5 ms·

"We further found that levels of exhaled viral RNA increased with self-rated symptom-severity, though individual variation was high." I was curious on how high

by taeric 3y ago

"We further found that levels of exhaled viral RNA increased with self-rated symptom-severity, though individual variation was high." I was curious on how high the variation was, so checked that out. There is a fairly wide swing in measurements. Not clear what that means on things. Would love to see more conversation on that. Most concerning on this, though, is "Levels of exhaled viral RNA did not differ across age, sex, time of day, vaccination status or viral variant." I think the data was clear enough that the vaccines are worth getting. However, this seems to shatter any thoughts folks may have that they are safer to others when they are vaccinated? I know that was at least a hope? (Question as I am not sure that was correct.) I seem to remember a previous study that showed super spreaders exist out there. In that some individuals shed substantially more virus than others. In ways that we don't understand, yet.

op00to 3y ago
If you don’t get Covid because you got the vaccine, that’s a benefit to others.
- omginternets 3y ago
  And if the vaccine makes you an asymptomatic carrier, that's a harm to others. I think it's more useful to start with the question of what is actually happening, and examine the consequences from there. Otherwise, we find ourselves arguing in favor of our priors, which helps no one.
  - mint2 3y ago
    This PR article doesn’t do a good job explaining but it seems the severity was treated as an independent variable and controlled for, so with that assumption the article actually does imply vaccinated individuals shed less - yes the same amount when controlled for severity - but the cases are less severe. Why I say that is because of the two paragraphs: “”“ Mild and moderately symptomatic patients with COVID still exhale large amounts of virus, though severely symptomatic cases exhale higher levels on average, the study reports. Vaccinated and unvaccinated patients exhale similar levels of virus over the course of infection, the research shows.””” Edit: the actual preprint states “ We further found that levels of exhaled viral RNA increased with self-rated symptom-severity” so some of these statements in the PR article and article aren’t all squaring together.
    - taeric 3y ago
      My quote was from the study, directly. My interpretation is basically that, to the extent that the vaccine reduces symptoms, it reduces shedding. If you still get sick, you are still shedding. If you are asymptomatic, you shed the same amount no matter your vaccination status.
      - mint2 3y ago
        Edit oops didn’t see it which comment was being referred to at first. the study says severity was controlled for when assessing the impact of vaccination. That leads to an obvious problem as vaccines lead to lower severity.
        taeric 3y ago
        Yeah, I don't know how to make sense of the quote I pulled out, to be honest. Why say that, if everyone that had the vaccine was lower in symptoms? Seems to be the kind of thing you would only say if the vaccinated people in your study were represented across the spread?
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        It's pretty clear actually. The point the paper is making about vaccine status is this: If you have strong symptoms, you shed lots of virus, regardless of whether you are vaccinated or not. From separate studies, we know that if you are vaccinated, you are less likely to have serious symptoms. Put the two together. Fewer people seriously ill is fewer people shedding lots of virus, and more people vaccinated is fewer people seriously ill
        taeric 3y ago
        Having these as carve outs, though, gives me pause there. The claim seems to be that, on average, higher symptoms means more shedding. However, trying to control for any other variable results in no significant finding. This would imply that they did not find a correlation between vaccination and severity of symptoms in their testing. I'm willing to chalk that up to them not having enough vaccinated people in their study. That fits the caveat they give regarding vaccinated people. It does not automatically support your read, though.
- version_five 3y ago
  That only happened for a few months in 2021. Since then theh haven't stopped anyone from getting it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- terminatornet 3y ago
  unfortunately the CDC said early on that if you're vaccinated, you can't spread covid, that's clearly not the case. At this point, the vaccine only seems to prevent severe hospitalization (and that's assuming you still have immunity from your last dose, since it appears your protection wanes to almost nothing after 4-6 months)
- taeric 3y ago
  Has it been shown that the vaccine keeps you from getting it? I do think it is worth calling out my point is FAR from a panic moment. The study calls out they had very few vaccinated people, for one. For two, again, the data is clear that you are much safer for yourself if you are vaccinated.
- aodonnell2536 3y ago
