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Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the seco

by antocv 5y ago

Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the second shot. Why is there no good statistics over breakthrough infections, not merely how many double vaccinated are in hospital? Why not blast the non-immunity provided by supposed vaccine the same way as "infections per day" is shown everywhere? Show "failure of vaccine to provide immunity cases per day"

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the second shot. Ouch. Anecdotes like this really scare me. I also have friends with double Pfizer shots who got the COVID and had strong symptoms. Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. Though I assume, without the vaccine they would have probably ended up in the hospital. Glad I got my 3rd dose now.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  An anecdote in the other direction: I know people that were working in the hospital, treating COVID-19 infected people, before vaccines. Protection was a N95 mask (well-fitted and tight), a gown and gloves. They worked for months without an outbreak, until a bunch of them got infected. The source of that infection was probably in a meeting with a patient (for things unrelated to COVID) in a closed room when they were wearing non-N95 masks. None of them had strong symptoms other than a few days feeling awful. > Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board. Maybe we should look at the data and see that the vaccines are still pretty effective. Think about the difference in restrictions and people behavior between now and before the vaccines: they have pretty much enabled normal life again and made COVID a much less worrying disease, even with high case numbers again.
- bmj 5y ago
  Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid. It was about preventing serious illness and keeping people out of the hospital. As others have pointed out, they have been largely successful in those goals. I'm not claiming the vaccines are perfect, but I think a large part of the population was under the impression that these vaccines were some sort of silver bullet that would end the virus in a few short months. edit: spelling
  - antocv 5y ago
    "The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid." Then do not call it a vaccine, because it is not. I did not take my TBE vaccine, to be greeted a year later by TBE.
    - bmj 5y ago
      What definition of "vaccine" are you using? From Wikipedia[0]: Vaccines can be prophylactic (to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by a natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (to fight a disease that has already occurred, such as cancer). Some vaccines offer full sterilizing immunity, in which infection is prevented completely. The key word up there is "ameliorate," which is exactly what the Covid vaccines available in United States promise to do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine
      - antocv 5y ago
        Look at the CDC definition of Vaccine from 2020 Summer and from today. Compare the Wikipedia entry of Vaccine from today and from a few months ago. Notice anything in particular? While yes, the definition has changed.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  It is an anecdote, not data. Simple math: if Pfizer says their vaccine is 90% effective at preventing severe disease then 10% of people are at risk of getting severe disease. Not everybody catches COVID (masks, distancing, etc. do reduce the risk significantly, it seems), so say that’s another 90% reduction for each. That means that 1 in 1000 people you talk to will get severe COVID even when fully vaccinated. Keep in mind that the person you are replying to is here to tell the tale. It is unclear what the vaccine did or did not do but if I was in their shoes I would certainly be glad that I wasn’t facing that infection unvaccinated. That could very well have been the difference between severe and deadly COVID. The effectiveness numbers have been always quoted as against severe illness but I would much prefer to focus on effectiveness against hospitalization and death. It seems that all three vaccines authorized/approved in the US are effective against these two outcomes, more so than merely protecting against a severe case. Also keep in mind that what a random stranger describes on the internet as “severe” could mean a variety of things. I have had some severe colds. I haven’t had one since the pandemic started due to social distancing and masks. Don’t panic. Get your shots (booster included) and keep an eye on the data.
  - nickles 5y ago
    > Simple math: if Pfizer says their vaccine is 90% effective at preventing severe disease then 10% of people are at risk of getting severe disease. That’s not quite how vaccine efficacy works. Suppose the risk of getting sick is 0.5% per thousand person hours when unvaccinated. A 90% vaccine efficacy means that the risk of getting sick is reduced to 0.05% per thousand person hours, not that 10% of people who get vaccinated are still vulnerable.
    - syntaxing 5y ago
      I think you’re mixing effectiveness and efficacy. You’re both correct but talking about different terms minus that the parent comment needs some prior adjustment in the numbers to get the posterior.
      - nickles 5y ago
- sjg007 5y ago
  Maybe the Pfizer dose just needs to be higher like Moderna's
gjulianm 5y ago
I don't know about your country, but in Spain we have those stats each day from the ministry of health. Turns out that the efficacy is still pretty high, around ~80% for infection. There was also a report with rates of hospitalization between vaccinated and non-vaccinated (I can't find it right now, I'll try again later) and it's a pretty clear difference, 6-14 times (depending on the age) more hospitalizations for unvaccinated persons per capita.
ajvs 5y ago
England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough. Alex Berenson has some good analysis of these statistics on his Substack.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  > England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high, so one would expect more breakthrough cases than cases in unvaccinated people. For an extreme example, with 100% vaccination rate, all cases would be breakthrough. I can't find the UK data, so can't answer exactly, but not unexpected at all. > Alex Berenson And this explains why you didn't include it. I didn't know this person, but apparently he's a writer, no education in stats/biology/medicine, from the US, and apparently has made multitude of wrong claims [1]. I wonder if it's that you don't know better or you're making a bad faith argument. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-...
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    >I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high Does that really need to be stated? I don't think even the most suspicious among us think the vaccines make a person more likely to catch Covid all else being equal. It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely.
    - gjulianm 5y ago
      > It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely. To be honest, the only times I've seen this narrative is when people say it's out there and argue against it. I've never seen it seriously supported.

