6 ms·

Subramanian and Kumar discover that COVID cases are not correlated with vaccination rate. But everyone knows that the vaccine doesn't stop you from getting infe

by twarge 5y ago

Subramanian and Kumar discover that COVID cases are not correlated with vaccination rate. But everyone knows that the vaccine doesn't stop you from getting infected; rather, it reduces hospitalization and case severity. The problem with this paper is not the result, but the authors' tone punching through, which expresses surprise at this result. This paper should have been rejected for revision on that basis.

jollybean 5y ago
Not really - the authorities are driving vaccination in order to reduce propagation, indicating that the vaxx is supposed to materially reduce R0. The authors are not making any claims about anything, other than demonstrating the rate of vaccination doesn't seem to affect the case rate. The most obvious thing I see is that places with lower case rates and remote not dense populations tend to be less vaccinated in the first place. I have family in rural areas with almost zero case rates and as a result they're just less concerned and less vaxxed. This is an important consideration for policy because it's generally not been about making sure workers have protected themselves (although that's one issue) it's really about preventing outbreaks. Looking forward to further commentary.
- cudgy 5y ago
  “The authors are not making any claims about anything, other than demonstrating the rate of vaccination doesn't seem to affect the case rate.” Seems like the reader can at least reasonably deduce that the vaccine does not significantly impact the transmission rate. Mainstream thought and dogma about the vaccine certainly takes a hit based on the observations made in this article. I already see comments dismissing the findings based on personal theories about lockdown impacts and other WAGS.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Yes, they are providing evidence that maybe the vaxx doens't reduce rates - but they are not saying anything about government claims or expectations up until now. And yes, this data would be damaging to mainstream dogma but it's only one article. My bet is the scientific reality is somewhere in the middle: vaccines prevent transmission, but not by that much. Public Health Policy is always going to err on the side of 'more vaxxes'. If the data really starts to show vaxxes not as useful as we might want for R0 (because one study is just one study), they will change their tune and back off. There are a lot of reasons this data could be odd, including the fact that spread is happening among children right now, so it could be related to school outbreaks, and, areas where there wasn't a lot of COVID previously. In the end, their messaging will primarily be driven by net cases and uptick: if we're seeing breakouts and growth of COVID in certain areas, then you'll hear about vaccines, if case rates stay very low, we'll get back to normal.
ndr 5y ago
It is really true that everybody knows that? Many people will still say vaccinated people get negative faster so, even if they were shedding as much virus as unvaccinated people, vaccinated people would still be less contagious. This seems the basis for a lot of the mandates, if it stops being true then covid vaccination becomes a matter of personal health rather than public health.
- makomk 5y ago
  I don't think it's true at all that everyone knows that vaccination doesn't stop you getting infected, especially in the US - there seem to be a lot of people over there that still think herd immunity though vaccination would be a possibility if not for the evil right-wing antivaxxers screwing it up for everyone, and most of the US mainstream media has been continuing to push that narrative. There was also a big pushback against outlets reporting any evidence that vaccines wouldn't be able to achieve this anymore.
- pzh 5y ago
  Are there studies that you can link to demonstrating that vaccinated people get negative faster? Genuinely curious.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210928/COVID-19-vaccination-reduces-risk-and-duration-of-SARS-CoV-2-infection.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210928/COVID-19-vaccinat... https://news.arizona.edu/story/covid-19-vaccine-reduces-severity-length-viral-load-those-who-still-get-infected https://news.arizona.edu/story/covid-19-vaccine-reduces-seve... Not hard to google?
- incrudible 5y ago
  Testing viral load is difficult, variance is quite high either way. This study found that during the crucial phase (first few days), the viral load is the same in the vaccinated: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v... This study found "no significant difference" in the vaccinated: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v... Moreover, a vaccinated person is less likely to be symptomatic, therefore more likely to be out and about, actually spreading those viral particles. Recent data from the UK shows that vaccinated aged 40+ are more likely to be infected. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019992/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_38.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... (Page 13) There is still a reduction in the younger age groups, presumably because those have been vaccinated more recently. > This seems the basis for a lot of the mandates, if it stops being true then covid vaccination becomes a matter of personal health rather than public health. The mandates are based on assumptions that have been proven wrong, you are now witnessing the inertia of authorities in adjusting policy to new information. Furthermore, blaming the vaccine hesitant for reality not living up to promise is politically expedient.
bko 5y ago
