SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
After taking care of so many covid patients and seeing quite a few 30 and 40 y/o die in our hospital and other hospitals, I have 0 interest in taking that risk. Esp when there is such a great option of vaccination with little if any side effects.
Also how are we ever getting to normalcy if we let the pandemic continue by affecting >50y/o even if as you say young people are fine.
I am strongly in favor of mandatory vaccination for certain fields like Healthcare.
how many variants are there awaiting us?
Plenty, but we've had the same headlines for every new variant that it could escape vaccines.
Lambda variant? Of course Bezos would find a way to monetise it.
that is true. Apparently this variant has different characteristics then the delta variant.
Quote (article reference below)
‘In a study published on the bioRxiv server a team of scientists used molecular phylogenetic analysis to better understand the lambda variant. The researchers were able to establish the two distinct traits of the lambda variant that are making it more virulent than other strains. First, the lambda variant is resistant to viral-induced immune responses (such as the case in vaccinations). Next, it has two mutations that enhance its rate of transmission’
‘While the World Health Organization has designated the delta variant as a “variant of concern,” it has given a lower designation to the lambda variant by classifying it as a “variant of interest.” Nevertheless, experts have indicated that the lambda variant is quite capable of causing an epidemic, according to News-Medical.Net.
source:https://www.medicaldaily.com/covid-...rous-chinese-experts-not-worried-460569?amp=1
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I am not convinced newer variants will escape vaccines. It's not like there is only one or two epitopes, there are 85 epitopes on spike protein if I'm not mistaken.
In any case mRNA vaccine can be modified very easily although production would take time.
Delta is fitter than lambda. In any country where the two have co-existed delta has ended up dominant. Hence delta is a variant of concern and lambda isn’t. All available evidence shows that vaccines work very well against both of them.
There is going to be more variants and they will inevitably become less susceptible to vaccines over time. This will be a gradual process though and it can’t carry on indefinitely. Ultimately the virus can only mutates so many times and still function properly. And the vaccines can be tweaked in the future to better deal with any resistance that emerges.
You’ve already plagued me with a barrage of PMs on this topic and I’m as confused now as I was after reading your PMs regarding what the hell your point is. Are you saying people shouldn’t get vaccinated? Or that vaccines aren’t highly effective at minimising the worst outcomes from this pandemic? Because you’ve yet to post anything that would support either of these opinions.
Most variants don’t amount to much.
If they look potentially problematic they become a Variant of Interest. They then become a Variant of Concern if they start to cause real problems.
Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta are the only VOCs so far.
Eta, Theta, Kappa and Lambda are currently VOI’s. They can be downgraded or upgraded as we learn more about them.
Ah ok very interesting, thanks!
I tend to agree with the notion of proposing this as an immune or not immune discussion. Statistically the overwhelming majority of Corona deaths are elderly with underlying conditions. Risk groups should get the vaccination, considering they are at the highest risk bracket statistically.
An infected person who already contracted covid (before vaccination) is more likely then not operating on antibodies which makes them immune against the virus.
quote:
‘ people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-19’
Source: (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9)
The WHO in its scientific brief on 10 may 2020 stated similair data:
‘Within 4 weeks following infection, 90-99% of individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus develop detectable neutralizing antibodies.The strength and duration of the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 are not completely understood and currently available data suggests that it varies by age and the severity of symptoms.
Available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months).
full article available on the WHO website, https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1346855/retrieve
To answer your question, I’m for vaccination, especially for risk groups. At the same time I believe that healthy individuals without any serious underlying health conditions are on the safe side with their natural immunity with higher reported survival rates (up to 99%). I could be wrong here, i intend to try to look at these matters as critical but as objective as possible. It can only be beneficial to have an openmind in discussion (of any subject for that matter) with the willingness to learn.
Back to your question. I would categorically not argue that people should NOT get vaccinated, especially for those who have immune system complications by being a risk group. I also would not argue against healthy individuals without any serious health conditions to relay on their natural immune system.
Right of choice ought to always be the key in my humble opinion.
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A couple of questions I've been wondering about in light of the UK hitting a 75% vaccination rate:
- How severe/deadly is it for a fully covid vaccinated adult to catch it versus the flu?
- How severe/deadly is it for a covid unvaccinated teenager to catch it versus the flu?
You’re not wrong. Although we can’t be certain just yet the risk is probably similar enough. But it will vary a lot depending on your age (which is also true of flu, although differently, because the most at risk groups for flu include the very young) and underlying risk factors.
