21 ms·

Israel data reportedly shows efficacy drop of Pfizer-BioNTech for delta variant

137 points by kleiba 5y ago

cfcf14 5y ago
I'm so exhausted and demoralised by this endless cascade of things-getting-worse. It's taking a really big toll on my mental health and there's no resources available in my country to offer support (and there's nothing to be done except try to learn to live with it, anyways). The future looks bleak.
- jl6 5y ago
  Give yourself permission to do two things: * Feel good about the things you are doing that make a positive difference, however small. * Don’t feel guilt about the things that aren’t under your control, however big. P.S. Nobody is in control and the only way big positive differences ever happen is because of the aggregate of small positive differences that everyone makes.
  - airhead969 5y ago
    Some people believe almost nothing is under their control. These people have external locus-of-control. They don't change the world because they kickback and let life happen to them. Mostly, it's religious types who think like this and say "it's god's plan." Bullshit. They're learned helplessness cowards.
- umanwizard 5y ago
  Things are not getting worse. The world is going back to normal.
  - makomk 5y ago
    Yeah, this is just what respiratory pandemics look like. Honestly, vaccination has been astoundingly successful this time around compared to previous pandemics, and even this news just downgrades it from almost unbelievably effective. The trouble is that the media in many countries has mislead people about how much control it's actually possible to exercise over a disease like Covid-19 in the long term and how effective measures have been in other countries and past pandemics, often so they can blame politicians they disagree with for failing to achieve that level of control.
- Quarrelsome 5y ago
  since the dawn of time its been possible to spin a bleak future at any point in history. In the 900s for example they thought the world was gonna end in 1000AD with the rapture.
- vmception 5y ago
  Then turn off the news. You need to look for actual signals such as availability of emergency services. Hospital capacity.
  - admiral33 5y ago
    I believe that when we are presented with a threat our instinct is to identify and classify it to the best of our ability. A comment on HN that has stuck with me: > Why Kids Love Garbage Trucks > This didn't address my favorite theory: that (some) kids are programmed to learn as much as they can about the nearby megafauna, and in this world the closest approximation is these big garbage/fire/construction vehicles. There is an asymmetry between the level of information we can collect in our immediate surroundings and online. The same method that kids employ to detect an unknown and quickly classify it as a non threat with the limited information they have available to them becomes paralyzing when the amount of information available is seemingly infinite. An endless number of threats, and an endless amount of information available about them. Before the internet and television, how many times would a person feel threatened in their lifetime before a threat materialized that ultimately took their life? What is that number now?
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Is it feasible to “turn off the news” in 2021? I’m not so sure.
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      Yeah it is, but it involves curating a lot of your online experiences and media consumption habits. It may involve losing contact with some of your online friends on social networks if they (re) post news. And with 'rona restrictions, "offline" alternatives / distractions have been limited.
    - bart_spoon 5y ago
      Feasible? Yes. But it certainly requires effort and saying now to things that are considered standard parts of daily life by much of society, such as engagement with platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
- 11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
  This research paper shows the vaccines are highly effective against the delta variant: "Conclusions: After 2 doses of either vaccine there were only modest differences in vaccine effectiveness with the B.1.617.2 variant." The efficacy drop was about 5-6%. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257658v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257658v...
- DangerousPie 5y ago
  Things are getting better, just not as quickly as one would like them to. I’d rather have people tell me the facts than lie and pretend like everything is fine.
- bad_alloc 5y ago
  Hey, we have a vaccine at least. If you feel like this make use of the fact that you cannot do much by yourself to change the situation. Sit down, avoid the news and let the world do whatever :)
- mmcconnell1618 5y ago
  Bill Gates had this book on his reading list one year and I found it helpful to provide a different perspective (data based) on how things are improving in the world. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RGR16DL/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RGR16DL/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... Remember that most media is built on the idea of capturing attention and it is easier to capture attention with stories of fear and disaster than it is with positive stories. 3 local acts of violence will get headlines while 300 acts of kindness will go without promotion.
  - toyg 5y ago
    I don't disagree with that view, but it's really hard to find positives from the rise of Covid. Everyday life was effectively mutilated for more than a year, we might have to coexist forever with an infectious disease that can debilitate us even after getting "vaccinated", and most of the Western ruling classes were revealed as incompetent buffoons just "winging it" from day to day. On the other hand, we can now mitigate deadly diseases in less than 12 months, as a species, although we'll be fleeced by pharma companies for the trouble.
    - deregulateMed 5y ago
      This new mRNA tech might completely change some degenerative diseases. My kid may benefit, although given the rarity of the condition and time to approval I'm less hopeful. Hopefully we stop trusting politicians, physicians, and scientists and start trusting Science and statistics.
      - minikites 5y ago
        >This new mRNA tech might completely change some degenerative diseases. For those who can afford it. Just another example of the rapidly growing chasm between the wealthy and the poor.
        deregulateMed 5y ago
        In the United States the poor get Medicaid, so it's really just the Middle Class who need to afford the $8000 to hit the max out of pocket.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  Things always seem to be 'worse than previously thought'.
- minikites 5y ago