Wasn't efficacy originally defined as preventing symptomatic covid infections? > The mRNA-based Pfizer1, 2 and Moderna3 vaccines were shown to have 94–95% efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, calculated as 100 × (1 minus the attack rate with vaccine divided by the attack rate with placebo). It means that in a population such as the one enrolled in the trials, with a cumulated COVID-19 attack rate over a period of 3 months of about 1% without a vaccine, we would expect roughly 0·05% of vaccinated people would get diseased. Even if you consider Delta variant, we were originally told the vaccines were very effective: > The study said the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against the B.1.617.2 variant, first found in India, 2 weeks after the second dose. The Pfizer vaccine was 93% effective against the variant found in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, two weeks after the second dose. > Two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were 60% effective against the B.1.617.2 variant and 66% effective against B.1.1.7, the study said. It's fine if preliminary results didn't hold up, but lets not gaslight the public into thinking vaccines were never about not getting infected. [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00075-X/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [1] https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210525/pfizer-astrazeneca-vaccines-indian-variant-study https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021052... [EDIT] Updated link 0 to one that more clearly states the definition of efficacy
- chii 5y ago
  i think may be a lot of people assumed initially, that the covid vaccine is gonna be like other vaccines - it prevents the virus from spreading by making it unable to take hold in your body to spread.
  - bko 5y ago
    Isn't that what the clinical trials are for? I guess 3 months wasn't enough as places like Israel saw their infection rate go down a lot only to shoot back up recently as immunity wore off. Again, I'm okay with new finding. What I'm not okay with is this constant gaslighting. The media tries to pretend I don't remember what was reported 6 months ago.
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
> COVID cases are not correlated with vaccination rate. But everyone knows that the vaccine doesn't stop you from getting infected; I don't think that's what everyone does, or should know. In the strict technical use of the word "stop" you are correct. it is not 100% eliminated. But this is misleading, as the risk of being infected is much reduced by vaccination, as well as the "hospitalization and case severity". As others have noted, the behaviours of people also influences the infection rate. Lockdown without any vaccination, or no lockdown and high vaccination percentages might give similar infection rates.
n4r9 5y ago
A UK study found that a single dose of vaccine cut household transmission by up to 50%: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-dose-of-covid-19-vaccine-can-cut-household-transmission-by-up-to-half https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-dose-of-covid-19-vacc...
nojokes 5y ago
They did not demonstrate nothing, perhaps only that they stupid morons. If you take out junk data from Africa, you get clear relation for each continent. Take out 3 clear and explainable outliers: Israel, Mongolia and Malaysia and it becomes even more clear. Here is data have fun (see source for copy paste) Country Name Location People Fully Vaccinated % of Population Cases Per 1 Million People in the Last 7 Days Angola Africa 2.71 31.09011888 Argentina South America 32.42 636.3661061 Australia Australia 28.37 300.2921838 Austria Europe 57.65 943.9270195 Azerbaijan Asia 26.72 2268.729292 Bahrain Asia 62.31 339.1876085 Botswana Africa 8.66 1307.336771 Brazil South America 29.68 596.5323021 Bulgaria Europe 17.12 1313.100336 Cambodia South America 50.72 150.5920474 Canada North-America 66.93 536.6461776 Cyprus Europe 58.85 1800.665537 Czechia Europe 53.56 106.7643565 Djibouti Africa 2.37 44.90135173 Egypt Africa 3.08 15.0875239 Georgia Asia 10.6 5408.851208 Greece Europe 55.43 1661.114672 Hong Kong Asia 46.02 4.766444233 Iceland Europe 76.82 1202.819199 India Asia 10.9 182.8242777 Indonesia Asia 13.19 204.0875492 Israel Asia 62.51 6224.276933 Italy Europe 61.04 610.8587852 Jamaica South America 4.88 1408.45923 Japan Asia 46.85 932.0131544 Kazakhstan Asia 28.63 1694.397008 Kenya Africa 1.47 72.96442264 Kyrgyzstan Asia 6.89 160.3718091 Latvia Europe 40.99 760.6053562 Lebanon Asia 16.15 950.4884734 Libya Africa 0.84 1215.772624 Lithuania Europe 56.32 1277.388952 Malawi Africa 2.17 25.09201977 Malaysia Asia 46.5 3788.511754 Mali Africa 0.41 4.411258991 Malta Europe 80.22 577.1876773 Mauritania Africa 0.46 210.2569365 Mauritius Asia 58.81 1577.631401 Mongolia Asia 62.99 4745.768006 Montenegro Europe 29.45 5502.737835 Namibia Africa 4.47 332.7736861 Nepal Asia 15.73 316.0918378 New Zealand Australia 25.5 71.5954806 North Macedonia Europe 25.88 2276.894799 Pakistan Asia 7.99 103.9787184 Panama South America 37.92 748.3596682 Philippines Asia 12.71 943.3400713 Portugal Europe 75.01 1088.816271 Russia Europe 25.53 753.5568248 Sao Tome and Principe South America 5.32 255.1888397 Saudi Arabia Asia 42.66 37.46390845 Senegal Africa 3.29 35.18197046 Slovenia Europe 43.67 1348.424008 Somalia Africa 0.6 27.50695315 South Africa Africa 10.23 869.8911342 South Korea Asia 31.74 199.648441 Sri Lanka Asia 38 1477.394423 Suriname South America 23.13 2316.668863 Sweden Europe 56.97 568.6918876 Taiwan Asia 3.93 2.263675619 Trinidad and Tobago South America 28.51 860.0700882 Turkey Asia 43.94 1399.061291 Ukraine Europe 8.99 299.9989279 United Arab Emirates Asia 76.03 595.8313028 United States North-America 51.91 3039.054339 Uruguay South America 72.13 177.8975494 Vietnam Asia 2.78 820.9530543 Zimbabwe Africa 10.97 64.53677208

