7 ms·

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.

by hanoz 5y ago

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.
      - throw0101a 5y ago
        'Rurality' does not seem to be a guarantee of anything: "Rural Americans more likely to die from COVID-19" * https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/09/rural-americans-more-likely-die-covid-19 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/09/rural-am... "Covid is killing rural Americans at twice the rate of people in urban areas" * https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-killing-rural-americans-twice-rate-people-urban-areas-n1280369 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-killing-rur... Seems once it (eventually) gets into a community, it can spread quite quickly, and the more isolated nature of the community means reduced readily-available treatment options.
    - disambiguation 5y ago
      > This works well if you're isolated away from the rest of society It's counter intuitive, but due to their religious practices they are all frequently in contact with each other. Covid reportedly "ripped through" the Amish communities early on because they never locked down and continued going to church. Being rural didn't prevent them from getting exposed to Covid, it's just their traditions resulted in early development of natural immunity.
s5300 5y ago
? I thought the unvaccinated were dying against vaccinated literally 99:1 Am I misinterpreting what you're saying? https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1017002907/u-s-covid-deaths-are-rising-again-experts-call-it-a-pandemic-of-the-unvaccinated https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1017002907/u-s-covid-deaths-a... https://medicalpartnership.usg.edu/covid-19-staggering-statistic-98-to-99-of-americans-dying-are-unvaccinated/ https://medicalpartnership.usg.edu/covid-19-staggering-stati... https://www.cnet.com/health/99-of-covid-deaths-are-now-of-unvaccinated-people-experts-say/ https://www.cnet.com/health/99-of-covid-deaths-are-now-of-un... https://www.al.com/news/2021/08/99-of-alabamas-2379-covid-deaths-from-january-to-june-were-unvaccinated.html https://www.al.com/news/2021/08/99-of-alabamas-2379-covid-de... https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-says-99-covid-deaths-since-feb-were-not-fully-vaccinated-2021-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-says-99-covid-dea...
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  FWIW, all of those articles were from July and August, before Delta began ripping through the population. I believe with Delta, the ratio is closer to 19:1. But uh...still certainly a damn good reason to get vaccinated.
  - irq 5y ago
    > I believe with Delta, the ratio is closer to 19:1. I don’t doubt your statement but do you have any sources or articles about this? I’d like to learn more detail.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- angelzen 5y ago
  The 99:1 numbers are very strange. Latest data from UK, which admittedly has a higher vaccination rate than US, gives a death ratio of 1:9 unvax:vax. Caution, Simpson's paradox is at play, older populations where the bulk of the deaths are, are significantly more vaccinated than younger populations. Unfortunately it is really difficult to find equivalent detailed reports (breakdown by age, date & vax status) in US either federally (CDC) or at state level. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1031157/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-44.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Edit. Oh, I see now. From the fourth article: "99% of Alabama’s 2,379 COVID deaths from January to June were unvaccinated". Alabama had a covid wave in Jan, which then subsided. Mass vaccination only started in Jan, by the time the wave was over maybe 10-20% of the population was vaccinated. The numbers are dominated by the pre-vaccination wave, plus VE is high early on which limits the vaccinated deaths. Verdict: technically correct, but highly misleading. https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spread-map/state/alabama https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spr... https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/alabama https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-st...
kelnos 5y ago
Not sure how you could draw that conclusion. The vaccines have been instrumental at reducing the incidence of severe symptoms, hospitalization, and death. Yes, a lot of laypeople were expecting them to outright prevent infection at much higher rates, but that was never the deal from the start. Consider that the clinical trial protocols only called for testing participants for COVID if they started showing symptoms; the numbers presented were never about preventing infection entirely. The lower percentages quoted in the article are still pretty fantastic, despite their drop from the initial 90%+ numbers from the clinical trials. Remember that the clinical trials were also done pre-delta variant. It's pretty impressive that they've held up so well against delta.
- nickff 5y ago
  >"Yes, a lot of laypeople were expecting them to outright prevent infection at much higher rates, but that was never the deal from the start." What was the deal? It seems like there was a lot of vague verbiage forecasting, and un-falsifiable predictions (which is unfortunately the norm).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  > Yes, a lot of laypeople were expecting them to outright prevent infection at much higher rates, but that was never the deal from the start. It wasn't just laypeople, it's trivial to go back and find prominent public health officials promising that vaccinated people will not transmit the disease, the vaccines will be 100% effective against death, etc. They shouldn't have been saying that given that what you say about the trials is true, but hey, they haven't paid any price for getting it wrong since this whole thing began so why would they now? In general I have noticed there's this pattern where the public will sometimes be clearly and strongly led to believe a certain thing, but if it later turns out to be false, 100% of the blame is placed on the masses. If there's any rebuke for the officials or institutions which led them into error it's always in the most vague and general terms, with no one ever indicted (or, heaven forbid, punished) by name.
tessierashpool 5y ago
no. this is provably false, and no reasonable observer has arrived at this conclusion.
edlebert 5y ago
What, from this article, led you to this conclusion?
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  Nothing. GP started with that conclusion.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
jnorthrop 5y ago
There no longer exists any real debate. Effectiveness of the vaccines have waned over time but as stated in the article "Our findings support the conclusion that COVID-19 vaccines remain the most important tool to prevent infection and death."
- sojournerc 5y ago
  Unless you've been infected already. Natural immunity is as good or better than the vaccine.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    This is does not appear to be true: "Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection" * https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915 > These findings suggest that among persons with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, full vaccination provides additional protection against reinfection. Among previously infected Kentucky residents, those who were not vaccinated were more than twice as likely to be reinfected compared with those with full vaccination. All eligible persons should be offered vaccination, including those with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, to reduce their risk for future infection. * https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
    - sojournerc 5y ago
      I don't know enough about immunology to say whether "binding more broadly" confers more immunity or not. It would certainly go against prior knowledge about human immune responses for a single spike protein (vaccine) to elicit a greater immune response than _the actual virus_. That CDC study is so bad I'm surprised they had the gall to publish it with the conclusion they did. Testing positive says nothing about severity of infection. > were about five times more likely to test positive for the infection than people who had been vaccinated Testing positive is not a very good metric. Were they hospitalized? Was it severe? Did they even get sick, or just test positive? They even admit to a sampling flaw in the discussion: > Second, persons who have been vaccinated are possibly less likely to get tested. Therefore, the association of reinfection and lack of vaccination might be overestimated. The best study on this so far is from Israel with a much larger sample in a highly vaccinated country. Here's a Harvard doctor discussing the contradictory studies. https://brownstone.org/articles/a-review-and-autopsy-of-two-covid-immunity-studies/ https://brownstone.org/articles/a-review-and-autopsy-of-two-... > For a low-risk person, which includes most people with natural immunity, a 35% risk reduction is more marginal in terms of absolute risk. > Based on the solid evidence from the Israeli study, the Covid recovered have stronger and longer-lasting immunity against Covid disease than the vaccinated. Hence, there is no reason to prevent them from activities that are permitted to the vaccinated. In fact, it is discriminatory.