by antocv 5y ago

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

>Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the second shot. Ouch. Anecdotes like this really scare me. I also have friends with double Pfizer shots who got the COVID and had strong symptoms. Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. Though I assume, without the vaccine they would have probably ended up in the hospital. Glad I got my 3rd dose now.

gjulianm 5y ago
An anecdote in the other direction: I know people that were working in the hospital, treating COVID-19 infected people, before vaccines. Protection was a N95 mask (well-fitted and tight), a gown and gloves. They worked for months without an outbreak, until a bunch of them got infected. The source of that infection was probably in a meeting with a patient (for things unrelated to COVID) in a closed room when they were wearing non-N95 masks. None of them had strong symptoms other than a few days feeling awful. > Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board. Maybe we should look at the data and see that the vaccines are still pretty effective. Think about the difference in restrictions and people behavior between now and before the vaccines: they have pretty much enabled normal life again and made COVID a much less worrying disease, even with high case numbers again.
bmj 5y ago
Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid. It was about preventing serious illness and keeping people out of the hospital. As others have pointed out, they have been largely successful in those goals. I'm not claiming the vaccines are perfect, but I think a large part of the population was under the impression that these vaccines were some sort of silver bullet that would end the virus in a few short months. edit: spelling
- antocv 5y ago
  "The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid." Then do not call it a vaccine, because it is not. I did not take my TBE vaccine, to be greeted a year later by TBE.
  - bmj 5y ago
    What definition of "vaccine" are you using? From Wikipedia[0]: Vaccines can be prophylactic (to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by a natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (to fight a disease that has already occurred, such as cancer). Some vaccines offer full sterilizing immunity, in which infection is prevented completely. The key word up there is "ameliorate," which is exactly what the Covid vaccines available in United States promise to do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine
    - antocv 5y ago
      Look at the CDC definition of Vaccine from 2020 Summer and from today. Compare the Wikipedia entry of Vaccine from today and from a few months ago. Notice anything in particular? While yes, the definition has changed.
IgorPartola 5y ago
It is an anecdote, not data. Simple math: if Pfizer says their vaccine is 90% effective at preventing severe disease then 10% of people are at risk of getting severe disease. Not everybody catches COVID (masks, distancing, etc. do reduce the risk significantly, it seems), so say that’s another 90% reduction for each. That means that 1 in 1000 people you talk to will get severe COVID even when fully vaccinated. Keep in mind that the person you are replying to is here to tell the tale. It is unclear what the vaccine did or did not do but if I was in their shoes I would certainly be glad that I wasn’t facing that infection unvaccinated. That could very well have been the difference between severe and deadly COVID. The effectiveness numbers have been always quoted as against severe illness but I would much prefer to focus on effectiveness against hospitalization and death. It seems that all three vaccines authorized/approved in the US are effective against these two outcomes, more so than merely protecting against a severe case. Also keep in mind that what a random stranger describes on the internet as “severe” could mean a variety of things. I have had some severe colds. I haven’t had one since the pandemic started due to social distancing and masks. Don’t panic. Get your shots (booster included) and keep an eye on the data.
- nickles 5y ago
  > Simple math: if Pfizer says their vaccine is 90% effective at preventing severe disease then 10% of people are at risk of getting severe disease. That’s not quite how vaccine efficacy works. Suppose the risk of getting sick is 0.5% per thousand person hours when unvaccinated. A 90% vaccine efficacy means that the risk of getting sick is reduced to 0.05% per thousand person hours, not that 10% of people who get vaccinated are still vulnerable.
  - syntaxing 5y ago
    I think you’re mixing effectiveness and efficacy. You’re both correct but talking about different terms minus that the parent comment needs some prior adjustment in the numbers to get the posterior.
    - nickles 5y ago
sjg007 5y ago
Maybe the Pfizer dose just needs to be higher like Moderna's

gjulianm 5y ago

I don't know about your country, but in Spain we have those stats each day from the ministry of health. Turns out that the efficacy is still pretty high, around ~80% for infection. There was also a report with rates of hospitalization between vaccinated and non-vaccinated (I can't find it right now, I'll try again later) and it's a pretty clear difference, 6-14 times (depending on the age) more hospitalizations for unvaccinated persons per capita.

ajvs 5y ago

England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough. Alex Berenson has some good analysis of these statistics on his Substack.

gjulianm 5y ago
> England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high, so one would expect more breakthrough cases than cases in unvaccinated people. For an extreme example, with 100% vaccination rate, all cases would be breakthrough. I can't find the UK data, so can't answer exactly, but not unexpected at all. > Alex Berenson And this explains why you didn't include it. I didn't know this person, but apparently he's a writer, no education in stats/biology/medicine, from the US, and apparently has made multitude of wrong claims [1]. I wonder if it's that you don't know better or you're making a bad faith argument. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-...
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  >I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high Does that really need to be stated? I don't think even the most suspicious among us think the vaccines make a person more likely to catch Covid all else being equal. It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely.
  - gjulianm 5y ago
    > It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely. To be honest, the only times I've seen this narrative is when people say it's out there and argue against it. I've never seen it seriously supported.