11 ms·

Covid vaxx efficacy after 8 months

63 points by newbamboo 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
maxk42 5y ago
> breakthrough infection increased risk of death Can someone explain this to me? What is "breakthrough infection"?
- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  You could just Google it
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  A breakthrough infection is just a COVID case in someone who's been vaccinated. In that particular sentence they're just saying that people who developed a breakthrough infection did have a nonzero risk of death, but the vaccines were still fairly protective.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  "Breakthrough infection" means tested positive for COVID despite vaccination. However, it's important to note that "breakthrough infection" is different from "breakthrough disease". It is possible, and likely common with the delta variant, to be a carrier with zero symptoms.
- jffry 5y ago
  "A breakthrough infection is a case of illness in which a vaccinated individual becomes sick from the same illness that the vaccine is meant to prevent. Simply, they occur when vaccines fail to provide immunity against the pathogen they are designed to target." via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_infection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_infection As far as "breakthrough infection increased risk of death", that's explained a little further down on the page in the article linked here on HN: Risk of death after SARS-CoV-2 infection was highest in unvaccinated Veterans regardless of age and comorbidity (Fig. 3). However, breakthrough infections were not benign, as shown by the higher risk of death in fully vaccinated Veterans who became infected compared to vaccinated Veterans who remained infection-free. This is a pretty long-winded way of saying that some people who were vaccinated still became infected, and some of those infected people did die. The importance of a study like this is to understand how the efficacy of the vaccine holds up over time, which can help inform public health recommendations and policy-making decisions.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    > However, breakthrough infections were not benign, as shown by the higher risk of death in fully vaccinated Veterans who became infected compared to vaccinated Veterans who remained infection-free. This seems to be a longwinded way of saying that it's better not to get Covid than to get Covid, regardless of whether you're vaccinated or not.
hanoz 5y ago
Wherever you stand on the debate I think it's hard to deny that the vaccines have turned out to be a lot less effective than we were initially led to believe.
- felixgallo 5y ago
  Ridiculous. Vaccines have turned the tide.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - disambiguation 5y ago
    We don't have much to compare against since the vaccine is so ubiquitous at this point, but I would bet Delta did more to turn the tide by out competing the original deadly variant. The vaccine certainly helped, but the tide would have turned regardless. The Amish are a good example of a completely unvaccinated community that "beat" Covid.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      > We don't have much to compare against since the vaccine is so ubiquitous at this point, but I would bet Delta did more to turn the tide by out competing the original deadly variant. We can compare areas of low versus high rates of vaccinations: > The incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, and death is higher in unvaccinated than vaccinated persons, and the incidence rate ratios are related to vaccine effectiveness. * https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm > The Amish are a good example of a completely unvaccinated community that "beat" Covid. This works well if you're isolated away from the rest of society, and less so if you wish to mingle with everyone else. So if you wish to enact a self-imposed lockdown you're free to do so, but good luck with your social life.
      - peteradio 5y ago
        Consider many rural populations are self isolating since the beginning of time, and not so much as the Amish but 99% in that direction when compared to the city centers.
forgingahead 5y ago
We really need to stop using the word "vaccine" for these jabs - it's completely the wrong descriptor.
- disambiguation 5y ago
  I agree and disagree. The part I agree on is that more people should understand, or at least be aware, of the chemistry in the serum. The part I disagree is that it's pedantic, its function is to stimulate an immune response, just like traditional vaccines. This argument is the same as people who say we shouldn't call phones phones anymore. Technically correct, but not really useful.
- _vertigo 5y ago
  Sorry, wrong how?
  - forgingahead 5y ago
    Before these COVID jabs were released, vaccines used to mean that they could "provide immunity" to specific diseases. Now it's been changed to "provides protection, but ooops that protection can wane over time and eventually disappear". That is fine, medical science is tough, but don't call it a vaccine instead of changing the definition of what outcomes vaccines historically (pre-2021) had provided.
    - aflag 5y ago
      The idea that vaccines provide full immunity is a misconception. No vaccine provides that. They all have different rates of breakthrough infections and protection. There's nothing particularly special about the covid vaccines, except that they were developed and tested in record time. And in case of the mRNA vaccines, it's a new technology for producing vaccines, obviously.
    - sho_hn 5y ago
      "immunity" in the medical sense always meant "some resistance to" (as opposed to none at all) and never "total protection". Some other colloquial uses of the word (e.g. in legal) have always made this a bit difficult to understand outside the medical community. Cf. the "immune system" being a very active thing and not binary in practice.
president 5y ago
This is the pretext for regular boosters I guess.
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  Pretext implies dishonesty. Is that the word you meant? Do you also believe tetanus or influenza vaccines have a similar “pretext”?
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Influenza vaccines have a rather poor efficiency record. In a good year 50-60%, in a bad one as little as 10-20%, i.e. mostly useless. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates...
  - listless 5y ago
    The difference is that influenza isn’t required to work, attend a concert, eat in NYC, ect. When the vaccine is so directly tied to your ability to participate in society, it becomes a concerning scenario because of conflicts of interest, ect. The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t have a great track record of doing what’s best for you, and frankly, neither does the government. See the opioid epidemic for exhibit A and the financial bailouts for exhibit B.
    - downWidOutaFite 5y ago
      When you doubt a high-quality study of 780,225 veterans because of vague conspiracy theories you need to start questioning how your ideology is leading you astray.
    - kasey_junk 5y ago
      At least in my state a tetanus vaccine and booster schedule is required to attend school…
      - AndrewBissell 5y ago
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
Why did this post get flagged? Is this a manual thing done by the moderators, or are people mass-flagging it because it doesn't fit their world view?
- forgingahead 5y ago
  The latter for sure - there is an ever-increasing number of fingers-in-the-ears crowd here on HN, which is disappointing because tough subjects should be able to be debated, instead of flagged and censored into oblivion.
rossdavidh 5y ago
Odd that an article in the journal Science is flagged? Also, folks in the comments, calm down. The article in question proves that it is possible to have a reasoned, fact-focused discussion of the benefits and limitations of vaccines. This is HN, not Reddit. Please calm down.
- hanoz 5y ago
  Probably partially my fault, and my now flagged, formally most upvoted, comment below. I often wondered what kind of outrageous and offensive comment might be hidden behind the portentous "[flagged]" marker. Well, now I know it can be something completely reasonable, inoffensive and civil.
  - sho_hn 5y ago
    It may be the "we". For example, the public debate in the place I live in was more along the lines of "hopefully the vaccines will bring some relief, but we won't know for sure until large scale implementation" and then "initial results are promising", etc. - in my personal experience the vaccines' performance has matched my expectations based on the information I got from e.g. basic news, and I'm glad they're working so well. This may be different in other places, and discussing differences in vaccine portrayal/media discussion of vaccines may be quite interesting. But without the context your comment may read somewhat vague or alarmist.
    - native_samples 5y ago
      Where do you live? Because that's been the narrative nowhere I'm aware of. Saying "we have to roll it out to the public to find out if it works" is rather the opposite of how it was presented, wasn't it? It was all about the trials prove it's safe and effective and there's no reason to doubt the rollout. Yes that's changed now with the rollouts to children and the boosters. They realized people will take anything if it's called a vaccine even if the trials were a joke, and even if they say we have to try it out on the public to see what happens. But that's very new.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

