5 ms·

1. Covid shots do not prevent infection or transmission. 2. Since Delta, both vaxxed and unvaxxed cases have the same viral load. 3. Since December at least,

1. Covid shots do not prevent infection or transmission. 2. Since Delta, both vaxxed and unvaxxed cases have the same viral load. 3. Since December at least, boosted and vaxxed have higher RATE per 100k of covid infections. So whatever benefit one gets is individual benefit only and not getting others sick in any different way as the vaxxed folks do.

mlyle 4y ago
> 1. Covid shots do not prevent infection or transmission. It does look like there's about a 20-30% reduction of infection from random surveys of the population and from nucleocapsid seroprevalence assays; transmission-once-infected is very difficult to measure, but it would be surprising if it did not have some effect. > 2. Since Delta, both vaxxed and unvaxxed cases have the same viral load. There's a key fallacy here: we're looking at a population of cases detected by similar means and then found that they have similar viral loads. Not too surprising of a finding (survivorship bias, basically). There's some data indicating that viral copy assays are not good proxies for finding true infectious shedding -- and that vaccinated individuals can be much better in this regard despite having higher loads. e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01816-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01816-0 > 3. Since December at least, boosted and vaxxed have higher RATE per 100k of covid infections. This is absolutely and completely untrue. There's been a couple of times where the vaxxed have been higher in the data series, but the overwhelming trend in the data has been the opposite. e.g. right now in Santa Clara County, where I am, the unvaccinated case rate is approximately 268 per 100,000 per week; the fully vaccinated case rate is about 46 per 100,000. Of course, people who elect vaccination don't behave exactly the same as those who don't... and so many people in S.C.C. are vaccinated that the exact number of unvaccinated has some uncertainty (but it's not off by a factor of 5).
- busymom0 4y ago
  1. That was only true before Delta. When Delta came, the viral load became the same between vaxxed and unvaxxed folks and combined with waning immunity of 3-6 months, most people were basically "unvaxxed" with respect to transmission by fall. Omicron took it even further where since December, in Ontario, boosted and vaxxed folks have had higher rate per 100k of covid infections. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... 3. It is true and the government admits that boosted and vaxxed have higher rates. Ontario source: https://web.archive.org/web/20220228051509/http://covid-19.ontario.ca/data https://web.archive.org/web/20220228051509/http://covid-19.o... https://web.archive.org/web/20220331081902/http://covid-19.ontario.ca/data https://web.archive.org/web/20220331081902/http://covid-19.o... Here's how it looks: https://imgur.com/a/H4ErmyC https://imgur.com/a/H4ErmyC
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > 1. That was only true before Delta. Posting a disputed study that I criticized to try and refute me, when I posted important 2022 followup data to viral shedding based on actual infectivity rather than just RNA copies indicates you either didn't read my comment or didn't understand it. > 3. It is true and the government admits that boosted and vaxxed have higher rates. Ontario source: I just knew you were going to point to the Ontario data from Mar-Apr. This is why I said in a couple places they popped above for a couple data points. Are you deliberately being obtuse? Compare to basically any other data series from any other time; e.g. my locale: https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-case-rates-vaccination-status https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-case-rates-vaccination-...
    - busymom0 4y ago
      How’s that study disputed? That study is not alone either. NEJM has similar studies too. Your link seems to be an outlier. Denmark, UK, Scotland, and other provinces in Canada also show the same higher rates in boosted and fully vaxxed than unvaxxed. Walgreens data for US also shows this. Look at page 3 of: https://www.walgreens.com/businesssolutions/covid-19-index.jsp https://www.walgreens.com/businesssolutions/covid-19-index.j... Canadian government seroprevalence data also shows that between December 2021 and May 2022, there were at least 17.5 million infections. This is in a population of 38 million. This was despite extremely high vax rates. So, how exactly did the vaccine prevent infection and transmission? Vaxxed folks were allowed to enjoy services with a false sense of security and spread Covid to others while unvaxxed folks were denied from society. Please don’t resolve to ad hominem attacks on hacker news.
      - inferiorhuman 4y ago
        mcronce 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- roenxi 4y ago
  > It does look like there's about a 20-30% reduction of infection from random surveys of the population and from nucleocapsid seroprevalence assays; transmission-once-infected is very difficult to measure, but it would be surprising if it did not have some effect. You are responding to a practical concern with a theoretical counter. But practically speaking the vaccine doesn't change the picture at all. The situation pre-vaccine was COVID was going to spread like wildfire after any lockdown attempt ended and everyone was going to be exposed to it. The situation post-vaccine, even with that reduction in infection rates, was the same. Ditto speed, since this is an exponential process that reduction won't have an especially material effect on when everyone gets COVID. We ran a natural experiment on this in Australia [0] - having a highly vaccinated population didn't appear to have any impact at all on COVID transmission rate or reach in who gets infected. The numbers are not convincing that the vaccine did anything for transmissions. The effect of personal protection seems to explain all the benefits of the vaccine. [0] https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html

