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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 happenin

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.
        mint2 3y ago
        I don’t think this is quite right of a reading “This would imply that they did not find a correlation between vaccination and severity of symptoms in their testing.” Instead, I think a more accurate rough understanding of their process is they first backed out the effect of severity and then checked if vaccine was correlated with that adjusted number - they found it wasn’t. They didn’t make an assessment on how vaccines effect severity.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >If you are asymptomatic, you shed the same amount no matter your vaccination status. Which, importantly, is "not nearly as much as a sick person". "Asymptomatic" is just a very very low grade infection, not some magic "you are chock full of virus that you are shedding but somehow unaffected" state.

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.
        mint2 3y ago
        I don’t think this is quite right of a reading “This would imply that they did not find a correlation between vaccination and severity of symptoms in their testing.” Instead, I think a more accurate rough understanding of their process is they first backed out the effect of severity and then checked if vaccine was correlated with that adjusted number - they found it wasn’t. They didn’t make an assessment on how vaccines effect severity.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >If you are asymptomatic, you shed the same amount no matter your vaccination status. Which, importantly, is "not nearly as much as a sick person". "Asymptomatic" is just a very very low grade infection, not some magic "you are chock full of virus that you are shedding but somehow unaffected" state.