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.

by 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.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      'Rurality' does not seem to be a guarantee of anything: "Rural Americans more likely to die from COVID-19" * https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/09/rural-americans-more-likely-die-covid-19 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/09/rural-am... "Covid is killing rural Americans at twice the rate of people in urban areas" * https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-killing-rural-americans-twice-rate-people-urban-areas-n1280369 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-killing-rur... Seems once it (eventually) gets into a community, it can spread quite quickly, and the more isolated nature of the community means reduced readily-available treatment options.
  - disambiguation 5y ago
    > This works well if you're isolated away from the rest of society It's counter intuitive, but due to their religious practices they are all frequently in contact with each other. Covid reportedly "ripped through" the Amish communities early on because they never locked down and continued going to church. Being rural didn't prevent them from getting exposed to Covid, it's just their traditions resulted in early development of natural immunity.

s5300 5y ago

? I thought the unvaccinated were dying against vaccinated literally 99:1 Am I misinterpreting what you're saying? https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1017002907/u-s-covid-deaths-are-rising-again-experts-call-it-a-pandemic-of-the-unvaccinated https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1017002907/u-s-covid-deaths-a... https://medicalpartnership.usg.edu/covid-19-staggering-statistic-98-to-99-of-americans-dying-are-unvaccinated/ https://medicalpartnership.usg.edu/covid-19-staggering-stati... https://www.cnet.com/health/99-of-covid-deaths-are-now-of-unvaccinated-people-experts-say/ https://www.cnet.com/health/99-of-covid-deaths-are-now-of-un... https://www.al.com/news/2021/08/99-of-alabamas-2379-covid-deaths-from-january-to-june-were-unvaccinated.html https://www.al.com/news/2021/08/99-of-alabamas-2379-covid-de... https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-says-99-covid-deaths-since-feb-were-not-fully-vaccinated-2021-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-says-99-covid-dea...

