4 ms·

You can walk yourself through the reasons why with simple math, really. Every disease has an estimated R0. The number of people an infected person will infect.

You can walk yourself through the reasons why with simple math, really. Every disease has an estimated R0. The number of people an infected person will infect. You probably have heard of this. Delta, last I checked, has an estimated R0 of between 5 and 9.5. Vaccination levels reduce that. And it's a simple equation. All you need to know is the vaccination rate for your population, and an estimated efficacy rate of the vaccine. And from that, you can figure the new adjusted Rt: rt = r0 * (1 - (vacRate * eff)) And that's it. And no matter what efficacy rate you pick (infection efficacy estimates for mRNA against Delta vary widely), the resultant rt will be less than the initial r0. And if it's less, then that effectively means that the disease is less contagious for that population, compared to how contagious it was pre-vaccination. And less contagious is better than more contagious. So now I am legitimately curious. What part of the above reasoning do you actually disagree with? (Incidentally, vaccination also improves your chances of avoiding future infection, even if you've already been infected.)

dude4you 5y ago
you argumentation is correct but misses a point. the vaccs may encourage new variants due to evolutionary pressure.
- tunesmith 5y ago
  That point is incorrect; discussed elsewhere.
dude4you 5y ago
Other ideas https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-vaccinated-superspread-hypothesis https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-vaccinated-supersprea... It is all much more opaque than the "get your vacc and your old live comes back" evangelists want you too believe. Corona will stay.
- skyde 5y ago
  Once everyone (young kid less than 5 years old) can get the vaccine if they want to, I really doubt Covid restriction will stay in place.
- tunesmith 5y ago
  I don't know what pro-vax people are saying "get vaccinated and your old life comes back", that seems a mischaracterization to me. The reason to get vaccinated is to protect yourself and others from the disease.
aero142 5y ago
I mostly agree with you but "And less contagious is better than more contagious." is a giant hand wave in a logical argument. You should explain what specific outcome in the longer term improved by this and justify that.
- tunesmith 5y ago
  The implicit assumption in that statement is that "less contagious" means "less disease" means "less casualty".
Jenda_ 5y ago
What is the efficiency against transmission of the latest mutations? AFAIK there is a great efficiency against bad symptoms, but much lower efficiency against transmitting the disease to others, but I don't know the latest numbers.
- tunesmith 5y ago
  (Copied from elsewhere in the thread:) Last I heard, the CDC gave a 95% CI of the mRNA vaccines being 26% - 84% against infection (from Delta), and there's an additional 40% - 60% protection against infecting others (I've seen that estimate in multiple places but I don't know the source). If that's true, it suggests an overall range of 55.6 - 93.6 effectiveness against infecting others.
angelzen 5y ago
Over the summer Florida has been in the news because of an ongoing epidemic spike. Using hospitalization rates, the spike started sometime in early July. By late Sept it is almost gone. The fully vaccinated rate increased from 48% to 59% during the same time period. Is the receding fully explainable by the increase in vaccination rate, or can we consider other forces at play, for example forces of outside human control that have been at play in every single epidemic before the vaccines era? https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/florida https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/florida https://data.democratandchronicle.com/covid-19-vaccine-tracker/florida/12 https://data.democratandchronicle.com/covid-19-vaccine-track... Edit: I plotted Rt as a function of eff, assuming r0=7 and vacRate=1. Rt goes below 1 only for values of eff > 0.85, which means that given the numbers for eff you gave in a different post "overall range of 55.6 - 93.6 effectiveness against infecting others", there are plenty of scenarios where vaccines by themselves cannot stop an infection wave even if the population is 100% vaccinated. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+y+%3D+7+*+%281+-+%281+*+x%29%29+for+x+%3E+0%2C+x+%3C+1 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+y+%3D+7+*+%281+-+... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solve+1+%3D+7+*+%281+-+%281+*+x%29%29+for+x+%3E+0%2C+x+%3C+1 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solve+1+%3D+7+*+%281+-... Edit2. For a 0.59 vacRate, there are some solutions for R0 * (1 - 0.59 * eff) < 1 with eff in [0, 1] and R0 in [0, 9], specifically there are solutions for R0 < 2.x Not going to cut it for 0.59 vaxx rate and delta, no matter how effective the vaccines are. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+1+%3E+y+*+%281+-+0.59+*+x%29+with+x+in+%5B0%2C+1%5D+and+y+in+%5B5%2C+9%5D https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+1+%3E+y+*+%281+-+...
- karakot 5y ago
  or maybe they're just reporting data creatively https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/pxizb1/oc_floridas_covid_illusion_the_worst_is_always/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/pxizb1/oc_... and it seems like it works
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Alabama, Georgia, Missisipi, South Carolina all show a similar profile: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/alabama https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/alabama https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/georgia https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/georgia https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/mississippi https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/mississippi https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/south-carolina https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/south-carolina Edit: Also Oregon and Washington, lest we suspect there is a grand RedState conspiracy at foot. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/oregon https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/oregon https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/washington https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/washington
1123581321 5y ago
This is missing the last step of calculations as any degree of lower r0 doesn’t necessarily prevent endemic disease. My understanding is that at this point, vaccines are about keeping symptoms mild and ICUs at low capacity through reduced spread and more effective immune responses. This seems compatible with the view that we will have to live with this disease for a long time.