  Receiving the COVID vaccine does not prevent the contraction of COVID or ability to spread it, it only lessens the symptoms after infection
  - taeric 3y ago
    Intuitively, it seems that if it reduced symptoms after infection, than it would have been seen as correlated to exhalation. Now, I realize that it could just negatively correlate with self-reporting symptoms? Or it could be that that correlation between self reporting and how much you exhaled was just very lightly correlated, such that the other correlation is low? Neither of which would be that surprising, I guess. They do disappoint me, for some reason.
  - myko 3y ago
    > it only lessens the symptoms after infection No, it also lowers the possibility of becoming ill in the first place, which does make one less likely to infect others
landemva 3y ago
> I think the data was clear enough that the vaccines are worth getting Unlike like measles or polio, these misnamed 'vaccines' don't prevent getting the disease nor transmitting the virus. I think young healthy people should get the disease, recover, develop antibodies, and be done with it. We did this for chicken pox until a couple decades ago.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >Unlike like measles or polio The polio vaccine children receive today in the United States is non-steralizing. If this anti-vaxxer assumption was meaningful, we wouldn't have fewer cases of polio. >We did this for chicken pox until a couple decades ago. Fun, because that's having great side effects, notably, that shingles sucks ass, and now that there isn't a giant amount of chickenpox virus in every closed space because kids are vaccinated, my generation has a 1/3 chance to develop shingles, even at a young age. Meanwhile, those kids that were vaccinated do not have such worries. Oh, and >get the disease, recover, develop antibodies, and be done with it I guess you aren't familiar with people getting covid multiple times, regardless of vaccination status? It's like how everyone told my mom you can't get mono more than once, despite her having flare ups every year. The public never knew shit about infectious agents and I really don't care about their opinion, much in the same way I don't ask my grandfather who stopped using Windows in 1996 where to find the network settings.
  - landemva 3y ago
    I'm not familiar with _unvaxed_ people getting coronavirus multiple times (prior infection confirmed by antibody blood test). I got it once and blood tests show continued strong antibodies. Since then I haven't even had the flu in a couple years. I have heard of many vaxed people getting coronavirus multiple times, including prominent world leaders.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
ralferoo 3y ago
> I think the data was clear enough that the vaccines are worth getting. However, this seems to shatter any thoughts folks may have that they are safer to others when they are vaccinated? That's not the correct conclusion from this statement though. Taking the vaccine increases the likelihood that your immune system will be able to get kill the virus almost immediately after exposure, so that you don't start exhibiting symptoms at all. You can still get COVID and thus exhibit symptoms after being vaccinated, it's just less likely. However, this statement is concerning those who got infected and then started exhibiting symptoms. Of those, i.e. when your immune system wasn't able to immediately deal with the virus and needs to learn how to do it, the viral load expelled was roughly the same in every case, peaking at 8 days. That's probably not too unexpected really, but it does seem to indicate that the immunity given by the vaccine is probably all or nothing for any particular variant you're exposed to - it either works immediately and stops you getting ill, or the immune system still has to start from scratch in figuring it out.
- taeric 3y ago
  I'm game to see more on that. This study specifically, shows that you can be vaccinated and get it. You will have fewer symptoms, but still shed just as much virus. That is literally what their callout was about, no? If you are claiming that you are less likely to get it when you are vaccinated, that kind of contradicts a lot of what I've seen out there. I'm happy to learn that is mostly paranoia, though? I haven't actually followed too much there, as it doesn't seem to impact my behavior. I'll get vaccinated when eligible, just as I have done for other things for most of my life.
  - weaksauce 3y ago
    > This study specifically, shows that you can be vaccinated and get it. You will have fewer symptoms, but still shed just as much virus. no. the study shows that the vaccine status doesn't change how much you shed for a given level of symptoms. aka high symptomatic => high viral shed. lowly symptomatic => low viral shed. from the actual pre-print's[0] abstract: > We further found that levels of exhaled viral RNA increased with self-rated symptom-severity, though individual variation was high. Levels of exhaled viral RNA did not differ across age, sex, time of day, vaccination status or viral variant. 0. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.06.23295138v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.06.23295138v...