  Every other reply to this comment: "Have you tried not being sad by being happy instead?" Sometimes the world does get worse. History is not a linear function of progress, there are many examples of generations which have been much worse off than the generations that precede them. It's time we re-evaluated society and how we care for each other because we're not at the end of history. Ruthless capitalism isn't compatible with our rapidly decaying biosphere. It's completely ridiculous how much wealth a handful of people have while the rest of us suffer under the USA's medieval healthcare system. We know what choices to make, we just refuse to make them because rich people might get mad. The world is getting worse, but we can ameliorate the biggest problems if we choose to do so.
- cfontes 5y ago
  Consider the big picture. Life is suffering with sparse sprinkles of happiness here and there. If you feel bad take a page from Budism, it's the best religion for your mind, and I am an avid agnostic. It's the "No bullshit" religion, basically it's your problem, fix it or learn to live with it. It teaches you to embrace suffering as part of living, everything is for you to endure, consider how to solve (or not) and grow. By solve I mean reflect on the outcomes and choose to do something, just accept it or just ignore it. The best thing you can do is learn to be your own support, by analysing the issues that throuble you and choose a path. Besides that We live in the best era human kind has ever had by a long mile. * There is food to survive for almost everyone, no famines in the last 100 years. * Big world changing wars have not happened in almost 100 years. * So much extra wealth in the world almost anyone can enjoy life a bit, have a hobbie, travel, eat out, go out, movies, theather, sports. * No cold war, no dooms day clock * Democracy, information is basically free. * Freedom to do whatever you want ( and face the consequences too) * Poverty is getting smaller by the day (yeah rich are getting richer but check 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800 or 1900 out for a good perspective on what being poor was) Basically we are the luckies people that ever lived, COVID or no COVID. Randomly pick to someone from any other year that ever lived, your life is better even if you get a king it's probably still better.
  - minikites 5y ago
    >Democracy is booming It absolutely is not, there are many threats to democracy right here in the USA. Many Republican states are passing massive voter suppression bills.
    - cfontes 5y ago
      I am not an american. I mean in the world, yours might be worst but check the other countries, in the last 50 years a lot of military governments and dictatorships ended.
  - airhead969 5y ago
    You're either a bloody liar, delusional, naïve, or don't have functioning eyes. - Famine in Yemen. Ongoing. - Famine in South Sudan. Ongoing. - Two years of drought in certain countries would push the world into global famine. Climate change weather patterns like Oregon/Canada and the ongoing mega drought in the US west and SW are just previews. - Millions and millions of homeless in America. I can see the camps and tents in every major city. - Standard of living decreasing. Real wages declining. - Mass shootings every day. - More prisoners per capita than any other country. - Doing absolutely nothing effective about climate change... which is going to kill us, most species, and the planet. - The threat of global nuclear war over Taiwan is very, very real. - Healthcare costs soaring, life expectancies plummeting. - There is no democracy, it's a plutocracy. The very rich own the majority of Western countries outright.
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  If you don't know statistics, it's time to learn. Coronavirus was never a big deal unless you were old, sick, or obese. Even with these demographics, it had a 1% death rate, the same order of magnitude as various viral illnesses. We really should have not blown this out of proportion. I think when people realized we could work from home, people faked fear to enjoy a mini vacation. Media loves fear. Politicians wanted to use this. Do we spend trillions of dollars a year on safer cars? No, but apparently if we use statistics we should.
  - dewey 5y ago
    > I think when people realized we could work from home, people faked fear to enjoy a mini vacation. Or, you know, people who have "old, sick, or obese" people in their family and maybe don't want to get them killed?
    - deregulateMed 5y ago
      Wear an n95 mask. The lockdowns didn't work. N95 masks do work. The overreaction was anti science from statistics to actual implementation.
      - iNane9000 5y ago
        Only properly fitted n95 masks, which require professional training to use properly.
        deregulateMed 5y ago
        I don't disagree. If we spent 4 trillion dollars on n95 masks and training, we'd have 1% more people alive and saved money.
        m4rtink 5y ago
        Also, all involved in close contact need a mask, as infected people with a mask are much less likely to infect others.
  - 5y ago
- bart_spoon 5y ago
  I think its important to step back and reassess how the bleak picture that is often painted differs from the reality of day to day life. One of the reasons it was difficult to convince people to take effective action like social distancing and quarantine is because even at its worst (in the US), most people didn't get sick, and very few that did experienced severe disease. For the majority of people, beyond the restrictions to day to day life, Covid didn't seem that different from a flu season in terms of the burden of the disease. Ironically, I personally have been pretty cautious in my interactions over the course of the pandemic, and as a result 2020 was the longest stretch of health my family has ever had. None of this is to say that the pandemic is no big deal, or that it was handled well. But the point is that between mainstream media and social media, the picture, not just of the pandemic, but for any given topic, is always taken to the extreme. Every new bit of information is evidence of the apocalypse, the collapse of society, and the impending extinction of the human race. Enemies are everywhere. Nothing can be trusted. You are always being taken advantage of. The dystopia is now. You can't even google symptoms for an illness, without, as my doctor puts it "discover that your stubbed toe is actually terminal cancer and you have six months to live". The reality is that there are definitely things worth being concerned about both as a society and individually, but very rarely does it live up to the "hype". I've found that the more I unplug and spend that time and energy engaging in my day to day life, the less bleak the world seems, and the happier I am.
- johnbaker92 5y ago
  Do yourself a favour and disconnect from your TV / media. Now tell me, is COVID still here now that the fearmongering is gone?
  - theFco 5y ago
    yes, I've been lucky to not get it. But many friends/family got sick. Again, so far I was lucky that they are all ok. But there were scary moments, and a friend (even if somewhat distant one) is in ICU in hospital right now. Covid is very much present in our lives. I did not see those things ont TV, and luck has played a part in the outcome. I don't like pushing my luck for a long time, it hast to run out.
- jollybean 5y ago