by twarge 5y ago

jollybean 5y ago

Not really - the authorities are driving vaccination in order to reduce propagation, indicating that the vaxx is supposed to materially reduce R0. The authors are not making any claims about anything, other than demonstrating the rate of vaccination doesn't seem to affect the case rate. The most obvious thing I see is that places with lower case rates and remote not dense populations tend to be less vaccinated in the first place. I have family in rural areas with almost zero case rates and as a result they're just less concerned and less vaxxed. This is an important consideration for policy because it's generally not been about making sure workers have protected themselves (although that's one issue) it's really about preventing outbreaks. Looking forward to further commentary.

cudgy 5y ago
“The authors are not making any claims about anything, other than demonstrating the rate of vaccination doesn't seem to affect the case rate.” Seems like the reader can at least reasonably deduce that the vaccine does not significantly impact the transmission rate. Mainstream thought and dogma about the vaccine certainly takes a hit based on the observations made in this article. I already see comments dismissing the findings based on personal theories about lockdown impacts and other WAGS.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Yes, they are providing evidence that maybe the vaxx doens't reduce rates - but they are not saying anything about government claims or expectations up until now. And yes, this data would be damaging to mainstream dogma but it's only one article. My bet is the scientific reality is somewhere in the middle: vaccines prevent transmission, but not by that much. Public Health Policy is always going to err on the side of 'more vaxxes'. If the data really starts to show vaxxes not as useful as we might want for R0 (because one study is just one study), they will change their tune and back off. There are a lot of reasons this data could be odd, including the fact that spread is happening among children right now, so it could be related to school outbreaks, and, areas where there wasn't a lot of COVID previously. In the end, their messaging will primarily be driven by net cases and uptick: if we're seeing breakouts and growth of COVID in certain areas, then you'll hear about vaccines, if case rates stay very low, we'll get back to normal.

