Covid Vaccines Reducing Infections

Where I am in Australia, there has been a lot of media talk that Covid vaccines were useless in slowing the spread. It reduces the severity and death rate - no question. I have seen reports that if you have the Covid booster, you are significantly less likely to die:
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering...-deaths-among-vaccinated-show-boosters-matter

But the claim is it does nothing to slow the spread. This is exacerbated by some studies show 90% of people who have it do not even know it:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02...cr-tests-queensland-health-symptoms/100771540

Those that don't know they have it do not isolate and keep spreading it.

I am dubious of the claim that vaccines do nothing to prevent disease spread. Since vaccines reduce the severity and length of time you have symptoms, it stands to reason it reduces the time you are infectious. I have not seen statistics to confirm my suspicion - so it just remained that - a suspicion.

Now at least one study has been done - and yes, the vaccines do reduce transmission by reducing the time you are infectious:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02138-x

So it is not only a good idea for your health to get vaccinated and get a booster every year - conveniently, it could be done when you get the flu shot - maybe in the same vaccine. For high-risk groups like me and my doctor without going into why he is at high risk, my doctor recommends a booster every 6 months, and that is what I do.

As always, I don't suggest or believe in vaccine mandates - I suggest consulting your doctor. Studies have shown it works better than mandates anyway - strange but true.

Thanks
Bill

Without going into a long drawn out explanation about the intricacies of immune responses to pathogens....

In general vaccines induce the following when studies reference populations -
symptomatic reduction, greatly reduced mortality and nastiness.

They do not always induce sterilizing immunity- the concept where immune cells attack pathogens very quickly, preventing any infection. If some few patients do have sterilizing immunity, it does not last long.
A few weeks in general.

This is based on anecdotal stories. So-called populations of n=1. i.e.
Uncle Louis,
my neighbor,
or cousin Maybell.Example:
Each of them got tested four months after vaccination and felt fine. But got a positive test. So it did not work. They had to self-isolate. A major imposition for many people.

No.
Sterilizing immunity for short periods after vaccination may sometime prevent infection. Never always.
Never for long periods.

Vaccines provide protection against disease processes, not necessarily infection. They DO NOT stop infection, and were never intended to completely prevent any infection from any disease forever.

In the case of COVID and sequelae (long Covid pathologies) the protection against severe symptoms is very well proven scientifically.

See: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e3.htm <- origin of the problem
'Preventing transmission' was something the US CDC created with a bad post in an MMWR - a report - that called the infections that showed up as "breakthrough infections". IMO a 'brain fart' on the part of some editor. This issue has been debated to death....

Anti-vaxxers jumped on it as an admission that the Covid vaccines did not work. The bogus implication was that the vaccines are supposed to stonewall all infections.

The problem was made worse and more painful because a lot of businesses had to allow employees to self-isolate if that person got a positive PCR test. This was devastating for businesses that could only be transacted in person. Delivery, pickup, or crowds. Example restaurants, movie theaters. Plus customers generally stopped coming around, more economic pain. Everybody who could, stayed home and minimized external public contact.

In a world with 8 billion people many of whom are gathered in large but dense cities there is no such thing as isolation.
Unless a vaccine is 100% efficient against infection and subsequent transmission , the virus will spread anyway.
Not all people will isolate , some of whom might not even know their sick anyway + the vaccine wasn't effective against infection with the newer variants (literally everyone i knew who had jabbed did have also the Omicron) so the result is that the virus spread and we got saved not because of the vaccines!!!, but because we got lucky that the virus mutated to a much less severe version of itself therefore we achieved a form of, or close to herd immunity and now can feel safer than once seemed.

Wish to disagree? Sure, now imagine the virus mutated to a newer but more severe form than the original strains , most of the vaccinated also did have omicron , but Omicron was light in an of itself, most never really had much trouble with it even without the vaccine.
So what i'm saying is this, it seems to me the pandemic took a turn for the best scenario (mutated towards a less severe form) for us and vaccines helped very little if at all in that.

bhobba said:

As always, I don't suggest or believe in vaccine mandates - I suggest consulting your doctor. Studies have shown it works better than mandates anyway - strange but true.

I applaud that, sadly this was not the case in many parts of the world.
Democracy all of a sudden turned into chaos , everyone was scared and whoever thought that maybe he is okay without risking vaccine side effects was labeled a fool and a danger to society.

