological, why bother checking?"
- version_five 5y ago
  Interesting, and I agree. The opposite result, mass vaccination and no change in outcome would have been important news, because it's new and unexpected information. But news that a vaccine that is shown to work works is a much less interesting outcome.
- monkellipse 5y ago
  Yes. Sometimes science seems silly for confirming things we think we already know. But if we don’t confirm them scientifically (especially when the stakes are high) we aren’t much better off than the magically-minded folk… Also, vaccine effectiveness in the real world is an important area of study, surely it’s good to know with higher certainty that the vaccine is effective against today’s disease, no?
- lmilcin 5y ago
  It is not tautological. Vaccines are designed and created based on enormous body of knowledge gathered over the past century. We know it works for sure because of trust in all that knowledge. We know what viruses are, how they work in principle. We can use that knowledge to predict what is going to happen if we disrupt how they multiply or spread or gain access to our cells. That knowledge is not self evident -- it has been hard won by generations of scientists.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    >We know what viruses are, how they work in principle. We can use that knowledge to predict what is going to happen if we disrupt how they multiply or spread or gain access to our cells. I think that's a misapprehension of how drug development works in practice. The models can lead towards discoveries, but most drugs fall out of the pipeline due to being unexpectedly unsafe or ineffective. The "checking if it actually works" step is the most important part of medicine by a large margin.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      What I meant is we know what happens if we have working vaccine. Meaning that working vaccine leads to less people being sick and that leads to less deaths from virus. As to the vaccine itself it is usually easy to come up with a formula that can disrupt the virus (any potent poison or lava flow can do that). The difficult part is that the formula must also not disrupt anything important. No amount of knowledge about virology can help with the second part, human body is vastly more complex than the virus.
  - version_five 5y ago
    I should have been clearer. I meant that if it was shown to be effective in clinical trials, then it's unsurprising that it worked when deployed in practice.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      The strains in the wild at the time of the clinical trials are different from the strains in the wild now. Furthermore, the trials did not test herd immunity, only direct immunity.

refurb 5y ago

No one knows the herd immunity threshold for these vaccines. Based on cases of vaccinated people getting Covid infections, this is just the vaccine preventing serious infections.

standardUser 5y ago
Vaccines prevent infections in the vast majority of cases, not just severe infections. Not why this misinformation keeps being spread around. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vaccines.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacci...
- refurb 5y ago
  Your link doesn't contradict anything I said so I'm not sure why you are claiming it's "misinformation". A 90% reduction of infection means vaccinated individuals still get infected. That's what other countries have seen as seen.[1] 300 unvaccinated COVID-19 cases in current Singapore outbreak vs 78 vaccinated If vaccinated people still get infected (even asymptomatically or at a lower rate) then they can transmit to the unvaccinated. There is no sterilizing immunity therefore the herd immunity threshold is likely much higher than 75%. Basically if you aren't vaccinated, you aren't protected. [1]https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-vaccination-effectiveness-moh-ong-ye-kung-14869342 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-vacc...

lmilcin 5y ago

The anti-vaccine movement is not going to stop because these people are not persuaded by facts or arguments. Yes, we know epidemiology works. No, this proves nothing to people who do not listen.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tobesure 5y ago
It's dishonest to conflate people who are hesitant about covid vaccines with anti-vaxxers. No amount of "listening" will change the fact that all three vaccines are untested (it will take time for manifestation and detection of possible long term side effects), and the two primary vaccines are novel technologies. The truth of the matter is that covid vaccination has its risks and they need to be weighed against those of the virus. And when you make an honest effort to perform such an evaluation, the choice is not quite so clear cut.
- bawolff 5y ago
  > No amount of "listening" will change the fact that all three vaccines are untested They've had significant testing, similar to other medications of a similar type. Do you have an actual threshold you think would be a reasonable amount of "testing" and a reasonable argument as to why that is an appropriate amount as oposed to just picked at random? Or is this the sort of thing where someone could run a 100 year study, and you would still object, because what-if i live to a ripe ole' 150 and the long term effects only start 110 years later?
  - totony 5y ago
    Not parent, but I think it's pretty clear (at least) mRNA vaccines have not had "[testing] similar to other medications of a similar type," because they are quite novel and the first of their kind that has been approved for widespread use. (Aka they had testing, but not as strong historical real-world testing as others) As for the other available vaccines, I'm not as familiar, but they seem more tested (although less efficient afaik). Although they also have their risks, especially for younger people, which one may want to factor in their risk/cost analysis.