  " there's no resources available in my country to offer support" What did your ancestors do for 10 000 years up until public healthcare in rich nations? How did they stick it out so that eventually you could prosper? And FYI I'm not sure there are any public resources in most rich nations for this kind of support anyhow. We're over the worst of it, the data on D variant is just a warning to maintain vigilance. Keep your chin up.
- sjwalter 5y ago
  The very best thing you can do to help yourself AND help combat coronavirus is go outside, enjoy the sun, get some exercise, and do all of that with a big gaggle of family and friends. Try it. You'll be improving your own immune system, you'll be happier, and you can forget all this fearmongering garbage.
umanwizard 5y ago
Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  Remained how "strong"?
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  Isn't this exactly what we would expect? It's more or less similar to what probably happened with the flu in 1920. New flu variants were still popping up, but they weren't like the 1918-1919 type, and the mortality rate was much lower. Plus, I recall being told before the vaccines showed up that they would be better at reducing mortality than at eliminating getting sick at all. Now, if you thought you were going to just stay in hiding and neither get vaccinated nor get sick, and just wait it out, well that's not going to work (and was never a good strategy). Covid-19 is the new flu, it will always be in circulation, but just get vaccinated and get on with life.
  - Justsignedup 5y ago
    Ironically in NZ they have nether vaccine nor any remaining covid. Because they solved it as a community. Instead we created a global persistent pandemic. Cool.
    - umanwizard 5y ago
      Unlike New Zealand, most countries don’t think indefinite draconian restrictions on travel and ever-present risk of being locked down with little notice are an acceptable price to pay for a small increase in life expectancy. I share that viewpoint, and am very happy not to live in New Zealand.
      - datameta 5y ago
        Except there would be no need for an ever present risk of lockdown if every single country simply locked down for 3-4 weeks a year and a half ago. But no, muh freedomᵀᴹ and the economy!! are far more important considerations that certainly didn't turn out to actually be incredibly short-sighted. I'm lucky to live in a place with >70% vaccination rate. So this no longer comes from a place of grievance toward personal inconvenience. I'm shaking my damn head at the collective lack of wisdom that was exhibited in countries' responses, including my own. ̶E̶d̶i̶t̶:̶ ̶P̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶f̶r̶e̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶v̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶p̶o̶n̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶o̶p̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶.̶
forcry 5y ago
https://timesofoman.com/article/103697-vaccines-found-to-be-less-effective-against-epsilon-strain-of-covid-19 https://timesofoman.com/article/103697-vaccines-found-to-be-...
bad_alloc 5y ago
The critical info we are still missing: Effectiveness against long Covid.
- umanwizard 5y ago
  As far as I know, we don’t have good statistics on the prevalence of long covid symptoms in the first place.
- elif 5y ago
  In my case, remaining symptoms started disappearing after 2 weeks. By week 9 I could nolonger identify a single symptom. However the vaccine itself had weird and strong side effects on me for a month and a half.
  - EForEndeavour 5y ago
    Wait, so you had symptomatic COVID, then later got a vaccine? Or did you get COVID (with symptoms and a positive test) despite being vaccinated? In either case, how do you disentangle vaccine side effects from potential "long COVID"?
    - elif 5y ago
      I had mildly symptomatic covid while my wife had acutely symptomatic covid. Then I had a year+ of long covid symptoms. Then I got a vaccine dose and was very sick for 4 days and had painful systemic inflammation for 6 weeks, during which time my covid toes and tongue and cough disappeared. My second dose only gave me stomach pain for a week.
      - occamrazor 5y ago
        Did you have symptoms for 9 weeks (your previous comment) or >1 year (this comment)?
        penteract 5y ago
kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
The headline seems misleading. Isn’t the reduction possibly caused as much by easing of restrictions as by the Delta variant? > Israel has recorded a steep drop in the efficacy rate of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE in preventing coronavirus infections, due to the spread of the delta variant and the easing of government restrictions.
- Tepix 5y ago
  Makes sense. If a vaccination protects you from catching the disease after being exposed to small amounts of the virus ... once you remove the mask mandate you will be exposed to larger viral loads and may get sick.
- kleiba 5y ago
  A different source [1, German only] details that these numbers are based on observations from the last two weeks, and that 50 percent of the newly infected people had been vaccinated. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/asien/israel-studie-impfungen-delta-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/asien/israel-studie-impfun...
  - Aachen 5y ago
    The interesting info from that article: - Biontech protects 64% against Delta infection (not hospitalization or something) - No mention whether these 50% are one or two doses or with which vaccine
convexfunction 5y ago
I've lost count of how many times we've seen the same headline for different variants and relating to different underlying results, and this "less effective" headline always seems to get interpreted by people I talk to as "we'll be back to living like it's 2020 again pretty soon here" rather than the much more accurate "kinda sucks for us collectively but if you and all your close contacts get vaccinated (if!) then it's probably not enough additional risk that you should want to change your behavior". I notice that I'm also curious what their methodology for coming up with these effectiveness numbers is, and even the "original" public source at https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/rJQ1O5kp00 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/rJQ1O5kp00 doesn't seem to make that clear.
- convexfunction 5y ago
  After researching a bit and finding this: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/israel-50-of-infected-are-vaccinated https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/israel-50-of-... I'm wondering whether this number is a population-level observational result that has more to do with someone ignoring base rates rather than delta actually being much better at causing infection.
  - convexfunction 5y ago
    Re: downvotes: is there good reason to believe this interpretation is definitely wrong? I wasn't able to find any details on where this number came from, and while I'd like to give Israel's public health officials enough credit that they wouldn't make this mistake, I'm hesitant to actually do that without more than a few mystery meat "percent effectiveness" numbers.
vmchale 5y ago