ndr 5y ago

It is really true that everybody knows that? Many people will still say vaccinated people get negative faster so, even if they were shedding as much virus as unvaccinated people, vaccinated people would still be less contagious. This seems the basis for a lot of the mandates, if it stops being true then covid vaccination becomes a matter of personal health rather than public health.

makomk 5y ago
I don't think it's true at all that everyone knows that vaccination doesn't stop you getting infected, especially in the US - there seem to be a lot of people over there that still think herd immunity though vaccination would be a possibility if not for the evil right-wing antivaxxers screwing it up for everyone, and most of the US mainstream media has been continuing to push that narrative. There was also a big pushback against outlets reporting any evidence that vaccines wouldn't be able to achieve this anymore.
pzh 5y ago
Are there studies that you can link to demonstrating that vaccinated people get negative faster? Genuinely curious.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210928/COVID-19-vaccination-reduces-risk-and-duration-of-SARS-CoV-2-infection.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210928/COVID-19-vaccinat... https://news.arizona.edu/story/covid-19-vaccine-reduces-severity-length-viral-load-those-who-still-get-infected https://news.arizona.edu/story/covid-19-vaccine-reduces-seve... Not hard to google?
incrudible 5y ago
Testing viral load is difficult, variance is quite high either way. This study found that during the crucial phase (first few days), the viral load is the same in the vaccinated: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v... This study found "no significant difference" in the vaccinated: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v... Moreover, a vaccinated person is less likely to be symptomatic, therefore more likely to be out and about, actually spreading those viral particles. Recent data from the UK shows that vaccinated aged 40+ are more likely to be infected. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019992/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_38.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... (Page 13) There is still a reduction in the younger age groups, presumably because those have been vaccinated more recently. > This seems the basis for a lot of the mandates, if it stops being true then covid vaccination becomes a matter of personal health rather than public health. The mandates are based on assumptions that have been proven wrong, you are now witnessing the inertia of authorities in adjusting policy to new information. Furthermore, blaming the vaccine hesitant for reality not living up to promise is politically expedient.

bko 5y ago

Wasn't efficacy originally defined as preventing symptomatic covid infections? > The mRNA-based Pfizer1, 2 and Moderna3 vaccines were shown to have 94–95% efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, calculated as 100 × (1 minus the attack rate with vaccine divided by the attack rate with placebo). It means that in a population such as the one enrolled in the trials, with a cumulated COVID-19 attack rate over a period of 3 months of about 1% without a vaccine, we would expect roughly 0·05% of vaccinated people would get diseased. Even if you consider Delta variant, we were originally told the vaccines were very effective: > The study said the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against the B.1.617.2 variant, first found in India, 2 weeks after the second dose. The Pfizer vaccine was 93% effective against the variant found in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, two weeks after the second dose. > Two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were 60% effective against the B.1.617.2 variant and 66% effective against B.1.1.7, the study said. It's fine if preliminary results didn't hold up, but lets not gaslight the public into thinking vaccines were never about not getting infected. [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00075-X/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [1] https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210525/pfizer-astrazeneca-vaccines-indian-variant-study https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021052... [EDIT] Updated link 0 to one that more clearly states the definition of efficacy

chii 5y ago
i think may be a lot of people assumed initially, that the covid vaccine is gonna be like other vaccines - it prevents the virus from spreading by making it unable to take hold in your body to spread.
- bko 5y ago
  Isn't that what the clinical trials are for? I guess 3 months wasn't enough as places like Israel saw their infection rate go down a lot only to shoot back up recently as immunity wore off. Again, I'm okay with new finding. What I'm not okay with is this constant gaslighting. The media tries to pretend I don't remember what was reported 6 months ago.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

> COVID cases are not correlated with vaccination rate. But everyone knows that the vaccine doesn't stop you from getting infected; I don't think that's what everyone does, or should know. In the strict technical use of the word "stop" you are correct. it is not 100% eliminated. But this is misleading, as the risk of being infected is much reduced by vaccination, as well as the "hospitalization and case severity". As others have noted, the behaviours of people also influences the infection rate. Lockdown without any vaccination, or no lockdown and high vaccination percentages might give similar infection rates.

