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This seems to suggest viral loads are the same for everybody - vaxxed, unvaxxed, symptomatic or asymptotic. https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/covid-19/news/viral-

by ada1981 5y ago

This seems to suggest viral loads are the same for everybody - vaxxed, unvaxxed, symptomatic or asymptotic. https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/covid-19/news/viral-loads-similar-between-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-people https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/covid-19/news/viral-loads-sim...

lamontcg 5y ago
Vaccinated individuals hit the same peak mRNA loads for the same symptom severity on average. Their time to recover is faster though, and at peak you recover less viable virus indicating they are producing more viral debris. And that's after fewer people who are vaccinated catch the virus, and there's more aborted infections and asymptomatic infections after vaccination. All of those studies use PCR Ct values as proxies for viruses and compare vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals with similar symptom severity, and it turns out that correlates at peak because symptoms are on average due to antigen loading. Those studies aren't very good at showing how effective vaccination is at preventing transmission. They just show that its nonzero.
- Jensson 5y ago
  None of those old studies apply now that omicron is around. Omicron spread all throughout the world at record breaking pace via vaccinated people, so it doesn't seem like vaccines are doing much at all to prevent spread of omicron.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    You may be correct, but it's too early to tell. As I have stated elsewhere in this thread, the rate of vaccine escape has gone up by about 5x, (from 6% to 30%), but that's still much better than one would get from no vaccination.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      But it spreads so fast that it doesn't seem like that matters. It spreads basically as fast as people are interacting, if it gets into the student body then everyone will be infected in a matter of days even if they are all vaccinated. I can't see how it could spread any faster than it already does through vaccinated people. A few people there being unvaccinated wont make a difference.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  > And that's after fewer people who are vaccinated catch the virus, and there's more aborted infections and asymptomatic infections after vaccination. This is the big one. Conditional on symptoms the viral load may be similar betwee vax/no vax, but if the vax have much less probability of getting symptoms then all is good.
- ada1981 5y ago
  Shouldn’t we be distinguishing between unvaxxed who had Covid, and unvaxxed who didn’t?

lamontcg 5y ago

Vaccinated individuals hit the same peak mRNA loads for the same symptom severity on average. Their time to recover is faster though, and at peak you recover less viable virus indicating they are producing more viral debris. And that's after fewer people who are vaccinated catch the virus, and there's more aborted infections and asymptomatic infections after vaccination. All of those studies use PCR Ct values as proxies for viruses and compare vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals with similar symptom severity, and it turns out that correlates at peak because symptoms are on average due to antigen loading. Those studies aren't very good at showing how effective vaccination is at preventing transmission. They just show that its nonzero.

Jensson 5y ago
None of those old studies apply now that omicron is around. Omicron spread all throughout the world at record breaking pace via vaccinated people, so it doesn't seem like vaccines are doing much at all to prevent spread of omicron.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  You may be correct, but it's too early to tell. As I have stated elsewhere in this thread, the rate of vaccine escape has gone up by about 5x, (from 6% to 30%), but that's still much better than one would get from no vaccination.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    But it spreads so fast that it doesn't seem like that matters. It spreads basically as fast as people are interacting, if it gets into the student body then everyone will be infected in a matter of days even if they are all vaccinated. I can't see how it could spread any faster than it already does through vaccinated people. A few people there being unvaccinated wont make a difference.
disgruntledphd2 5y ago
> And that's after fewer people who are vaccinated catch the virus, and there's more aborted infections and asymptomatic infections after vaccination. This is the big one. Conditional on symptoms the viral load may be similar betwee vax/no vax, but if the vax have much less probability of getting symptoms then all is good.
ada1981 5y ago
Shouldn’t we be distinguishing between unvaxxed who had Covid, and unvaxxed who didn’t?