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> covid vaccines do not prevent infection This is untrue, see this site and the studies in the footnotes: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/de

> covid vaccines do not prevent infection This is untrue, see this site and the studies in the footnotes: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var... TL;DR: Vaccines are effective, though not perfect, at preventing infection with the delta variant

twstdsistrs84 5y ago
That's nice. Your politicized data contradicts less-politicized data coming out of Israel showing vaccinated catching covid at a higher rate than the unvaccinated. What are your thoughts on the CDC having different reporting criteria for the vaccinated and unvaccinated? For instance - vaccinated individuals have a lower max cycle threshold in PCR testing than unvaccinated. Additionally, many unvaccinated are forced to test regularly while vaccinated are not -- do you think this might also skew the data being published by the cdc?
angelzen 5y ago
> 10. Riemersma KA, Grogan BE, Kirta-Yarbo A, et al. Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Individuals Have Similar Viral Loads in Communities with a High Prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant. medRxiv. 2021 Jul 31; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.31.21261387external https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.31.21261387external Not particularly supportive of the thesis your are arguing for. Perhaps you could narrow down a bit the range of papers that support 'vaccines prevent infection / transmission' thesis?
- lamontcg 5y ago
  RT-PCR studies of Ct values only detects RNA loads and doesn't discriminate between viable virus and viral debris. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v... > Results The delta variant (B.1.617.2) was identified in the majority of cases. Despite similar Ct-values, we demonstrate lower probability of infectious virus detection in respiratory samples of vaccinated HCWs with breakthrough infections compared to unvaccinated HCWs with primary SARS-CoV-2 infections. Nevertheless, infectious virus was found in 68.6% of breakthrough infections and Ct-values decreased throughout the first 3 days of illness.
pwinnski 5y ago
TL;DR: You are correct! The counter-story seems to be based on radically misreading data out of Israel, which seems to show higher infection rates among the vaccinated, a reading which fails to take into account the incredibly high rate of vaccination there. So yeah, there are more infections among the 78% vaccinated than among the 22% unvaccinated. Given that there are 3.5x as many people in the first group, that's not entirely unexpected. As a percentage of the population, the vaccinated are still less likely to get infected, and less likely to deal with severe consequences.
- angelzen 5y ago
  CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection. As far as I can understand, this means 34% of vaccinated people develop a covid infection. I'm having a hard time squaring this with 'vaccines prevent infection' thesis. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious? (Yes, I'm aware the fraction is better against severe Delta infection. Yes, I agree 3x reduction is infection rate is a good thing.) https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210825/cdc-covid-19-vaccines-66-percent-effective-against-delta-variant https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021082...
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    > CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection WITH A 95% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF 26% TO 84% They only statistically modeled how much their unvaccinated population was already recovered from coronavirus based on estimates of community spread, among other issues with that number. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm And when you have a CI of something like that size, of course you wind up in the middle of it -- the actual value could very well be closer to 80% due to systematic uncertainties in the modeling.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Or 30%, to be fair.

twstdsistrs84 5y ago

That's nice. Your politicized data contradicts less-politicized data coming out of Israel showing vaccinated catching covid at a higher rate than the unvaccinated. What are your thoughts on the CDC having different reporting criteria for the vaccinated and unvaccinated? For instance - vaccinated individuals have a lower max cycle threshold in PCR testing than unvaccinated. Additionally, many unvaccinated are forced to test regularly while vaccinated are not -- do you think this might also skew the data being published by the cdc?

angelzen 5y ago

> 10. Riemersma KA, Grogan BE, Kirta-Yarbo A, et al. Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Individuals Have Similar Viral Loads in Communities with a High Prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant. medRxiv. 2021 Jul 31; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.31.21261387external https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.31.21261387external Not particularly supportive of the thesis your are arguing for. Perhaps you could narrow down a bit the range of papers that support 'vaccines prevent infection / transmission' thesis?

lamontcg 5y ago
RT-PCR studies of Ct values only detects RNA loads and doesn't discriminate between viable virus and viral debris. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.20.21262158v... > Results The delta variant (B.1.617.2) was identified in the majority of cases. Despite similar Ct-values, we demonstrate lower probability of infectious virus detection in respiratory samples of vaccinated HCWs with breakthrough infections compared to unvaccinated HCWs with primary SARS-CoV-2 infections. Nevertheless, infectious virus was found in 68.6% of breakthrough infections and Ct-values decreased throughout the first 3 days of illness.

pwinnski 5y ago

TL;DR: You are correct! The counter-story seems to be based on radically misreading data out of Israel, which seems to show higher infection rates among the vaccinated, a reading which fails to take into account the incredibly high rate of vaccination there. So yeah, there are more infections among the 78% vaccinated than among the 22% unvaccinated. Given that there are 3.5x as many people in the first group, that's not entirely unexpected. As a percentage of the population, the vaccinated are still less likely to get infected, and less likely to deal with severe consequences.

angelzen 5y ago
CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection. As far as I can understand, this means 34% of vaccinated people develop a covid infection. I'm having a hard time squaring this with 'vaccines prevent infection' thesis. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious? (Yes, I'm aware the fraction is better against severe Delta infection. Yes, I agree 3x reduction is infection rate is a good thing.) https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210825/cdc-covid-19-vaccines-66-percent-effective-against-delta-variant https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021082...
- lamontcg 5y ago
  > CDC says vaccines are only 66 percent effective at preventing Delta infection WITH A 95% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF 26% TO 84% They only statistically modeled how much their unvaccinated population was already recovered from coronavirus based on estimates of community spread, among other issues with that number. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm And when you have a CI of something like that size, of course you wind up in the middle of it -- the actual value could very well be closer to 80% due to systematic uncertainties in the modeling.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Or 30%, to be fair.