by taeric 3y ago

op00to 3y ago

If you don’t get Covid because you got the vaccine, that’s a benefit to others.

omginternets 3y ago
And if the vaccine makes you an asymptomatic carrier, that's a harm to others. I think it's more useful to start with the question of what is actually happening, and examine the consequences from there. Otherwise, we find ourselves arguing in favor of our priors, which helps no one.
- mint2 3y ago
  This PR article doesn’t do a good job explaining but it seems the severity was treated as an independent variable and controlled for, so with that assumption the article actually does imply vaccinated individuals shed less - yes the same amount when controlled for severity - but the cases are less severe. Why I say that is because of the two paragraphs: “”“ Mild and moderately symptomatic patients with COVID still exhale large amounts of virus, though severely symptomatic cases exhale higher levels on average, the study reports. Vaccinated and unvaccinated patients exhale similar levels of virus over the course of infection, the research shows.””” Edit: the actual preprint states “ We further found that levels of exhaled viral RNA increased with self-rated symptom-severity” so some of these statements in the PR article and article aren’t all squaring together.
  - taeric 3y ago
    My quote was from the study, directly. My interpretation is basically that, to the extent that the vaccine reduces symptoms, it reduces shedding. If you still get sick, you are still shedding. If you are asymptomatic, you shed the same amount no matter your vaccination status.
    - mint2 3y ago
      Edit oops didn’t see it which comment was being referred to at first. the study says severity was controlled for when assessing the impact of vaccination. That leads to an obvious problem as vaccines lead to lower severity.
      - taeric 3y ago
        Yeah, I don't know how to make sense of the quote I pulled out, to be honest. Why say that, if everyone that had the vaccine was lower in symptoms? Seems to be the kind of thing you would only say if the vaccinated people in your study were represented across the spread?
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        It's pretty clear actually. The point the paper is making about vaccine status is this: If you have strong symptoms, you shed lots of virus, regardless of whether you are vaccinated or not. From separate studies, we know that if you are vaccinated, you are less likely to have serious symptoms. Put the two together. Fewer people seriously ill is fewer people shedding lots of virus, and more people vaccinated is fewer people seriously ill
        taeric 3y ago
        Having these as carve outs, though, gives me pause there. The claim seems to be that, on average, higher symptoms means more shedding. However, trying to control for any other variable results in no significant finding. This would imply that they did not find a correlation between vaccination and severity of symptoms in their testing. I'm willing to chalk that up to them not having enough vaccinated people in their study. That fits the caveat they give regarding vaccinated people. It does not automatically support your read, though.
version_five 3y ago
That only happened for a few months in 2021. Since then theh haven't stopped anyone from getting it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
terminatornet 3y ago
unfortunately the CDC said early on that if you're vaccinated, you can't spread covid, that's clearly not the case. At this point, the vaccine only seems to prevent severe hospitalization (and that's assuming you still have immunity from your last dose, since it appears your protection wanes to almost nothing after 4-6 months)
taeric 3y ago
Has it been shown that the vaccine keeps you from getting it? I do think it is worth calling out my point is FAR from a panic moment. The study calls out they had very few vaccinated people, for one. For two, again, the data is clear that you are much safer for yourself if you are vaccinated.
aodonnell2536 3y ago
Receiving the COVID vaccine does not prevent the contraction of COVID or ability to spread it, it only lessens the symptoms after infection
- taeric 3y ago
  Intuitively, it seems that if it reduced symptoms after infection, than it would have been seen as correlated to exhalation. Now, I realize that it could just negatively correlate with self-reporting symptoms? Or it could be that that correlation between self reporting and how much you exhaled was just very lightly correlated, such that the other correlation is low? Neither of which would be that surprising, I guess. They do disappoint me, for some reason.
- myko 3y ago
  > it only lessens the symptoms after infection No, it also lowers the possibility of becoming ill in the first place, which does make one less likely to infect others

