4 ms·

Fair point. Near 0%.

by ls15 4y ago

nwiswell 4y ago
The legal standard for blindness in the US is 20/200 vision, i.e. someone with "ideal" 20/20 vision sees with the same acuity from 200 feet away as a legally blind person can from 20 feet away. It's really a misconception that most blind people can't see anything, they just aren't able to operate a car safely, have trouble reading signs, etc., and crucially that this is not something that can be fixed with glasses, contacts, surgery, et cetera. (I am not allowed to drive my car without my glasses, but because the glasses work, I am not legally blind). The glasses are really quite an apt analogy to the transmission rate with a COVID vaccine. It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Nor is it the case that I couldn't drive my car without my glasses, but it's a lot safer if I wear them, so it's required by law. Personally I like that requirement. Yes, it's theoretically a restriction on my rights, but I like the idea that other people on the road are also subject to that restriction; it makes me safer. Same goes for the vaccine.
- ls15 4y ago
  > It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Is that really the case? Even for the early variants, the reduction of transmission risk was <= 23% https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597
  - nwiswell 4y ago
    You might want to read that abstract again because you did not understand it. It says the transmission ratio is 0.50 (i.e., 2x better) vs unvaccinated with two doses of BNT162b2 (that's the Pfizer vaccine, the other one is a research vaccine). As we know now, booster doses are necessary for Delta, and reduce that figure well below 0.50. Furthermore, looking at the main data table in the paper, two-dose BNT162b2 vaccination reduces your odds of contracting Delta (as opposed to transmitting it, once you've already caught it) to 0.19 versus an unvaccinated index. Taken together, you can see how those two factors make a person a much less effective spreader of COVID in their community. The 7-23% figure you are citing is how much reduction in transmissions rate is explained due to viral load differences between Alpha and Delta. Just wondering: when you read that it only produced a 23% benefit, you didn't have any immediate doubts that couldn't possibly be correct?
    - ls15 4y ago
      I doubt most efficacy claims, because they don't line up with the experiences of most of the people that I know. Most people were vaccinated, most people were boostered, most people contracted covid, many obviousy passed it on. I am not saying that the numbers are wrong, but I am saing that the vaccine was marketed with fancy numbers, that don't mean much in the end, because people get vaccinated, but still get covid and pass it on, potentially multiple times. I can get behind the argument of reducing the risk of severe illness, but all the arguments about protecting others do not make any sense to me when there is such a blatant lack of guarantees. Forbidding blind people to drive a car is a much more straight-forward measure.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
        To be clear what you're saying is that you have stopped disputing the data, but ... oh look over there! hey, who needs data when you have anecdotes?
        ls15 4y ago
        An estimated 94% of Americans has been infected with SARS-CoV-2. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v... About 69% of Americans have received two doses. Some got more. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-rate-total https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-... This leaves very little room for real transmission/infection benefit. About 6% of people have been saved from being infected, but this is trending southwards and some of them may just have been religious maskers and social distancers, so it is not clear by how much the vaccination contributes to the 6%.

Fair point. Near 0%.

by ls15 4y ago

Fair point. Near 0%.

The legal standard for blindness in the US is 20/200 vision, i.e. someone with "ideal" 20/20 vision sees with the same acuity from 200 feet away as a legally blind person can from 20 feet away. It's really a misconception that most blind people can't see anything, they just aren't able to operate a car safely, have trouble reading signs, etc., and crucially that this is not something that can be fixed with glasses, contacts, surgery, et cetera. (I am not allowed to drive my car without my glasses, but because the glasses work, I am not legally blind). The glasses are really quite an apt analogy to the transmission rate with a COVID vaccine. It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Nor is it the case that I couldn't drive my car without my glasses, but it's a lot safer if I wear them, so it's required by law. Personally I like that requirement. Yes, it's theoretically a restriction on my rights, but I like the idea that other people on the road are also subject to that restriction; it makes me safer. Same goes for the vaccine.

ls15 4y ago
> It's not that you can't transmit, but your risk of doing so is several times lower. Is that really the case? Even for the early variants, the reduction of transmission risk was <= 23% https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597
- nwiswell 4y ago
  You might want to read that abstract again because you did not understand it. It says the transmission ratio is 0.50 (i.e., 2x better) vs unvaccinated with two doses of BNT162b2 (that's the Pfizer vaccine, the other one is a research vaccine). As we know now, booster doses are necessary for Delta, and reduce that figure well below 0.50. Furthermore, looking at the main data table in the paper, two-dose BNT162b2 vaccination reduces your odds of contracting Delta (as opposed to transmitting it, once you've already caught it) to 0.19 versus an unvaccinated index. Taken together, you can see how those two factors make a person a much less effective spreader of COVID in their community. The 7-23% figure you are citing is how much reduction in transmissions rate is explained due to viral load differences between Alpha and Delta. Just wondering: when you read that it only produced a 23% benefit, you didn't have any immediate doubts that couldn't possibly be correct?
  - ls15 4y ago
    I doubt most efficacy claims, because they don't line up with the experiences of most of the people that I know. Most people were vaccinated, most people were boostered, most people contracted covid, many obviousy passed it on. I am not saying that the numbers are wrong, but I am saing that the vaccine was marketed with fancy numbers, that don't mean much in the end, because people get vaccinated, but still get covid and pass it on, potentially multiple times. I can get behind the argument of reducing the risk of severe illness, but all the arguments about protecting others do not make any sense to me when there is such a blatant lack of guarantees. Forbidding blind people to drive a car is a much more straight-forward measure.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
      To be clear what you're saying is that you have stopped disputing the data, but ... oh look over there! hey, who needs data when you have anecdotes?
      - ls15 4y ago
        An estimated 94% of Americans has been infected with SARS-CoV-2. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v... About 69% of Americans have received two doses. Some got more. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-rate-total https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-... This leaves very little room for real transmission/infection benefit. About 6% of people have been saved from being infected, but this is trending southwards and some of them may just have been religious maskers and social distancers, so it is not clear by how much the vaccination contributes to the 6%.