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
FWIW, all of those articles were from July and August, before Delta began ripping through the population. I believe with Delta, the ratio is closer to 19:1. But uh...still certainly a damn good reason to get vaccinated.
- irq 5y ago
  > I believe with Delta, the ratio is closer to 19:1. I don’t doubt your statement but do you have any sources or articles about this? I’d like to learn more detail.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
angelzen 5y ago
The 99:1 numbers are very strange. Latest data from UK, which admittedly has a higher vaccination rate than US, gives a death ratio of 1:9 unvax:vax. Caution, Simpson's paradox is at play, older populations where the bulk of the deaths are, are significantly more vaccinated than younger populations. Unfortunately it is really difficult to find equivalent detailed reports (breakdown by age, date & vax status) in US either federally (CDC) or at state level. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1031157/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-44.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Edit. Oh, I see now. From the fourth article: "99% of Alabama’s 2,379 COVID deaths from January to June were unvaccinated". Alabama had a covid wave in Jan, which then subsided. Mass vaccination only started in Jan, by the time the wave was over maybe 10-20% of the population was vaccinated. The numbers are dominated by the pre-vaccination wave, plus VE is high early on which limits the vaccinated deaths. Verdict: technically correct, but highly misleading. https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spread-map/state/alabama https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spr... https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/alabama https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-st...

kelnos 5y ago

Not sure how you could draw that conclusion. The vaccines have been instrumental at reducing the incidence of severe symptoms, hospitalization, and death. Yes, a lot of laypeople were expecting them to outright prevent infection at much higher rates, but that was never the deal from the start. Consider that the clinical trial protocols only called for testing participants for COVID if they started showing symptoms; the numbers presented were never about preventing infection entirely. The lower percentages quoted in the article are still pretty fantastic, despite their drop from the initial 90%+ numbers from the clinical trials. Remember that the clinical trials were also done pre-delta variant. It's pretty impressive that they've held up so well against delta.

nickff 5y ago
>"Yes, a lot of laypeople were expecting them to outright prevent infection at much higher rates, but that was never the deal from the start." What was the deal? It seems like there was a lot of vague verbiage forecasting, and un-falsifiable predictions (which is unfortunately the norm).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AndrewBissell 5y ago
> Yes, a lot of laypeople were expecting them to outright prevent infection at much higher rates, but that was never the deal from the start. It wasn't just laypeople, it's trivial to go back and find prominent public health officials promising that vaccinated people will not transmit the disease, the vaccines will be 100% effective against death, etc. They shouldn't have been saying that given that what you say about the trials is true, but hey, they haven't paid any price for getting it wrong since this whole thing began so why would they now? In general I have noticed there's this pattern where the public will sometimes be clearly and strongly led to believe a certain thing, but if it later turns out to be false, 100% of the blame is placed on the masses. If there's any rebuke for the officials or institutions which led them into error it's always in the most vague and general terms, with no one ever indicted (or, heaven forbid, punished) by name.

tessierashpool 5y ago

no. this is provably false, and no reasonable observer has arrived at this conclusion.

edlebert 5y ago

What, from this article, led you to this conclusion?

unclebucknasty 5y ago
Nothing. GP started with that conclusion.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jnorthrop 5y ago

There no longer exists any real debate. Effectiveness of the vaccines have waned over time but as stated in the article "Our findings support the conclusion that COVID-19 vaccines remain the most important tool to prevent infection and death."

sojournerc 5y ago
Unless you've been infected already. Natural immunity is as good or better than the vaccine.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  This is does not appear to be true: "Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection" * https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915 > These findings suggest that among persons with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, full vaccination provides additional protection against reinfection. Among previously infected Kentucky residents, those who were not vaccinated were more than twice as likely to be reinfected compared with those with full vaccination. All eligible persons should be offered vaccination, including those with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, to reduce their risk for future infection. * https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
  - sojournerc 5y ago
    I don't know enough about immunology to say whether "binding more broadly" confers more immunity or not. It would certainly go against prior knowledge about human immune responses for a single spike protein (vaccine) to elicit a greater immune response than _the actual virus_. That CDC study is so bad I'm surprised they had the gall to publish it with the conclusion they did. Testing positive says nothing about severity of infection. > were about five times more likely to test positive for the infection than people who had been vaccinated Testing positive is not a very good metric. Were they hospitalized? Was it severe? Did they even get sick, or just test positive? They even admit to a sampling flaw in the discussion: > Second, persons who have been vaccinated are possibly less likely to get tested. Therefore, the association of reinfection and lack of vaccination might be overestimated. The best study on this so far is from Israel with a much larger sample in a highly vaccinated country. Here's a Harvard doctor discussing the contradictory studies. https://brownstone.org/articles/a-review-and-autopsy-of-two-covid-immunity-studies/ https://brownstone.org/articles/a-review-and-autopsy-of-two-... > For a low-risk person, which includes most people with natural immunity, a 35% risk reduction is more marginal in terms of absolute risk. > Based on the solid evidence from the Israeli study, the Covid recovered have stronger and longer-lasting immunity against Covid disease than the vaccinated. Hence, there is no reason to prevent them from activities that are permitted to the vaccinated. In fact, it is discriminatory.