landemva 3y ago

> I think the data was clear enough that the vaccines are worth getting Unlike like measles or polio, these misnamed 'vaccines' don't prevent getting the disease nor transmitting the virus. I think young healthy people should get the disease, recover, develop antibodies, and be done with it. We did this for chicken pox until a couple decades ago.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mrguyorama 3y ago
>Unlike like measles or polio The polio vaccine children receive today in the United States is non-steralizing. If this anti-vaxxer assumption was meaningful, we wouldn't have fewer cases of polio. >We did this for chicken pox until a couple decades ago. Fun, because that's having great side effects, notably, that shingles sucks ass, and now that there isn't a giant amount of chickenpox virus in every closed space because kids are vaccinated, my generation has a 1/3 chance to develop shingles, even at a young age. Meanwhile, those kids that were vaccinated do not have such worries. Oh, and >get the disease, recover, develop antibodies, and be done with it I guess you aren't familiar with people getting covid multiple times, regardless of vaccination status? It's like how everyone told my mom you can't get mono more than once, despite her having flare ups every year. The public never knew shit about infectious agents and I really don't care about their opinion, much in the same way I don't ask my grandfather who stopped using Windows in 1996 where to find the network settings.
- landemva 3y ago
  I'm not familiar with _unvaxed_ people getting coronavirus multiple times (prior infection confirmed by antibody blood test). I got it once and blood tests show continued strong antibodies. Since then I haven't even had the flu in a couple years. I have heard of many vaxed people getting coronavirus multiple times, including prominent world leaders.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago

ralferoo 3y ago

> I think the data was clear enough that the vaccines are worth getting. However, this seems to shatter any thoughts folks may have that they are safer to others when they are vaccinated? That's not the correct conclusion from this statement though. Taking the vaccine increases the likelihood that your immune system will be able to get kill the virus almost immediately after exposure, so that you don't start exhibiting symptoms at all. You can still get COVID and thus exhibit symptoms after being vaccinated, it's just less likely. However, this statement is concerning those who got infected and then started exhibiting symptoms. Of those, i.e. when your immune system wasn't able to immediately deal with the virus and needs to learn how to do it, the viral load expelled was roughly the same in every case, peaking at 8 days. That's probably not too unexpected really, but it does seem to indicate that the immunity given by the vaccine is probably all or nothing for any particular variant you're exposed to - it either works immediately and stops you getting ill, or the immune system still has to start from scratch in figuring it out.

taeric 3y ago
I'm game to see more on that. This study specifically, shows that you can be vaccinated and get it. You will have fewer symptoms, but still shed just as much virus. That is literally what their callout was about, no? If you are claiming that you are less likely to get it when you are vaccinated, that kind of contradicts a lot of what I've seen out there. I'm happy to learn that is mostly paranoia, though? I haven't actually followed too much there, as it doesn't seem to impact my behavior. I'll get vaccinated when eligible, just as I have done for other things for most of my life.
- weaksauce 3y ago
  > This study specifically, shows that you can be vaccinated and get it. You will have fewer symptoms, but still shed just as much virus. no. the study shows that the vaccine status doesn't change how much you shed for a given level of symptoms. aka high symptomatic => high viral shed. lowly symptomatic => low viral shed. from the actual pre-print's[0] abstract: > We further found that levels of exhaled viral RNA increased with self-rated symptom-severity, though individual variation was high. Levels of exhaled viral RNA did not differ across age, sex, time of day, vaccination status or viral variant. 0. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.06.23295138v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.06.23295138v...