n4r9 5y ago

A UK study found that a single dose of vaccine cut household transmission by up to 50%: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-dose-of-covid-19-vaccine-can-cut-household-transmission-by-up-to-half https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-dose-of-covid-19-vacc...

nojokes 5y ago

They did not demonstrate nothing, perhaps only that they stupid morons. If you take out junk data from Africa, you get clear relation for each continent. Take out 3 clear and explainable outliers: Israel, Mongolia and Malaysia and it becomes even more clear. Here is data have fun (see source for copy paste) Country Name Location People Fully Vaccinated % of Population Cases Per 1 Million People in the Last 7 Days Angola Africa 2.71 31.09011888 Argentina South America 32.42 636.3661061 Australia Australia 28.37 300.2921838 Austria Europe 57.65 943.9270195 Azerbaijan Asia 26.72 2268.729292 Bahrain Asia 62.31 339.1876085 Botswana Africa 8.66 1307.336771 Brazil South America 29.68 596.5323021 Bulgaria Europe 17.12 1313.100336 Cambodia South America 50.72 150.5920474 Canada North-America 66.93 536.6461776 Cyprus Europe 58.85 1800.665537 Czechia Europe 53.56 106.7643565 Djibouti Africa 2.37 44.90135173 Egypt Africa 3.08 15.0875239 Georgia Asia 10.6 5408.851208 Greece Europe 55.43 1661.114672 Hong Kong Asia 46.02 4.766444233 Iceland Europe 76.82 1202.819199 India Asia 10.9 182.8242777 Indonesia Asia 13.19 204.0875492 Israel Asia 62.51 6224.276933 Italy Europe 61.04 610.8587852 Jamaica South America 4.88 1408.45923 Japan Asia 46.85 932.0131544 Kazakhstan Asia 28.63 1694.397008 Kenya Africa 1.47 72.96442264 Kyrgyzstan Asia 6.89 160.3718091 Latvia Europe 40.99 760.6053562 Lebanon Asia 16.15 950.4884734 Libya Africa 0.84 1215.772624 Lithuania Europe 56.32 1277.388952 Malawi Africa 2.17 25.09201977 Malaysia Asia 46.5 3788.511754 Mali Africa 0.41 4.411258991 Malta Europe 80.22 577.1876773 Mauritania Africa 0.46 210.2569365 Mauritius Asia 58.81 1577.631401 Mongolia Asia 62.99 4745.768006 Montenegro Europe 29.45 5502.737835 Namibia Africa 4.47 332.7736861 Nepal Asia 15.73 316.0918378 New Zealand Australia 25.5 71.5954806 North Macedonia Europe 25.88 2276.894799 Pakistan Asia 7.99 103.9787184 Panama South America 37.92 748.3596682 Philippines Asia 12.71 943.3400713 Portugal Europe 75.01 1088.816271 Russia Europe 25.53 753.5568248 Sao Tome and Principe South America 5.32 255.1888397 Saudi Arabia Asia 42.66 37.46390845 Senegal Africa 3.29 35.18197046 Slovenia Europe 43.67 1348.424008 Somalia Africa 0.6 27.50695315 South Africa Africa 10.23 869.8911342 South Korea Asia 31.74 199.648441 Sri Lanka Asia 38 1477.394423 Suriname South America 23.13 2316.668863 Sweden Europe 56.97 568.6918876 Taiwan Asia 3.93 2.263675619 Trinidad and Tobago South America 28.51 860.0700882 Turkey Asia 43.94 1399.061291 Ukraine Europe 8.99 299.9989279 United Arab Emirates Asia 76.03 595.8313028 United States North-America 51.91 3039.054339 Uruguay South America 72.13 177.8975494 Vietnam Asia 2.78 820.9530543 Zimbabwe Africa 10.97 64.53677208