This notably contradicts data by PHE (Public Health England), which was published.
oldgradstudent 5y ago
This has nothing to do with the variants. They've changed the testing policy for the vaccinated, so more of the vaccinated are getting tested. The efficacy was artificially high before because the vaccinated were rarely tested and therefore rarely reported as infected.
- chopin 5y ago
  Do you have sources for this?
  - damontal 5y ago
    anecdotal but my son has had cough and fever for the last week. we took him to the urgent care at the hospital and because he's vaccinated they didn't even bother with a covid test.
  - oldgradstudent 5y ago
    Started around April. For example (random Google search): https://www.google.co.il/amp/s/www.makorrishon.co.il/news/338713/amp/ https://www.google.co.il/amp/s/www.makorrishon.co.il/news/33... Vaccinated passengers coming from countries with the Delta variant asked to get tested again 72 hours after arrival. Since then fully vaccinated were asked to get tested on multiple occasions during contact tracing when encountering the Delta variant. To quote Prof. Ran Balicer (co-author of the 95% efficacy NEJM paper): https://www.haaretz.co.il/health/corona/.premium-1.9971759 https://www.haaretz.co.il/health/corona/.premium-1.9971759 > It is very difficult to estimate vaccine efficacy because coronavirus testing is done selectively.
  - oldgradstudent 5y ago
    A more official source from the Israeli ministry of health: > Notably, Israel’s SARS-CoV-2 testing policy was different for unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals during the study period. At 7 days after the second dose, vaccinated individuals were exempt from the SARS-CoV-2 testing required of individuals who either had contact with a laboratory-confirmed case or returned from travel abroad. This testing policy might have resulted in a differential bias that would cause over- estimation of vaccine effectiveness against asymp- tomatic infection (ie, asymptomatic people who received two doses were less likely to be tested than unvaccinated asymptomatic people). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00947-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00947-8
eggy 5y ago
I realize the article is specifically about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the delta variant, but even in more general articles about immunity, 'natural immunity' is left out of the conversation[1]. You can carry your COVID test paperwork and latest antibody test to show you are equally, if not better protected, however, it strangely is ignored. Or, a study by a vaccine producer (NOVAX), comes up with evidence that natural immunity is not as effective. Pfizer is projected to do about $15bn worth of business with a 30% profit margin by year's end [2,3]. I think following the money and opinions of certain groups says a lot about their motivations, and not the science they claim to perform. It takes 3 to 7 years to see some negative consequences of vaccines, and the COVID vaccines only have 7 months, since the first vaccine was given, and limited testing and populations before approval to vaccinate the general public. I hope for my family's sake and others, these side effects don't materialize. NOTE: Open a private browsing window to forego the paywalls/registration popups for the links below: [1] https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/92836 https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/92836 [2] https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/13/business/business-of-covid-vaccine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/13/business/business-of-covid-va... [3] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/covid-vaccines-pharma/ https://www.thenation.com/article/world/covid-vaccines-pharm...
- neogodless 5y ago
  > It takes 3 to 7 years to see some negative consequences of vaccines I tried some Google Fu but all I came up with was this: https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-vaccine https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-va... > The history of vaccines shows that delayed effects following vaccination can occur. But when they do, these effects tend to happen within two months of vaccination > These experiences demonstrate two important findings. First, when these events occurred, the onset was within eight weeks of receipt of the vaccine.
  - samatman 5y ago
    The nightmare scenario is antibody-dependent enhancement of a mutated strain of NCov-SARS-2, or a related coronavirus. It's impossible, of course, to test for this. However unlikely it might be (not keeping me up at night, to put it mildly), this would be a negative vaccine consequence which wouldn't reveal itself until whenever said related virus broke out into the population.
ho_schi 5y ago
Probably we shall take into account, that journalist like to spread bad news! Looking back at the previous variants, the vaccines keep working. This is good news! What will bring is into trouble are non vaccinated people which build a big resource pool for Covid-19 to become more aggressive. Lockdowns, removal of rights or masks cannot eliminate Covid-19 (so called short term workarounds) but the vaccines can make it rather safe (i.e. solution). What we need to get done is vaccinating as much people as possible, Covid-19 only mutates when it has a pool to do so. So it is stupid saying "I'm healthy and don't need to be vaccinated", you're just postpone a problem in front of you until it becomes worse - either for you, your loved ones, humankind or your rights. So two problems remain, stupid people and getting enough people vaccinated quickly - especially third world! We have to care about Asia, Africa and so on or we will lose. We get all vaccinated as toddlers against various diseases, sometimes it enough to not care about the illness anymore, sometimes we have eliminated the disease entirely and sometimes we need to repeat the vaccination (FSME/TBE). Clearly better than dying for preventable stuff.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bamboozled 5y ago
  > What will bring is into trouble are non vaccinated people which build a big resource pool for Covid-19 to become more aggressive. I've heard a different story from an interview with Robert Malone, the creator of mRNA vaccines [1] [1] https://www.bitchute.com/video/ukx8L3lh5CA7/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/ukx8L3lh5CA7/
  - ho_schi 5y ago
    The fact that the "Creator of mRNA" got a own Wikipedia page only two weeks ago makes me suspicious. And that his name is only listed on questionable websites. And I've learned that big things are usually not created by one person. The developments around mRNA are mostly attributed to Katalin Karikó, Ingmar Hoerr and Robert Langer - over a long time period.
    - 5y ago
zestyping 5y ago
As for reduced effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine, Beta and Gamma variants seem more concerning: https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/critical-intelligence-unit/sars-cov-2-variants https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/critical-intelligence...