In the end it turns out that pandemics much like rain and thunder come and go, and we , apart from true isolation if that was possible, can do very little to change their course.
The last place that was able to stop this pandemic was China with a total brutal lockdown and just in the first few weeks of the couple of cases that were found, beyond that the "Genie" was out of the bottle and all attempts to capture it were as we now know futile.PS. I do know full well that many science loving folks hate dearly when someone speaks negatively about vaccines, that I have learned in many ways but I do not see how the covid vaccines truly helped in changing the tide oft he pandemic, aside from their side effects, everyone just got Omicron and that was pretty much the end of it as far as we know, i don't even hear anything about Covid in the news anymore, it;'s all about Russia and Ukraine and economic inflation etc.

I think making sense of the way in which infections caused by RNA viruses change can be difficult to make sense of. The very high error rate during virus reproduction means that there are huge numbers of variants in the wild population, all waiting their turn in the fitness competition and there are a whole range of issues that can effect fitness. While I agree, total isolation is extremely difficult but you still need to be exposed to the virus to become infected and while the press describe infections as occurring in waves, implying a steady predictable spread this isn't what happens. We see outbreaks suddenly occurring in multiple widely separate locations and we only understand some of the reasons for this but action to reduce contact can have a massive effect, remember SARS, actions to reduce exposure effectively terminated the epidemic and with it the disease itself.

Our immune system on exposure to Covid 19 responds in a whole range of ways, in many diseases it is the creation of specific antibodies that interfere with the way in which the virus causes symptomatic disease which is considered the most effective. We create a range of antibodies that have different qualities and targets on the virus, a wide range of the proteins on the virus surface will induce specific antibodies and early research suggested the proteins on the "spike" the virus uses to gain cell entry was the most significant, so they were the main target for vaccine development. Previous experience with other viruses suggested that high levels of such antibodies could effectively prevent infection but in the case of Covid 19 the antibodies produced seemed to have a particularly short life in circulation and the spike proteins were particularly prone to change as a result of RNA copy errors. This meant that as the vaccination campaign developed the relatively short period of significant protection which mean's there was always a significant number of people who's antibody levels simply didn't prevent infection. Then there was always a huge number of variants in which key characteristics allowed them to avoid the actions of some antibodies or increase the shedding of infectious particles.

Fortunately, the vaccines stimulated the production of a range of antibodies including antibodies that targeted parts of the virus that were conserved across all the variants. So the response to infection could be slower, but it still lead to a protective response that could prevent severe disease. Its considered that one of the selective pressures that gave omicron an advantage is that in causing a milder disease, people would continue to socialise, so increasing spread. It also had the ability to avoid some antibodies, so without the vaccine campaign which induced high resistance to the original strain, it may never have had the opportunity to become the dominant strain. There are of course other variants still around & causing infections
Despite the anti-vaccine campaigns, the adverse events associated with the vaccines are most commonly associated with immune activation and these are relatively common in most vaccinations. The more dangerous adverse events are often typical of the disease itself, for example the cardiovascular inflammation rarely seen with the mRNA vaccines and which are rarely serious are somewhere between 10 to 20 times more common in Covid infections. All vaccine decisions are made on the basis of the balance of risks, you can't activate our immune system without some risk but its still the case that vaccination is safer than the disease, even with omicron, the US continues to see significant mortality from Covid and its unnecessary.
The problems really stem from a lack of understanding in the public compounded by a lack of trust in the institutions trying to introduce coercive control in an attempt to control a poorly understood disease. Sadly the self-serving politicking that continues even now, may mean the lack of trust is justified.

jim mcnamara said:

This is based on anecdotal stories. So-called populations of n=1. i.e.

Speaking of populations of n=1, has anyone else seen the news recently of the 'cryptic' line of Covid in Ohio? It apparently is 2 years old and comes from a single unidentified person. Being that the detection is coming from sewer samples they've decided that it is living in the persons intestinal tract. From the volume of virus bits they've determined that it has infected 3 square feet of the surface area of their intestines.

ref:
This has apparently been picked up by several news agencies in the last week: CNN for example.

Looking over it today, I ran across someones question that struck me as one of the best questions I've seen during the entire pandemic; "How do you treat a viral infection when the body seems to have no problem whatsoever with it being there?"

An infection of one person, but not transmitting might be explained by a mutant virus that lacks something required for transmitting between people.

OmCheeto said:

"How do you treat a viral infection when the body seems to have no problem whatsoever with it being there?"