You’re definitely wrong here. If the question is what is more dangerous, immunity via catching covid or immunity via vaccination then we know that immunity via vaccination is safer (and most likely more effective) for all age groups.
That calculation gets trickier if there’s a chance of not being exposed to covid at all. Which is why there’s been varying opinions about using the AZ vaccine in the young (because it very rarely causes dangerous blood clots in young people). If the risk of catching covid is low the calculations change to the point where vaccination might not make sense. Even in that scenario, the benefit of vaccination with mRNA vaccines still outweighed the risk.
Delta’s changed all of this now (plus whatever future variants we need to deal with). It’s not going away and we are all going to be exposed to SARS-COV-2 at some point in our life. Probably more than once. And we know, with absolute certainty, that the risk of serious illness/death is a lot higher (best estimate right now are 10x higher) for the un-vaccinated vs the vaccinated. So the decision for younger, healthier people has gone from slightly complex to an absolute no-brainer. And that’s from a purely personal viewpoint. Obviously the higher the rates of vaccination the lower the community transmission. Which helps protect people who can’t get vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons.
All of which means that anyone who is eligible for vaccination but chooses not to is putting themselves or others at risk. Most likely both. Not a good look either way.
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Are we seeing another rise in cases?
How’s India looking these days? I heard it was doing better but I got an email this morning from the company that processes premium for insurers and there words were there are delays due to “high attrition rates” of staff. Sounded a bit suspect.
In my experience, and anyone who's from India can correct me if I'm wrong. Indian companies seem to see high levels of staff turnover anyway. I was told it was cultural to change job often. But again that could be bollocks about the culture, but I've certainly always seen high turnover at places I've worked.
In the UK? We're seeing the case rates wobbling around the 25k mark - not rising or falling much - R rate about 1. The difference between rising/falling probably down to things like weekend weather (indoors or outdoor socialising) and windows open/closed.
I also suspect things like the covid app have stopped working completely now. As was inevitable when pub check-in etc became optional.
We won't know where the rates are really going until autumn - weather deteriorating, students back at school/college. Basically the more people who build up immunity this month (preferably by vaccination) the easier the autumn is likely to be. As long as the hospital rates stay where they are, it's about as good as the government could have hoped for.
Nice one thanks. If you go on the worldometer site and click on the 7 day average there shows a rise but its too early to tell I guess.
I would respectfully disagree with you here, because the interpretation i have from the data that i read substantiates the opposite, or atleast a more balanced perspective. I would perhaps be more beneficial if you include the studies you have read, so that people can research both perspectives in order to inform themselves as critical and objective as possible. In my previous post i already enlisted the WHO scientific brief from 10 may 2020, stating:
‘Within 4 weeks following infection, 90-99% of individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus develop detectable neutralizing antibodies.The strength and duration of the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 are not completely understood and currently available data suggests that it varies by age and the severity of symptoms.
Available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months).
full article available on the WHO website, https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1346855/retrieve
Another source i will enlist is the study from bioRxiv, the pre paper server for biology. Just to specify this study, it researched the the memory b cell evolution 5 monts after vaccinations, specifically with the Moderna (mrna- 1273) or Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2).
Quote: ' Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection produces B-cell responses that continue to evolve for at least one year. During that time, memory B cells express increasingly broad and potent antibodies that are resistant to mutations found in variants of concern1. As a result, vaccination of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescent individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines produces high levels of plasma neutralizing activity against all variants tested'
The above quote is a fantastic finding, given the fact that it describes that all current available mRNA vaccines produce high levels of plasma neutralizing activity against all variants. So, from that perspective i agree with your argument that vaccination provides great protection against all variants that were tested.
5 months into the memory b cell evolution, the paper concludes the following:
Results: ' Between prime and boost, memory B cells produce antibodies that evolve increased neutralizing activity, but there is no further increase in potency or breadth thereafter. Instead, memory B cells that emerge 5 months after vaccination of naïve individuals express antibodies that are equivalent to those that dominate the initial response. We conclude that memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination. These results suggest that boosting vaccinated individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines would produce a quantitative increase in plasma neutralizing activity but not the qualitative advantage against variants obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals.