137 points by kleiba 5y ago

I'm so exhausted and demoralised by this endless cascade of things-getting-worse. It's taking a really big toll on my mental health and there's no resources available in my country to offer support (and there's nothing to be done except try to learn to live with it, anyways). The future looks bleak.

jl6 5y ago
Give yourself permission to do two things: * Feel good about the things you are doing that make a positive difference, however small. * Don’t feel guilt about the things that aren’t under your control, however big. P.S. Nobody is in control and the only way big positive differences ever happen is because of the aggregate of small positive differences that everyone makes.
- airhead969 5y ago
  Some people believe almost nothing is under their control. These people have external locus-of-control. They don't change the world because they kickback and let life happen to them. Mostly, it's religious types who think like this and say "it's god's plan." Bullshit. They're learned helplessness cowards.
umanwizard 5y ago
Things are not getting worse. The world is going back to normal.
- makomk 5y ago
  Yeah, this is just what respiratory pandemics look like. Honestly, vaccination has been astoundingly successful this time around compared to previous pandemics, and even this news just downgrades it from almost unbelievably effective. The trouble is that the media in many countries has mislead people about how much control it's actually possible to exercise over a disease like Covid-19 in the long term and how effective measures have been in other countries and past pandemics, often so they can blame politicians they disagree with for failing to achieve that level of control.
Quarrelsome 5y ago
since the dawn of time its been possible to spin a bleak future at any point in history. In the 900s for example they thought the world was gonna end in 1000AD with the rapture.
vmception 5y ago
Then turn off the news. You need to look for actual signals such as availability of emergency services. Hospital capacity.
- admiral33 5y ago
  I believe that when we are presented with a threat our instinct is to identify and classify it to the best of our ability. A comment on HN that has stuck with me: > Why Kids Love Garbage Trucks > This didn't address my favorite theory: that (some) kids are programmed to learn as much as they can about the nearby megafauna, and in this world the closest approximation is these big garbage/fire/construction vehicles. There is an asymmetry between the level of information we can collect in our immediate surroundings and online. The same method that kids employ to detect an unknown and quickly classify it as a non threat with the limited information they have available to them becomes paralyzing when the amount of information available is seemingly infinite. An endless number of threats, and an endless amount of information available about them. Before the internet and television, how many times would a person feel threatened in their lifetime before a threat materialized that ultimately took their life? What is that number now?
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Is it feasible to “turn off the news” in 2021? I’m not so sure.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Yeah it is, but it involves curating a lot of your online experiences and media consumption habits. It may involve losing contact with some of your online friends on social networks if they (re) post news. And with 'rona restrictions, "offline" alternatives / distractions have been limited.
  - bart_spoon 5y ago
    Feasible? Yes. But it certainly requires effort and saying now to things that are considered standard parts of daily life by much of society, such as engagement with platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
This research paper shows the vaccines are highly effective against the delta variant: "Conclusions: After 2 doses of either vaccine there were only modest differences in vaccine effectiveness with the B.1.617.2 variant." The efficacy drop was about 5-6%. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257658v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257658v...
DangerousPie 5y ago
Things are getting better, just not as quickly as one would like them to. I’d rather have people tell me the facts than lie and pretend like everything is fine.
bad_alloc 5y ago
Hey, we have a vaccine at least. If you feel like this make use of the fact that you cannot do much by yourself to change the situation. Sit down, avoid the news and let the world do whatever :)
mmcconnell1618 5y ago
Bill Gates had this book on his reading list one year and I found it helpful to provide a different perspective (data based) on how things are improving in the world. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RGR16DL/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RGR16DL/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... Remember that most media is built on the idea of capturing attention and it is easier to capture attention with stories of fear and disaster than it is with positive stories. 3 local acts of violence will get headlines while 300 acts of kindness will go without promotion.
- toyg 5y ago
  I don't disagree with that view, but it's really hard to find positives from the rise of Covid. Everyday life was effectively mutilated for more than a year, we might have to coexist forever with an infectious disease that can debilitate us even after getting "vaccinated", and most of the Western ruling classes were revealed as incompetent buffoons just "winging it" from day to day. On the other hand, we can now mitigate deadly diseases in less than 12 months, as a species, although we'll be fleeced by pharma companies for the trouble.
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    This new mRNA tech might completely change some degenerative diseases. My kid may benefit, although given the rarity of the condition and time to approval I'm less hopeful. Hopefully we stop trusting politicians, physicians, and scientists and start trusting Science and statistics.
    - minikites 5y ago
      >This new mRNA tech might completely change some degenerative diseases. For those who can afford it. Just another example of the rapidly growing chasm between the wealthy and the poor.
      - deregulateMed 5y ago
        In the United States the poor get Medicaid, so it's really just the Middle Class who need to afford the $8000 to hit the max out of pocket.
secondcoming 5y ago
Things always seem to be 'worse than previously thought'.
minikites 5y ago
Every other reply to this comment: "Have you tried not being sad by being happy instead?" Sometimes the world does get worse. History is not a linear function of progress, there are many examples of generations which have been much worse off than the generations that precede them. It's time we re-evaluated society and how we care for each other because we're not at the end of history. Ruthless capitalism isn't compatible with our rapidly decaying biosphere. It's completely ridiculous how much wealth a handful of people have while the rest of us suffer under the USA's medieval healthcare system. We know what choices to make, we just refuse to make them because rich people might get mad. The world is getting worse, but we can ameliorate the biggest problems if we choose to do so.