Leave it alone unless there is some threat.
You carry a lot of non-symptomatic viruses already.
Everybody does (except maybe for bubble people*).
* people raised in sterile bubbles.

BillTre said:

An infection of one person, but not transmitting might be explained by a mutant virus that lacks something required for transmitting between people.

Another takeaway for me from Marc Johnsons conversation was that since the virus had taken up residence the persons digestive tract vs their lungs, the transmissibility is so vastly diminished that it's almost nil.

Leave it alone unless there is some threat.
You carry a lot of non-symptomatic viruses already.
Everybody does (except maybe for bubble people*).
* people raised in sterile bubbles.

But who is to say that this isn't how the original Covid 19 came about? I have an acquaintance about my age who claims to have never had the flu in his life in spite of the fact that he's never had a flu shot and isn't a hermit. I've heard many times of 'animal' reservoirs that serve to incubate diseases until they jump to humans. Why can't these 'Typhoid Mary / Covid Harrys' be the incubative sources of these deadly viruses? And if so, should we be proactive in finding them? I'm sure everyone remembers when millions of minks were exterminated in Holland because they were suspected of harboring the virus.

To those skeptical of my previous post, recall I never said I'm against safety measures like isolating when sick.
All I said is that once a virus spreads quickly to a large portion of the world population , how do you keep it in check?
Humans are known to be highly mobile and often disregard mild safety instructions unless they come with a severe punishment.
I did isolate when I was sick, the person who got me sick didn't, they thought that it's the flu (this was early in the pandemic) you know certain people have bad character , they think that if they themselves are somewhat fine others will be too.

It seems that even with China's police state approach the isolation wasn't that successful, the virus still spread and had breakthrough cases in large numbers again and again.As for how much the vaccines helped or not, I if that will ever be possible would like to see conclusive evidence that they managed to turn the tide, the way it seems to me now is that they merely helped some people with background conditions to avoid death and others have a less severe case of Omicron, apart from that there is no actual hard evidence the pandemic would have been longer without any vaccine.
More people would have died? Yes most likely! More had longer infection? Yes most likely.

But did they in general shortened the pandemic or stopped certain variants from appearing altogether , I very much doubt so.
If I'm not mistaken , variants appear as long as a significant number of population has the virus within them actively being transmitted and infected as this provides the natural "lab" aka the breading ground for mutations to test themselves out in the real world.
Now all along the vaccine campaign up until this point there was all along a big spread nevertheless that only decreased after a major infection wave with Omicron.

So the necessary conditions for further variants and further spread were there all along, not counting the individual help that for example elderly people or people with pre existing conditions got because of their vaccination, but that it seems did not affect the general trend of the pandemic in a global way

Laroxe said:

Despite the anti-vaccine campaigns, the adverse events associated with the vaccines are most commonly associated with immune activation and these are relatively common in most vaccinations. The more dangerous adverse events are often typical of the disease itself, for example the cardiovascular inflammation rarely seen with the mRNA vaccines and which are rarely serious are somewhere between 10 to 20 times more common in Covid infections.

Exactly, and while cardiovascular cases were indeed rather low as a side effect, neurological issues, very similar in nature to those that arose for many in the aftermath from actual infection, were much more common after vaccination.
In fact now a great deal of studies either mention this or discuss this that indeed the common factor might be the biologically active spike itself. After all not much mystery there given the vaccines and the virus share just once common part...
Yet for many it took very long to start to believe this, that 2+2 could indeed be 4.

Laroxe said:

The problems really stem from a lack of understanding in the public compounded by a lack of trust in the institutions trying to introduce coercive control in an attempt to control a poorly understood disease. Sadly the self-serving politicking that continues even now, may mean the lack of trust is justified.

Well, I would argue that the absolute worst way to try to "educate" the masses is to force vaccine mandates without which you lose your job as many did and go to extreme lengths like in Austria were for a while one had to pay a fine of up to 3600 Eur if they were 18 and older and refused to vaccinate.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...unvaccinated-in-march-nehammer-says#xj4y7vzkgClearly people who made these decisions did not learn history, because if they did they would know that you never get a better stronger democracy and more public support when you force something controversial down their throat.
I for one had rather strong neurological issues after my single shot , issues that were on the same level as those i had after infection. I still endure infrequent short term memory loss. (which wasn't present just after my infection)
The people who thought and still think that the vaccine is just a common thing everyone should have like soap and water are greatly mistaken and lack information and understanding (or will to) about it's multiple possible mechanisms of interaction.
Therefore I think the best words spoken here so far are these, when @bhobba said

As always, I don't suggest or believe in vaccine mandates - I suggest consulting your doctor. Studies have shown it works better than mandates anyway - strange but true.