63 points by newbamboo 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

maxk42 5y ago

> breakthrough infection increased risk of death Can someone explain this to me? What is "breakthrough infection"?

weird-eye-issue 5y ago
You could just Google it
AndrewBissell 5y ago
A breakthrough infection is just a COVID case in someone who's been vaccinated. In that particular sentence they're just saying that people who developed a breakthrough infection did have a nonzero risk of death, but the vaccines were still fairly protective.
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
"Breakthrough infection" means tested positive for COVID despite vaccination. However, it's important to note that "breakthrough infection" is different from "breakthrough disease". It is possible, and likely common with the delta variant, to be a carrier with zero symptoms.
jffry 5y ago
"A breakthrough infection is a case of illness in which a vaccinated individual becomes sick from the same illness that the vaccine is meant to prevent. Simply, they occur when vaccines fail to provide immunity against the pathogen they are designed to target." via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_infection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_infection As far as "breakthrough infection increased risk of death", that's explained a little further down on the page in the article linked here on HN: Risk of death after SARS-CoV-2 infection was highest in unvaccinated Veterans regardless of age and comorbidity (Fig. 3). However, breakthrough infections were not benign, as shown by the higher risk of death in fully vaccinated Veterans who became infected compared to vaccinated Veterans who remained infection-free. This is a pretty long-winded way of saying that some people who were vaccinated still became infected, and some of those infected people did die. The importance of a study like this is to understand how the efficacy of the vaccine holds up over time, which can help inform public health recommendations and policy-making decisions.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  > However, breakthrough infections were not benign, as shown by the higher risk of death in fully vaccinated Veterans who became infected compared to vaccinated Veterans who remained infection-free. This seems to be a longwinded way of saying that it's better not to get Covid than to get Covid, regardless of whether you're vaccinated or not.

hanoz 5y ago

Wherever you stand on the debate I think it's hard to deny that the vaccines have turned out to be a lot less effective than we were initially led to believe.