mlyle 4y ago

> 1. Covid shots do not prevent infection or transmission. It does look like there's about a 20-30% reduction of infection from random surveys of the population and from nucleocapsid seroprevalence assays; transmission-once-infected is very difficult to measure, but it would be surprising if it did not have some effect. > 2. Since Delta, both vaxxed and unvaxxed cases have the same viral load. There's a key fallacy here: we're looking at a population of cases detected by similar means and then found that they have similar viral loads. Not too surprising of a finding (survivorship bias, basically). There's some data indicating that viral copy assays are not good proxies for finding true infectious shedding -- and that vaccinated individuals can be much better in this regard despite having higher loads. e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01816-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01816-0 > 3. Since December at least, boosted and vaxxed have higher RATE per 100k of covid infections. This is absolutely and completely untrue. There's been a couple of times where the vaxxed have been higher in the data series, but the overwhelming trend in the data has been the opposite. e.g. right now in Santa Clara County, where I am, the unvaccinated case rate is approximately 268 per 100,000 per week; the fully vaccinated case rate is about 46 per 100,000. Of course, people who elect vaccination don't behave exactly the same as those who don't... and so many people in S.C.C. are vaccinated that the exact number of unvaccinated has some uncertainty (but it's not off by a factor of 5).

busymom0 4y ago
1. That was only true before Delta. When Delta came, the viral load became the same between vaxxed and unvaxxed folks and combined with waning immunity of 3-6 months, most people were basically "unvaxxed" with respect to transmission by fall. Omicron took it even further where since December, in Ontario, boosted and vaxxed folks have had higher rate per 100k of covid infections. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... 3. It is true and the government admits that boosted and vaxxed have higher rates. Ontario source: https://web.archive.org/web/20220228051509/http://covid-19.ontario.ca/data https://web.archive.org/web/20220228051509/http://covid-19.o... https://web.archive.org/web/20220331081902/http://covid-19.ontario.ca/data https://web.archive.org/web/20220331081902/http://covid-19.o... Here's how it looks: https://imgur.com/a/H4ErmyC https://imgur.com/a/H4ErmyC
- mlyle 4y ago
  > 1. That was only true before Delta. Posting a disputed study that I criticized to try and refute me, when I posted important 2022 followup data to viral shedding based on actual infectivity rather than just RNA copies indicates you either didn't read my comment or didn't understand it. > 3. It is true and the government admits that boosted and vaxxed have higher rates. Ontario source: I just knew you were going to point to the Ontario data from Mar-Apr. This is why I said in a couple places they popped above for a couple data points. Are you deliberately being obtuse? Compare to basically any other data series from any other time; e.g. my locale: https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-case-rates-vaccination-status https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-case-rates-vaccination-...
  - busymom0 4y ago
    How’s that study disputed? That study is not alone either. NEJM has similar studies too. Your link seems to be an outlier. Denmark, UK, Scotland, and other provinces in Canada also show the same higher rates in boosted and fully vaxxed than unvaxxed. Walgreens data for US also shows this. Look at page 3 of: https://www.walgreens.com/businesssolutions/covid-19-index.jsp https://www.walgreens.com/businesssolutions/covid-19-index.j... Canadian government seroprevalence data also shows that between December 2021 and May 2022, there were at least 17.5 million infections. This is in a population of 38 million. This was despite extremely high vax rates. So, how exactly did the vaccine prevent infection and transmission? Vaxxed folks were allowed to enjoy services with a false sense of security and spread Covid to others while unvaxxed folks were denied from society. Please don’t resolve to ad hominem attacks on hacker news.
    - inferiorhuman 4y ago
      - mcronce 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
roenxi 4y ago
> It does look like there's about a 20-30% reduction of infection from random surveys of the population and from nucleocapsid seroprevalence assays; transmission-once-infected is very difficult to measure, but it would be surprising if it did not have some effect. You are responding to a practical concern with a theoretical counter. But practically speaking the vaccine doesn't change the picture at all. The situation pre-vaccine was COVID was going to spread like wildfire after any lockdown attempt ended and everyone was going to be exposed to it. The situation post-vaccine, even with that reduction in infection rates, was the same. Ditto speed, since this is an exponential process that reduction won't have an especially material effect on when everyone gets COVID. We ran a natural experiment on this in Australia [0] - having a highly vaccinated population didn't appear to have any impact at all on COVID transmission rate or reach in who gets infected. The numbers are not convincing that the vaccine did anything for transmissions. The effect of personal protection seems to explain all the benefits of the vaccine. [0] https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html