Exactly, because only your doctor knows your personal background issues and only he might be in the best position to help determine whether the risk is worth the reward or vice versa

An opinion like this was very hard to voice just a year ago when everyone was still up in arms and emotional about anything Covid related

artis said:

Exactly, and while cardiovascular cases were indeed rather low as a side effect, neurological issues, very similar in nature to those that arose for many in the aftermath from actual infection, were much more common after vaccination.
In fact now a great deal of studies either mention this or discuss this that indeed the common factor might be the biologically active spike itself. After all not much mystery there given the vaccines and the virus share just once common part...
Yet for many it took very long to start to believe this, that 2+2 could indeed be 4.Well, I would argue that the absolute worst way to try to "educate" the masses is to force vaccine mandates without which you lose your job as many did and go to extreme lengths like in Austria were for a while one had to pay a fine of up to 3600 Eur if they were 18 and older and refused to vaccinate.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...unvaccinated-in-march-nehammer-says#xj4y7vzkgClearly people who made these decisions did not learn history, because if they did they would know that you never get a better stronger democracy and more public support when you force something controversial down their throat.
I for one had rather strong neurological issues after my single shot , issues that were on the same level as those i had after infection. I still endure infrequent short term memory loss. (which wasn't present just after my infection)
The people who thought and still think that the vaccine is just a common thing everyone should have like soap and water are greatly mistaken and lack information and understanding (or will to) about it's multiple possible mechanisms of interaction.
Therefore I think the best words spoken here so far are these, when @bhobba saidExactly, because only your doctor knows your personal background issues and only he might be in the best position to help determine whether the risk is worth the reward or vice versa

An opinion like this was very hard to voice just a year ago when everyone was still up in arms and emotional about anything Covid related

Hi Artis,

By the time Omicron hit we had already had The first wave (close to wild type say) then Alpha and Delta in the UK.

The first wave March April 2020 was killing about 1000 people a day this increased during Alpha Jan 2021. No one was vaccinated.

By the time everyone was double vaccinated and out of lockdown, Omicron hit and 120 people a day were dying, how many if no one was vaccinated? Or just single vaccinated?

Also waiting to see if the virus mutated itself out of its own virulence without bothering about a vaccine would have been very very risky.

That is all they could do in 1918, isolate, wait till the waves passed, then get on with burying 25 million people.

artis said:

I if that will ever be possible would like to see conclusive evidence that they managed to turn the tide

Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Because it seems you have, and it would be nice to see appropriate sources.

pinball1970 said:

Hi Artis,

By the time Omicron hit we had already had The first wave (close to wild type say) then Alpha and Delta in the UK.

The first wave March April 2020 was killing about 1000 people a day this increased during Alpha Jan 2021. No one was vaccinated.

By the time everyone was double vaccinated and out of lockdown, Omicron hit and 120 people a day were dying, how many if no one was vaccinated? Or just single vaccinated?

Also waiting to see if the virus mutated itself out of its own virulence without bothering about a vaccine would have been very very risky.

That is all the could do in 1918, isolate, wait till the waves passed, then get on with burying 25 million people.

Those first variants were on average more severe in terms of clinical outcomes than the last ones.
I know this first hand as I had both.
Sure my own account is subjective because after the first infection i developed antibodies for the full virus including spike.
But I think everyone agrees to this from doctors to researchers that the first variants were more severe and mainly because they tended to go for the lungs to cause pneumonia.
The latter variants on the other hand either ended with a sore throat and simpler cold like symptoms or caused bronchitis which are all much easier to treat and result in less hospital admission.
And that is a significant difference of outcome depending on which parts of the airways the virus targets.

As for the "Spanish flu" clearly, I think we cannot compare two different viruses and different living conditions, hospital availability , availability of drugs and nutrients and physical conditions like for example getting sick while fighting a war in dirty and moist trenches.
Having a "leaky" vaccine as we had with Covid is just one of the many different instruments that we had now to fight Covid, but I don't think we can calculate precisely which instrument saved how many lives VS the other, like Oxygen breathing, plethora of antibiotics, tests for infection, fast acting against it etc etc.