felixgallo 5y ago
Ridiculous. Vaccines have turned the tide.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- disambiguation 5y ago
  We don't have much to compare against since the vaccine is so ubiquitous at this point, but I would bet Delta did more to turn the tide by out competing the original deadly variant. The vaccine certainly helped, but the tide would have turned regardless. The Amish are a good example of a completely unvaccinated community that "beat" Covid.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > We don't have much to compare against since the vaccine is so ubiquitous at this point, but I would bet Delta did more to turn the tide by out competing the original deadly variant. We can compare areas of low versus high rates of vaccinations: > The incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, and death is higher in unvaccinated than vaccinated persons, and the incidence rate ratios are related to vaccine effectiveness. * https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm > The Amish are a good example of a completely unvaccinated community that "beat" Covid. This works well if you're isolated away from the rest of society, and less so if you wish to mingle with everyone else. So if you wish to enact a self-imposed lockdown you're free to do so, but good luck with your social life.
    - peteradio 5y ago
      Consider many rural populations are self isolating since the beginning of time, and not so much as the Amish but 99% in that direction when compared to the city centers.

forgingahead 5y ago

We really need to stop using the word "vaccine" for these jabs - it's completely the wrong descriptor.

disambiguation 5y ago
I agree and disagree. The part I agree on is that more people should understand, or at least be aware, of the chemistry in the serum. The part I disagree is that it's pedantic, its function is to stimulate an immune response, just like traditional vaccines. This argument is the same as people who say we shouldn't call phones phones anymore. Technically correct, but not really useful.
_vertigo 5y ago
Sorry, wrong how?
- forgingahead 5y ago
  Before these COVID jabs were released, vaccines used to mean that they could "provide immunity" to specific diseases. Now it's been changed to "provides protection, but ooops that protection can wane over time and eventually disappear". That is fine, medical science is tough, but don't call it a vaccine instead of changing the definition of what outcomes vaccines historically (pre-2021) had provided.
  - aflag 5y ago
    The idea that vaccines provide full immunity is a misconception. No vaccine provides that. They all have different rates of breakthrough infections and protection. There's nothing particularly special about the covid vaccines, except that they were developed and tested in record time. And in case of the mRNA vaccines, it's a new technology for producing vaccines, obviously.
  - sho_hn 5y ago
    "immunity" in the medical sense always meant "some resistance to" (as opposed to none at all) and never "total protection". Some other colloquial uses of the word (e.g. in legal) have always made this a bit difficult to understand outside the medical community. Cf. the "immune system" being a very active thing and not binary in practice.

president 5y ago

This is the pretext for regular boosters I guess.

kasey_junk 5y ago
Pretext implies dishonesty. Is that the word you meant? Do you also believe tetanus or influenza vaccines have a similar “pretext”?
- angelzen 5y ago
  Influenza vaccines have a rather poor efficiency record. In a good year 50-60%, in a bad one as little as 10-20%, i.e. mostly useless. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates...
- listless 5y ago
  The difference is that influenza isn’t required to work, attend a concert, eat in NYC, ect. When the vaccine is so directly tied to your ability to participate in society, it becomes a concerning scenario because of conflicts of interest, ect. The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t have a great track record of doing what’s best for you, and frankly, neither does the government. See the opioid epidemic for exhibit A and the financial bailouts for exhibit B.
  - downWidOutaFite 5y ago
    When you doubt a high-quality study of 780,225 veterans because of vague conspiracy theories you need to start questioning how your ideology is leading you astray.
  - kasey_junk 5y ago
    At least in my state a tetanus vaccine and booster schedule is required to attend school…
    - AndrewBissell 5y ago

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago

Why did this post get flagged? Is this a manual thing done by the moderators, or are people mass-flagging it because it doesn't fit their world view?

forgingahead 5y ago
The latter for sure - there is an ever-increasing number of fingers-in-the-ears crowd here on HN, which is disappointing because tough subjects should be able to be debated, instead of flagged and censored into oblivion.

rossdavidh 5y ago

Odd that an article in the journal Science is flagged? Also, folks in the comments, calm down. The article in question proves that it is possible to have a reasoned, fact-focused discussion of the benefits and limitations of vaccines. This is HN, not Reddit. Please calm down.

hanoz 5y ago
Probably partially my fault, and my now flagged, formally most upvoted, comment below. I often wondered what kind of outrageous and offensive comment might be hidden behind the portentous "[flagged]" marker. Well, now I know it can be something completely reasonable, inoffensive and civil.
- sho_hn 5y ago
  It may be the "we". For example, the public debate in the place I live in was more along the lines of "hopefully the vaccines will bring some relief, but we won't know for sure until large scale implementation" and then "initial results are promising", etc. - in my personal experience the vaccines' performance has matched my expectations based on the information I got from e.g. basic news, and I'm glad they're working so well. This may be different in other places, and discussing differences in vaccine portrayal/media discussion of vaccines may be quite interesting. But without the context your comment may read somewhat vague or alarmist.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    Where do you live? Because that's been the narrative nowhere I'm aware of. Saying "we have to roll it out to the public to find out if it works" is rather the opposite of how it was presented, wasn't it? It was all about the trials prove it's safe and effective and there's no reason to doubt the rollout. Yes that's changed now with the rollouts to children and the boosters. They realized people will take anything if it's called a vaccine even if the trials were a joke, and even if they say we have to try it out on the public to see what happens. But that's very new.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]