cfontes 5y ago
Consider the big picture. Life is suffering with sparse sprinkles of happiness here and there. If you feel bad take a page from Budism, it's the best religion for your mind, and I am an avid agnostic. It's the "No bullshit" religion, basically it's your problem, fix it or learn to live with it. It teaches you to embrace suffering as part of living, everything is for you to endure, consider how to solve (or not) and grow. By solve I mean reflect on the outcomes and choose to do something, just accept it or just ignore it. The best thing you can do is learn to be your own support, by analysing the issues that throuble you and choose a path. Besides that We live in the best era human kind has ever had by a long mile. * There is food to survive for almost everyone, no famines in the last 100 years. * Big world changing wars have not happened in almost 100 years. * So much extra wealth in the world almost anyone can enjoy life a bit, have a hobbie, travel, eat out, go out, movies, theather, sports. * No cold war, no dooms day clock * Democracy, information is basically free. * Freedom to do whatever you want ( and face the consequences too) * Poverty is getting smaller by the day (yeah rich are getting richer but check 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800 or 1900 out for a good perspective on what being poor was) Basically we are the luckies people that ever lived, COVID or no COVID. Randomly pick to someone from any other year that ever lived, your life is better even if you get a king it's probably still better.
- minikites 5y ago
  >Democracy is booming It absolutely is not, there are many threats to democracy right here in the USA. Many Republican states are passing massive voter suppression bills.
  - cfontes 5y ago
    I am not an american. I mean in the world, yours might be worst but check the other countries, in the last 50 years a lot of military governments and dictatorships ended.
- airhead969 5y ago
  You're either a bloody liar, delusional, naïve, or don't have functioning eyes. - Famine in Yemen. Ongoing. - Famine in South Sudan. Ongoing. - Two years of drought in certain countries would push the world into global famine. Climate change weather patterns like Oregon/Canada and the ongoing mega drought in the US west and SW are just previews. - Millions and millions of homeless in America. I can see the camps and tents in every major city. - Standard of living decreasing. Real wages declining. - Mass shootings every day. - More prisoners per capita than any other country. - Doing absolutely nothing effective about climate change... which is going to kill us, most species, and the planet. - The threat of global nuclear war over Taiwan is very, very real. - Healthcare costs soaring, life expectancies plummeting. - There is no democracy, it's a plutocracy. The very rich own the majority of Western countries outright.
deregulateMed 5y ago
If you don't know statistics, it's time to learn. Coronavirus was never a big deal unless you were old, sick, or obese. Even with these demographics, it had a 1% death rate, the same order of magnitude as various viral illnesses. We really should have not blown this out of proportion. I think when people realized we could work from home, people faked fear to enjoy a mini vacation. Media loves fear. Politicians wanted to use this. Do we spend trillions of dollars a year on safer cars? No, but apparently if we use statistics we should.
- dewey 5y ago
  > I think when people realized we could work from home, people faked fear to enjoy a mini vacation. Or, you know, people who have "old, sick, or obese" people in their family and maybe don't want to get them killed?
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    Wear an n95 mask. The lockdowns didn't work. N95 masks do work. The overreaction was anti science from statistics to actual implementation.
    - iNane9000 5y ago
      Only properly fitted n95 masks, which require professional training to use properly.
      - deregulateMed 5y ago
        I don't disagree. If we spent 4 trillion dollars on n95 masks and training, we'd have 1% more people alive and saved money.
      - m4rtink 5y ago
        Also, all involved in close contact need a mask, as infected people with a mask are much less likely to infect others.
- 5y ago
bart_spoon 5y ago
I think its important to step back and reassess how the bleak picture that is often painted differs from the reality of day to day life. One of the reasons it was difficult to convince people to take effective action like social distancing and quarantine is because even at its worst (in the US), most people didn't get sick, and very few that did experienced severe disease. For the majority of people, beyond the restrictions to day to day life, Covid didn't seem that different from a flu season in terms of the burden of the disease. Ironically, I personally have been pretty cautious in my interactions over the course of the pandemic, and as a result 2020 was the longest stretch of health my family has ever had. None of this is to say that the pandemic is no big deal, or that it was handled well. But the point is that between mainstream media and social media, the picture, not just of the pandemic, but for any given topic, is always taken to the extreme. Every new bit of information is evidence of the apocalypse, the collapse of society, and the impending extinction of the human race. Enemies are everywhere. Nothing can be trusted. You are always being taken advantage of. The dystopia is now. You can't even google symptoms for an illness, without, as my doctor puts it "discover that your stubbed toe is actually terminal cancer and you have six months to live". The reality is that there are definitely things worth being concerned about both as a society and individually, but very rarely does it live up to the "hype". I've found that the more I unplug and spend that time and energy engaging in my day to day life, the less bleak the world seems, and the happier I am.
johnbaker92 5y ago
Do yourself a favour and disconnect from your TV / media. Now tell me, is COVID still here now that the fearmongering is gone?
- theFco 5y ago
  yes, I've been lucky to not get it. But many friends/family got sick. Again, so far I was lucky that they are all ok. But there were scary moments, and a friend (even if somewhat distant one) is in ICU in hospital right now. Covid is very much present in our lives. I did not see those things ont TV, and luck has played a part in the outcome. I don't like pushing my luck for a long time, it hast to run out.
jollybean 5y ago
" there's no resources available in my country to offer support" What did your ancestors do for 10 000 years up until public healthcare in rich nations? How did they stick it out so that eventually you could prosper? And FYI I'm not sure there are any public resources in most rich nations for this kind of support anyhow. We're over the worst of it, the data on D variant is just a warning to maintain vigilance. Keep your chin up.
sjwalter 5y ago
The very best thing you can do to help yourself AND help combat coronavirus is go outside, enjoy the sun, get some exercise, and do all of that with a big gaggle of family and friends. Try it. You'll be improving your own immune system, you'll be happier, and you can forget all this fearmongering garbage.