From my personal observation locally , those that did not wait but started treatment as fast as possible , whether hospitalization or else, all turned out ok. The few people I know who perished, all waited out their infection in the hopes of getting better, but it just caused it to become more severe by which point even hospitalization did not help.

weirdoguy said:

Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Because it seems you have, and it would be nice to see appropriate sources.

Neither of us currently have that evidence , therefore it is just speculation, but it wasn't me that started it by saying that the vaccine is the savior of the day.

I do believe vaccination had some effect, and statistics also show that, the question is how large and whether we can clearly claim certain numbers or say that without people would drop dead like flies from Omicron, which some try to argue and I strongly disagree

artis said:

Those first variants were on average more severe in terms of clinical outcomes than the last ones.
I know this first hand as I had both.

Delta was more dangerous than earlier strains in terms of ICU

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...her-risk-of-icu-admission-than-original-virus

Alpha more deadly than earlier strains

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00462-7/fulltext

@pinball1970 I counted alpha and delta among the early/first, I myself probably got delta somewhere in early 2021

artis said:

@pinball1970 I counted alpha and delta among the early/first, I myself probably got delta somewhere in early 2021

In terms of when they hit the UK and globally:

Wild type March 2020 (Wuhan Dec 2019)

Alpha Dec 2020 (UK origin / first detected)

Delta April 2021 (India October 2020)

Omicron November 2021 ( South Africa 2021)

Wild Type < Alpha < Delta > Omicron

I did not include Beta.

Point is the mutations could have gone either way and they did.

The virus got worse before it got better. From December 2020 to 2021, in terms of severe sickness and death was one demonstrable factor was:

Vaccinated >> Unvaccinated

I agree it got worse before it got better and maybe if your dates for each variant are correct, I might have had the Alpha not the delta, but then again it doesn't matter anymore.

When feeling happy about the vaccines, one thing to keep in mind though is that we only really saw the numbers of vaccine "leaking" with Omicron both because Omicron was the most widespread/transmitted variant and because by the time it hit many had managed to get their jabs + Omicron's spike had managed to deviate away from that which the vaccine targeted , but as I said we got lucky because it was Omicron and for most it was just a sore throat and lost smell , but what if it was something like alpha or delta but with the transmission rate of Omicron?
Then I think the numbers for potentially averted deaths due to vaccination might have been different.

I recall when Omicron was still all the rage, I followed our local infection statistics daily and there were days when in the "deceased" category the numbers were equal between the jabbed and the "antivaxx"

Sure yes, many of those vaccinated that died were either old or with serious background conditions and one could argue their immune system wasn't capable of producing good enough antibodies even if God himself intervened but then again those that the vaccine saved from death which would have died were and mostly are on the margin between those that died even with the vaccine and those that would have been are were fine without it.
Not a large group of people is what I'm saying.

I do recognize there were other benefits certain people had with previous vaccination like a less severe infection etc.
It's just that i'm somewhat tired of each side overselling their story, both the deniers as well as the fans.
One side almost entirely distances from any admission of serious and less serious long term side effects or lack of efficacy , the other side goes into all kinds of crazy talk, point being both sides would be best off if they seriously decreased their arrogance and stopped claiming their opinion as absolute truth in the absence of hard evidence.

artis said:

I agree it got worse before it got better and maybe if your dates for each variant are correct, I might have had the Alpha not the delta, but then again it doesn't matter anymore.

When feeling happy about the vaccines, one thing to keep in mind though is that we only really saw the numbers of vaccine "leaking" with Omicron both because Omicron was the most widespread/transmitted variant and because by the time it hit many had managed to get their jabs + Omicron's spike had managed to deviate away from that which the vaccine targeted , but as I said we got lucky because it was Omicron and for most it was just a sore throat and lost smell , but what if it was something like alpha or delta but with the transmission rate of Omicron?
Then I think the numbers for potentially averted deaths due to vaccination might have been different.

I recall when Omicron was still all the rage, I followed our local infection statistics daily and there were days when in the "deceased" category the numbers were equal between the jabbed and the "antivaxx"

Sure yes, many of those vaccinated that died were either old or with serious background conditions and one could argue their immune system wasn't capable of producing good enough antibodies even if God himself intervened but then again those that the vaccine saved from death which would have died were and mostly are on the margin between those that died even with the vaccine and those that would have been are were fine without it.
Not a large group of people is what I'm saying.