dude4you 5y ago

you argumentation is correct but misses a point. the vaccs may encourage new variants due to evolutionary pressure.

tunesmith 5y ago
That point is incorrect; discussed elsewhere.

dude4you 5y ago

Other ideas https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-vaccinated-superspread-hypothesis https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-vaccinated-supersprea... It is all much more opaque than the "get your vacc and your old live comes back" evangelists want you too believe. Corona will stay.

skyde 5y ago
Once everyone (young kid less than 5 years old) can get the vaccine if they want to, I really doubt Covid restriction will stay in place.
tunesmith 5y ago
I don't know what pro-vax people are saying "get vaccinated and your old life comes back", that seems a mischaracterization to me. The reason to get vaccinated is to protect yourself and others from the disease.

aero142 5y ago

I mostly agree with you but "And less contagious is better than more contagious." is a giant hand wave in a logical argument. You should explain what specific outcome in the longer term improved by this and justify that.

tunesmith 5y ago
The implicit assumption in that statement is that "less contagious" means "less disease" means "less casualty".

Jenda_ 5y ago

What is the efficiency against transmission of the latest mutations? AFAIK there is a great efficiency against bad symptoms, but much lower efficiency against transmitting the disease to others, but I don't know the latest numbers.

tunesmith 5y ago
(Copied from elsewhere in the thread:) Last I heard, the CDC gave a 95% CI of the mRNA vaccines being 26% - 84% against infection (from Delta), and there's an additional 40% - 60% protection against infecting others (I've seen that estimate in multiple places but I don't know the source). If that's true, it suggests an overall range of 55.6 - 93.6 effectiveness against infecting others.

angelzen 5y ago

Over the summer Florida has been in the news because of an ongoing epidemic spike. Using hospitalization rates, the spike started sometime in early July. By late Sept it is almost gone. The fully vaccinated rate increased from 48% to 59% during the same time period. Is the receding fully explainable by the increase in vaccination rate, or can we consider other forces at play, for example forces of outside human control that have been at play in every single epidemic before the vaccines era? https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/florida https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/florida https://data.democratandchronicle.com/covid-19-vaccine-tracker/florida/12 https://data.democratandchronicle.com/covid-19-vaccine-track... Edit: I plotted Rt as a function of eff, assuming r0=7 and vacRate=1. Rt goes below 1 only for values of eff > 0.85, which means that given the numbers for eff you gave in a different post "overall range of 55.6 - 93.6 effectiveness against infecting others", there are plenty of scenarios where vaccines by themselves cannot stop an infection wave even if the population is 100% vaccinated. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+y+%3D+7+*+%281+-+%281+*+x%29%29+for+x+%3E+0%2C+x+%3C+1 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+y+%3D+7+*+%281+-+... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solve+1+%3D+7+*+%281+-+%281+*+x%29%29+for+x+%3E+0%2C+x+%3C+1 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solve+1+%3D+7+*+%281+-... Edit2. For a 0.59 vacRate, there are some solutions for R0 * (1 - 0.59 * eff) < 1 with eff in [0, 1] and R0 in [0, 9], specifically there are solutions for R0 < 2.x Not going to cut it for 0.59 vaxx rate and delta, no matter how effective the vaccines are. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+1+%3E+y+*+%281+-+0.59+*+x%29+with+x+in+%5B0%2C+1%5D+and+y+in+%5B5%2C+9%5D https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+1+%3E+y+*+%281+-+...

karakot 5y ago
or maybe they're just reporting data creatively https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/pxizb1/oc_floridas_covid_illusion_the_worst_is_always/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/pxizb1/oc_... and it seems like it works
- angelzen 5y ago
  Alabama, Georgia, Missisipi, South Carolina all show a similar profile: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/alabama https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/alabama https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/georgia https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/georgia https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/mississippi https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/mississippi https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/south-carolina https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/south-carolina Edit: Also Oregon and Washington, lest we suspect there is a grand RedState conspiracy at foot. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/oregon https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/oregon https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/washington https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/washington

1123581321 5y ago

This is missing the last step of calculations as any degree of lower r0 doesn’t necessarily prevent endemic disease. My understanding is that at this point, vaccines are about keeping symptoms mild and ICUs at low capacity through reduced spread and more effective immune responses. This seems compatible with the view that we will have to live with this disease for a long time.