umanwizard 5y ago

Buried the lede: > At the same time, protection against hospitalization and serious illness remained strong. I.e., Delta is more likely to get you sick, but you’ll still turn out fine.

phendrenad2 5y ago
Remained how "strong"?
rossdavidh 5y ago
Isn't this exactly what we would expect? It's more or less similar to what probably happened with the flu in 1920. New flu variants were still popping up, but they weren't like the 1918-1919 type, and the mortality rate was much lower. Plus, I recall being told before the vaccines showed up that they would be better at reducing mortality than at eliminating getting sick at all. Now, if you thought you were going to just stay in hiding and neither get vaccinated nor get sick, and just wait it out, well that's not going to work (and was never a good strategy). Covid-19 is the new flu, it will always be in circulation, but just get vaccinated and get on with life.
- Justsignedup 5y ago
  Ironically in NZ they have nether vaccine nor any remaining covid. Because they solved it as a community. Instead we created a global persistent pandemic. Cool.
  - umanwizard 5y ago
    Unlike New Zealand, most countries don’t think indefinite draconian restrictions on travel and ever-present risk of being locked down with little notice are an acceptable price to pay for a small increase in life expectancy. I share that viewpoint, and am very happy not to live in New Zealand.
    - datameta 5y ago
      Except there would be no need for an ever present risk of lockdown if every single country simply locked down for 3-4 weeks a year and a half ago. But no, muh freedomᵀᴹ and the economy!! are far more important considerations that certainly didn't turn out to actually be incredibly short-sighted. I'm lucky to live in a place with >70% vaccination rate. So this no longer comes from a place of grievance toward personal inconvenience. I'm shaking my damn head at the collective lack of wisdom that was exhibited in countries' responses, including my own. ̶E̶d̶i̶t̶:̶ ̶P̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶f̶r̶e̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶v̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶p̶o̶n̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶o̶p̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶.̶

forcry 5y ago

https://timesofoman.com/article/103697-vaccines-found-to-be-less-effective-against-epsilon-strain-of-covid-19 https://timesofoman.com/article/103697-vaccines-found-to-be-...

bad_alloc 5y ago

The critical info we are still missing: Effectiveness against long Covid.

umanwizard 5y ago
As far as I know, we don’t have good statistics on the prevalence of long covid symptoms in the first place.
elif 5y ago
In my case, remaining symptoms started disappearing after 2 weeks. By week 9 I could nolonger identify a single symptom. However the vaccine itself had weird and strong side effects on me for a month and a half.
- EForEndeavour 5y ago
  Wait, so you had symptomatic COVID, then later got a vaccine? Or did you get COVID (with symptoms and a positive test) despite being vaccinated? In either case, how do you disentangle vaccine side effects from potential "long COVID"?
  - elif 5y ago
    I had mildly symptomatic covid while my wife had acutely symptomatic covid. Then I had a year+ of long covid symptoms. Then I got a vaccine dose and was very sick for 4 days and had painful systemic inflammation for 6 weeks, during which time my covid toes and tongue and cough disappeared. My second dose only gave me stomach pain for a week.
    - occamrazor 5y ago
      Did you have symptoms for 9 weeks (your previous comment) or >1 year (this comment)?
      - penteract 5y ago

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

The headline seems misleading. Isn’t the reduction possibly caused as much by easing of restrictions as by the Delta variant? > Israel has recorded a steep drop in the efficacy rate of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE in preventing coronavirus infections, due to the spread of the delta variant and the easing of government restrictions.

Tepix 5y ago
Makes sense. If a vaccination protects you from catching the disease after being exposed to small amounts of the virus ... once you remove the mask mandate you will be exposed to larger viral loads and may get sick.
kleiba 5y ago
A different source [1, German only] details that these numbers are based on observations from the last two weeks, and that 50 percent of the newly infected people had been vaccinated. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/asien/israel-studie-impfungen-delta-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/asien/israel-studie-impfun...
- Aachen 5y ago
  The interesting info from that article: - Biontech protects 64% against Delta infection (not hospitalization or something) - No mention whether these 50% are one or two doses or with which vaccine

convexfunction 5y ago

I've lost count of how many times we've seen the same headline for different variants and relating to different underlying results, and this "less effective" headline always seems to get interpreted by people I talk to as "we'll be back to living like it's 2020 again pretty soon here" rather than the much more accurate "kinda sucks for us collectively but if you and all your close contacts get vaccinated (if!) then it's probably not enough additional risk that you should want to change your behavior". I notice that I'm also curious what their methodology for coming up with these effectiveness numbers is, and even the "original" public source at https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/rJQ1O5kp00 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/rJQ1O5kp00 doesn't seem to make that clear.

convexfunction 5y ago
After researching a bit and finding this: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/israel-50-of-infected-are-vaccinated https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/israel-50-of-... I'm wondering whether this number is a population-level observational result that has more to do with someone ignoring base rates rather than delta actually being much better at causing infection.
- convexfunction 5y ago
  Re: downvotes: is there good reason to believe this interpretation is definitely wrong? I wasn't able to find any details on where this number came from, and while I'd like to give Israel's public health officials enough credit that they wouldn't make this mistake, I'm hesitant to actually do that without more than a few mystery meat "percent effectiveness" numbers.