I do recognize there were other benefits certain people had with previous vaccination like a less severe infection etc.
It's just that i'm somewhat tired of each side overselling their story, both the deniers as well as the fans.
One side almost entirely distances from any admission of serious and less serious long term side effects or lack of efficacy , the other side goes into all kinds of crazy talk, point being both sides would be best off if they seriously decreased their arrogance and stopped claiming their opinion as absolute truth in the absence of hard evidence.

This will be my last post on this fella because these stats have been quoted already and we are now at the deceased, equine flagellation stage.
This is a public forum first and you have posted some good stuff on other things but I will post here then you can DM if you want.

The numbers in terms of death quite literally fell off a cliff from Jan to June 2021 in the UK. Jan we were in lock down and Alpha was taking the lives of over 1000 people per day. IN lock down. By the time Delta hit that number had fallen to 100 per day, even though the studies suggested Delta was more deadly.
By the time Omicron was here in November 2021 the majority of cases in hospital were vaccinated. Reason? Over 95% of age groups over 60 were vaccinated. Please go back and check all these numbers I posted by UKHSA in technical briefings.
I posted regularly on it as did Atty and probably @Laroxe throughout 2021, you were about 20x more likely to end up in hospital, in ICU and dying unvaccinated.

@pinball1970 Ok, so let it be that you attribute the UK delta death drop by mid 2021 summer to vaccines , but how do you explain almost the same exact shaped peak and drop in almost the same time frame just a year before in 2020?

Heck the spring death 7 day averages were even almost the same during the peaks both in 2020 and 2021,
And we all know damn well there was no vaccine in the spring of 2020 till early summer of 2020.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/det...-19_on_the_death_certificate_by_date_of_death

Add to that that in US nursing homes delta deaths increases in late summer of 2021, and those homes were among the highest vaccinated in US...
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-cov...e-amid-the-surging-delta-variant-this-summer/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/health/delta-deaths-nursing-homes.htmlI would tend to think that based on the graphs we have now so far, the Covid pandemic spread in waves, and I do not see a strong correlation between introduction of vaccines VS the stopping of a wave.
Your @pinball1970 attributed death decrease in 2021 even though coincides with vaccination rollout doesn't have clear evidence that it was the result of that, as I said another wave came and stopped just like that back in 2020 without a single jab!!!

In terms of deaths , further waves came in a similar fashion but with much lower peaks and that I think is mostly because as I said "we got lucky" the waves were a result of much milder variants!

artis said:

@pinball1970 Ok, so let it be that you attribute the UK delta death drop by mid 2021 summer to vaccines , but how do you explain almost the same exact shaped peak and drop in almost the same time frame just a year before in 2020?

Heck the spring death 7 day averages were even almost the same during the peaks both in 2020 and 2021,
And we all know damn well there was no vaccine in the spring of 2020 till early summer of 2020.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/det...-19_on_the_death_certificate_by_date_of_death

Add to that that in US nursing homes delta deaths increases in late summer of 2021, and those homes were among the highest vaccinated in US...
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-cov...e-amid-the-surging-delta-variant-this-summer/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/health/delta-deaths-nursing-homes.htmlI would tend to think that based on the graphs we have now so far, the Covid pandemic spread in waves, and I do not see a strong correlation between introduction of vaccines VS the stopping of a wave.
Your @pinball1970 attributed death decrease in 2021 even though coincides with vaccination rollout doesn't have clear evidence that it was the result of that, as I said another wave came and stopped just like that back in 2020 without a single jab!!!

In terms of deaths , further waves came in a similar fashion but with much lower peaks and that I think is mostly because as I said "we got lucky" the waves were a result of much milder variants!

DM me @artis. I will repost everything you need.

Yes, I fully agree with your point of view. In our case, we used to have mandatory vaccination, but in the end, it didn't work and the virus still quickly and efficiently infected each of us
I am studying biomedicine, and I think this is very strange...

shuailv said:

Yes, I fully agree with your point of view. In our case, we used to have mandatory vaccination, but in the end, it didn't work and the virus still quickly and efficiently infected each of us
I am studying biomedicine, and I think this is very strange...

Well there is an ever increasing chance that this came from a gain of function research done of bat transmitted viruses within the Wuhan lab, a virus that is artificially boosted in that way is a nasty thing, so no wonders there.

artis said:

As for how much the vaccines helped or not, I if that will ever be possible would like to see conclusive evidence that they managed to turn the tide, the way it seems to me now is that they merely helped some people with background conditions to avoid death and others have a less severe case of Omicron, apart from that there is no actual hard evidence the pandemic would have been longer without any vaccine.
More people would have died? Yes most likely! More had longer infection? Yes most likely.