beervirus 5y ago

Moderna works. Pfizer works. JJ works. Chinese vaccines though…

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mchusma 5y ago
Works? This study showed a Chinese vaccine worked.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bsder 5y ago
Except the first vaccines mentioned require functional cold chains, which a country like Brazil does not have. While things like the Gamelaya vaccine deserved the slagging it got, that in no way makes me any happier. We need vaccines like the ones from China and Russia that don't require negative stupid Celsius to store and distribute so we can get everybody on this planet vaccinated.
- cromwellian 5y ago
  That's all well and good, but Seychelles is the most vaccinated country on earth, got the Chinese vaccine, and had another COVID surge, leading to a Chinese authority advising them to give everyone a THIRD DOSE of the vaccine. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56992121 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56992121
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bsder 5y ago
    That's ... unfortunate. I was really hoping that someone was going to have a useful inactivated virus vaccine as storing and transporting those is much easier. It looks like J&J is going to have the field to itself for a single dose, reasonable storage vaccine.

paxys 5y ago

We know it works only because there are scientific studies confirming it. If we stop doing the studies just because the results are "obvious" by now, we won't know if/when something changes and our assumptions don't hold anymore. Not every new study has to be a surprise. Ones that confirm the status quo are equally valuable.

Dylan16807 5y ago
Okay? Nobody suggested the study wasn't worth doing. But reporting on the non-surprising result as if it's surprising is weird.
- ycombigator 5y ago
  The BBC is a state broadcaster, not just a news agency. It has social goals.
  - h0l0cube 5y ago
    What are ulterior motives you see here?
    - nexuist 5y ago
      Increasing vaccination rates? It shows that the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks.

bawolff 5y ago

My understanding is that the estimated range for herd immunity was quite a large range, from 60-90%. I suppose 75 is right in the middle of that, but given the big range, getting more data seemed prudent. Edit: i missed that we're talking about CoronaVac, where the range i cited was for a different vaccine.

totony 5y ago
75% seemed to be from immune people (from that nature article that showcased the maths). It's curious to me a 50%(correct me if I'm wrong) efficiency vaccine would work at 75%. I guess they had some natural immunity already? EDIT: Nevermind, it would work anyway because the vaccines prevent more dangerous effects. So if you vaccinate at-risk people, ofc your deaths would lower
- h0l0cube 5y ago
  > It's curious to me a 50%(correct me if I'm wrong) efficiency vaccine From the article that's the lowest estimate: > The results of the experiment could give a boost to the CoronaVac, which is being used by dozens of developing countries. There was some controversy about the vaccine this year, after clinical trials in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey put its efficacy in a range of 50% to 90%.
- bawolff 5y ago
  75% of population getting a vaccine with 50% efficacy could induce heard immunity, it depends what the reproduction rate is. Covid has a fairly high reproduction rate so it seems unlikely (although the 50% number might be incorrect), but as a general principle its possible for 75% of pop with 50% efficacy to trigger heard immunity if the viruses reproduction rate was low enough.
  - mjevans 5y ago
    Mixed with other efforts, E.G. masking and social distancing, create sufficient reduction to make previously stalling campaigns sufficiently effective. Maybe enough to strangle the disease out if those other measures are held long enough.

smnrchrds 5y ago

> Is this surprising? To an extent. Just a couple of weeks ago, this was in the news: "Why the world’s most vaccinated country is seeing an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases" [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/06/seychelles-vaccines-covid-cases/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/06/seychelles-v...

adventured 5y ago
Britain - which is of course highly vaccinated - is seeing recent small (so far) problems with spikes as well [1], due to the Delta (India B.1.617.2) variant now spreading there. There doesn't seem to be much consensus as to what a high-vaccination (and, in theory, high herd immunity) location like Britain might expect against that variant. The US will find out pretty soon how the mRNA vaccines hold up against it, as I imagine it'll blanket the US in the coming months. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/scientists-call-uk-speed-up-second-covid-jabs-india-variant-spreads https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/scientists-cal...

ufo 5y ago

It's not surprising, but it's very good to see an experiment confirming that prediction.

apatheticonion 5y ago

> Epidemiology works. Not according to my colleagues who, to my frustration, believe podcasts are more credible than scientific literature. Which surprised me. They are intelligent people, how does that happen?