vmchale 5y ago

This notably contradicts data by PHE (Public Health England), which was published.

oldgradstudent 5y ago

This has nothing to do with the variants. They've changed the testing policy for the vaccinated, so more of the vaccinated are getting tested. The efficacy was artificially high before because the vaccinated were rarely tested and therefore rarely reported as infected.

chopin 5y ago
Do you have sources for this?
- damontal 5y ago
  anecdotal but my son has had cough and fever for the last week. we took him to the urgent care at the hospital and because he's vaccinated they didn't even bother with a covid test.
- oldgradstudent 5y ago
  Started around April. For example (random Google search): https://www.google.co.il/amp/s/www.makorrishon.co.il/news/338713/amp/ https://www.google.co.il/amp/s/www.makorrishon.co.il/news/33... Vaccinated passengers coming from countries with the Delta variant asked to get tested again 72 hours after arrival. Since then fully vaccinated were asked to get tested on multiple occasions during contact tracing when encountering the Delta variant. To quote Prof. Ran Balicer (co-author of the 95% efficacy NEJM paper): https://www.haaretz.co.il/health/corona/.premium-1.9971759 https://www.haaretz.co.il/health/corona/.premium-1.9971759 > It is very difficult to estimate vaccine efficacy because coronavirus testing is done selectively.
- oldgradstudent 5y ago
  A more official source from the Israeli ministry of health: > Notably, Israel’s SARS-CoV-2 testing policy was different for unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals during the study period. At 7 days after the second dose, vaccinated individuals were exempt from the SARS-CoV-2 testing required of individuals who either had contact with a laboratory-confirmed case or returned from travel abroad. This testing policy might have resulted in a differential bias that would cause over- estimation of vaccine effectiveness against asymp- tomatic infection (ie, asymptomatic people who received two doses were less likely to be tested than unvaccinated asymptomatic people). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00947-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00947-8

eggy 5y ago

I realize the article is specifically about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the delta variant, but even in more general articles about immunity, 'natural immunity' is left out of the conversation[1]. You can carry your COVID test paperwork and latest antibody test to show you are equally, if not better protected, however, it strangely is ignored. Or, a study by a vaccine producer (NOVAX), comes up with evidence that natural immunity is not as effective. Pfizer is projected to do about $15bn worth of business with a 30% profit margin by year's end [2,3]. I think following the money and opinions of certain groups says a lot about their motivations, and not the science they claim to perform. It takes 3 to 7 years to see some negative consequences of vaccines, and the COVID vaccines only have 7 months, since the first vaccine was given, and limited testing and populations before approval to vaccinate the general public. I hope for my family's sake and others, these side effects don't materialize. NOTE: Open a private browsing window to forego the paywalls/registration popups for the links below: [1] https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/92836 https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/92836 [2] https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/13/business/business-of-covid-vaccine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/13/business/business-of-covid-va... [3] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/covid-vaccines-pharma/ https://www.thenation.com/article/world/covid-vaccines-pharm...

neogodless 5y ago
> It takes 3 to 7 years to see some negative consequences of vaccines I tried some Google Fu but all I came up with was this: https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-vaccine https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-va... > The history of vaccines shows that delayed effects following vaccination can occur. But when they do, these effects tend to happen within two months of vaccination > These experiences demonstrate two important findings. First, when these events occurred, the onset was within eight weeks of receipt of the vaccine.
- samatman 5y ago
  The nightmare scenario is antibody-dependent enhancement of a mutated strain of NCov-SARS-2, or a related coronavirus. It's impossible, of course, to test for this. However unlikely it might be (not keeping me up at night, to put it mildly), this would be a negative vaccine consequence which wouldn't reveal itself until whenever said related virus broke out into the population.

ho_schi 5y ago

Probably we shall take into account, that journalist like to spread bad news! Looking back at the previous variants, the vaccines keep working. This is good news! What will bring is into trouble are non vaccinated people which build a big resource pool for Covid-19 to become more aggressive. Lockdowns, removal of rights or masks cannot eliminate Covid-19 (so called short term workarounds) but the vaccines can make it rather safe (i.e. solution). What we need to get done is vaccinating as much people as possible, Covid-19 only mutates when it has a pool to do so. So it is stupid saying "I'm healthy and don't need to be vaccinated", you're just postpone a problem in front of you until it becomes worse - either for you, your loved ones, humankind or your rights. So two problems remain, stupid people and getting enough people vaccinated quickly - especially third world! We have to care about Asia, Africa and so on or we will lose. We get all vaccinated as toddlers against various diseases, sometimes it enough to not care about the illness anymore, sometimes we have eliminated the disease entirely and sometimes we need to repeat the vaccination (FSME/TBE). Clearly better than dying for preventable stuff.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bamboozled 5y ago
> What will bring is into trouble are non vaccinated people which build a big resource pool for Covid-19 to become more aggressive. I've heard a different story from an interview with Robert Malone, the creator of mRNA vaccines [1] [1] https://www.bitchute.com/video/ukx8L3lh5CA7/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/ukx8L3lh5CA7/
- ho_schi 5y ago
  The fact that the "Creator of mRNA" got a own Wikipedia page only two weeks ago makes me suspicious. And that his name is only listed on questionable websites. And I've learned that big things are usually not created by one person. The developments around mRNA are mostly attributed to Katalin Karikó, Ingmar Hoerr and Robert Langer - over a long time period.
  - 5y ago

zestyping 5y ago

As for reduced effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine, Beta and Gamma variants seem more concerning: https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/critical-intelligence-unit/sars-cov-2-variants https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/critical-intelligence...