Try backing-up a little bit. Recall the publicised guidance of 'get your flu vaccine'? So how do YOU respond when you develop the disease from Influenza? Feel ok or not or much worse than "not"? With me, some years I took the vaccination and some years I just skipped it; and then at a time from when I skipped it, maybe more than one year in a row, I was infected (with something; very likely Influenza), and suffered very badly. Some years later, I decided to skip the vaccine again, became infected (with something; very likely Influenza) and also suffered very badly. So after that last time, I ensured myself to be vaccinated every year for Influenza. Since than, I had become infected, with something, maybe Influenza or "common cold", but have not suffered much; far less severe illnesses. *

If I will become sick or have infection, I prefer to be LESS sick than MORE sick. Do not discount vaccinations!*In fact, these past several years that I have been regularly vaccinated for Influenza, I have been infected maybe once every two to four years, and not so severely sickened.

shuailv said:

Yes, I fully agree with your point of view. In our case, we used to have mandatory vaccination, but in the end, it didn't work and the virus still quickly and efficiently infected each of us
I am studying biomedicine, and I think this is very strange...

Does this now include everyone in my family? I do not think most of us have been infected with anything in the last two years (only one close relative that I know). Nobody except one have informed us about testing positive for cov.19.

Or are most of the people I meet from day to day either lucky or been vaccinated or both?

symbolipoint said:

Does this now include everyone in my family? I do not think most of us have been infected with anything in the last two years (only one close relative that I know). Nobody except one have informed us about testing positive for cov.19.

Or are most of the people I meet from day to day either lucky or been vaccinated or both?

Are you sure you lived on earth for the past 2 years?

Jokes aside, many of whom I know have had at least one covid variant, most of them Omicron of course.
With Omicron, vaccination of the commonly available Covid vaccines helped very little in terms of avoiding the infection, one might argue it helped to lessen the side effects, and avoid death for some with pre existing conditions, I say some because others with the same conditions died anyway even being boosted, there is plenty of evidence from nursing homes and other care facilities.

I guess it needs to be told once more, I am not anti vaccine in general, I myself have had both all the "classical" vaccines as well as tick encephalitis vaccine.
My covid vaccine experience was nasty, strong neurological side effects, + I too got Omicron nevertheless and a mild bronchitis from it.

My personal experience with the Covid vaccine is that it's a needless danger , at least for someone who had already got through a previous infection (like me) and has lots of antibodies the vaccine is useless and can only increase risk of adverse effects from it, there is no gain for that, even research shows that people with previous infection are just as safe from reinfection as those vaccinated.The vaccine was a tool that simply got "oversold" and because of politics mandated in many places, I strongly reject such approach as it is both anti democratic as well as unscientific, all tools have their place, but given this is medicine professionals like family doctors should have had decision making roles here not the government in general pushing everyone regardless of their personal medical condition to take a shot.

artis said:

Are you sure you lived on earth for the past 2 years?

Jokes aside, many of whom I know have had at least one covid variant, most of them Omicron of course.
With Omicron, vaccination of the commonly available Covid vaccines helped very little in terms of avoiding the infection, one might argue it helped to lessen the side effects, and avoid death for some with pre existing conditions, I say some because others with the same conditions died anyway even being boosted, there is plenty of evidence from nursing homes and other care facilities.

I guess it needs to be told once more, I am not anti vaccine in general, I myself have had both all the "classical" vaccines as well as tick encephalitis vaccine.
My covid vaccine experience was nasty, strong neurological side effects, + I too got Omicron nevertheless and a mild bronchitis from it.

My personal experience with the Covid vaccine is that it's a needless danger , at least for someone who had already got through a previous infection (like me) and has lots of antibodies the vaccine is useless and can only increase risk of adverse effects from it, there is no gain for that, even research shows that people with previous infection are just as safe from reinfection as those vaccinated.The vaccine was a tool that simply got "oversold" and because of politics mandated in many places, I strongly reject such approach as it is both anti democratic as well as unscientific, all tools have their place, but given this is medicine professionals like family doctors should have had decision making roles here not the government in general pushing everyone regardless of their personal medical condition to take a shot.

The studies I posted demonstrate that Delta was worse than Alpha which was worse the Wild type, but less people ended up with severe disease and or dying why? Surely more should have died?

Also during Delta the UK was out of lockdown.

The numbers of vaccinated with severe disease in hospital week by week given by the UKHSA showed the unvaccinated were around 20 times more likely to end up with severe disease and dyeing.

By the time everyone was vaccinated or had Omicron or both, the virulence had decreased yes, older people still died, yes.

Older people immune system is less to produce and effective response as per any other disease, that is not news.I have no idea what vaccine developers’ goal was in terms of Leaky or not, getting Covid is unpleasant, but I was happy not to end up on a ventilator or dead.

Getting infected with bacteria and viruses is something body copes with no issues most of the time.

The goal was saving lives and saving hospital beds and resources. The vaccine did just that.

@shuailv also

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artis said:

Those first variants were on average more severe in terms of clinical outcomes than the last ones.
I know this first hand as I had both.

How do you know how they were "on average" based on your personal, single sample experience?

I'm not saying that this is not true (although I remember seeing some analysis saying that Omicron and the original, pre-alpha strain were not that different in terms of clinical outcomes), but that is really not a proper way to approach things especially in a science-based forum...

We don't need to keep responding to artis, but in the spirit of substantiation here's sources for this key claim:

pinball1970 said:

I posted regularly on it as did Atty and probably @Laroxe throughout 2021, you were about 20x more likely to end up in hospital, in ICU and dying unvaccinated.

Death rate by vaccination status: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
Vaccination rate: https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states
(US data)

For a high signal to noise ratio I picked a week of relatively high and flat death rates; Aug 13, 2022:

• Unvaccinated deaths: 3.69 (per 100,000 population)
• Vaccinated deaths: 0.67
• Ratio: 5.5:1

Then, adjusting for vaccination rates:

• Partial Vaccination rate: 79%
• Full Vaccination rate: 67%

Adjusted Ratio: 26:1 or 17:1

I'm not sure if the death rate by vaccination status means fully vaccinated but I suspect it does. Partial vaccination obviously carries some benefit, so it would improve the "unvaccinated" numbers vs those who are completely un-vaccinated. In other words, the death risk for the completely un-vaccinated in mid-2022 was between 17x and 26x higher than for the fully vaccinated.

And an epilogue: Today the ratio has closed considerably (10:1 to 6.6:1) which is to be expected as the vaccine efficacy reduces over time and immunity due to infections increases over time. Similarly if we go back to the January 2022 winter peak the ratios are 38:1 to 27:1. The booster does not seem to have improved the ratios we're seeing now.

russ_watters said:

The booster does not seem to have improved the ratios we're seeing now.

Regarding boosters, at this point I think we need to wait for some comprehensive studies adjusted for new strains versus multivalent boosters.

With the actual who-knows-how-many re- and re-reinfections and types of available vaccines adjusted for various strains it's just a big mess now.

Ps.: as personal point, I'll go for boosters with new strains only, in a yearly schedule if possible.

So far it's vaccine, infection, one booster, one infection, one booster, one infection, in a half-year order... I think it's about time to check up on the next booster soon

Rive said:

Regarding boosters, at this point I think we need to wait for some comprehensive studies adjusted for new strains versus multivalent boosters.

Graphing the data from Russ's 'Our World in Data' reference, it looks to me like the original booster worked.


I find it interesting that the graph gets stuck @ 5x.

OmCheeto said:

Graphing the data from Russ's 'Our World in Data' reference, it looks to me like the original booster worked.

View attachment 328139
I find it interesting that the graph gets stuck @ 5x.

It isn't clear to me what you did there, but did you include vaccination rates?

russ_watters said:

It isn't clear to me what you did there, but did you include vaccination rates?

I did not include the vaccination rates.
It was simply the unvaccinated death rates divided by the two types of vaccinated death rates.
G = D/E
H = D/E (G & H are identical, but separated for graphical reasons)
I = D/F

I filtered for 'All ages' as it was just too muddled otherwise.

Columns A thru F were provided by Our World in Data. Columns G thru I were my doing.

OmCheeto said:

it looks to me like the original booster worked.

Sure. Worked. But, sadly, that won't have much prediction power regarding the future.

Those lines are converging back to the baseline there: some assessment will be needed to check if it's a general trend, or just the relevance of the available boosters gone as new strains emerged: whether we could get back that 'work' with updated boosters...

With the best available one here is 'up to date' () against Omicron only, what do you think about the efficiency I can expect?