Full study available on: Antibody Evolution after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination | bioRxiv
Based on the study above, i would therefore conclude that the vaccines provide protection within a 5 month period against all tested variants (note here, tested variants) After the development of memory B cells that emerge 5 months after, the conclusion was/is that there is quantitative increase in plasma neutralizing activity but not the qualitative advantage against variants obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals.
This data seems to be in line with the drop efficancy that countries like Israel, Schotland are reporting. It also seems in line with the article i quoted from Reuters in an earlier post:
(Reuters)
'Vaccines have been shown to provide good protection against severe disease and death from Delta, especially with two doses, but there is less data on whether vaccinated people can still transmit it to others. "Some initial findings ... indicate that levels of virus in those who become infected with Delta having already been vaccinated may be similar to levels found in unvaccinated people,"PHE said in a statement.'
Full article: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/en...r-virus-levels-regardless-vaccine-2021-08-06/
Do you have references which have studied the protection of anti bodies through natural immunity and vaccination and their time span? Im interested to read those as well, so that i can compare the different studies. Vaccination is at the minimum a vital step for immune compromised individuals and risk groups. My intent is to study all possible perspectives as objective as possible with legitmate sources.
Appreciate the conversation!
Nothing you’ve provided there is in any way relevant to the point you’re disagreeing with!
Obviously, prior infection gives you good (but not complete) protection. Nobody would disagree with this. I certainly don’t. However there’s no convincing evidence that prior infection gives a more durable response or better protection against new variants than vaccination. It’s just not possible for that sort of long term comparable data to be available this early in the vaccine roll-out.
The point you seem to keep (deliberately?) ignoring is that obtaining immunisation by infection is considerably more dangerous than immunisation by vaccine. There’s absolutely no doubt about this. The medical community are divided on a few issues relating to covid but this is not one of them.
With all due respect, life is too short to give you fully referenced responses when you repeatedly ignore the main point being made in my posts.
It may well be the case that the best long-term immune protection comes from vaccinating someone who has already had covid.
The trouble is as a public health strategy, that's a bit crap. You end up with packed hospitals and a lot of dead bodies. Alternatively, you can try to artificially slow the infection rates in the community by continued lockdown type restrictions - in which case you'll take years to reach the same goal and have the same pile of dead bodies.
Living with covid means exactly that for most of us, we want to live. Not be Locked up to protect healthcare. Not to bury people who misread their personal odds and got unlucky.
Chances are we'll all catch covid in the future. We can do it vaccinated, or do it as a immune naive case. The stats say that on average adults are better off vaxxed than going in naive. If you get covid when you're vaxxed you'll again probably build your personal immunity - only more safely than the other way round.
You're not revealing some great insight. You're obscuring the actual public health reality that means vaccination is always the first choice - unless you're one of the unlucky ones who can't take the vaccine. In which case you have to wait for everyone else to stop spreading it.
Question for the clever folk in this thread....
My 9 year old daughter has just tested positive, her sister (11) and my wife and I (in our 40s) are still negative. But her best friend has also tested positive and that family were due to go on holiday tomorrow, obviously she can not go but the others have all tested negative and have asked us if their positive daughter can come and stay with us while they go on holiday! Are we increasing our risk at all by having 2 rather than 1 positive person in the house? we are both double vaccinated.
My 9 year old daughter has just tested positive, her sister (11) and my wife and I (in our 40s) are still negative. But her best friend has also tested positive and that family were due to go on holiday tomorrow, obviously she can not go but the others have all tested negative and have asked us if their positive daughter can come and stay with us while they go on holiday! Are we increasing our risk at all by having 2 rather than 1 positive person in the house? we are both double vaccinated.
I'd say that family shouldn't be going anywhere, they should be isolating if they love with her which I guess they do.
Of course you are increasing the chances of you catching it the more infected people you have in your house.
I get that but is it a significant increase or given that our daughter is already positive is it just a statistically insignificant one?
I'd be more inclined to tell the other family they are selfish.
So not only are they not going to isolate despite someone in their house being positive but they’re going to leave their covid positive child at home whilst the sod off on holiday, incredible 
I know people haven't been able to get away so are desperate to and that but fecking hell that is mentalI'm struggling a bit with a family who think leaving a sick 9 year old behind while they go on holiday is a good idea. Particularly as they, according to UK rules, are still supposed to quarantine as close contacts - though there's a rule change coming on Monday for the double vaxxed.
They may have tested negative today, but presumably their daughter hasn't been living in a tent in the garden for the past week. I feel sorry for the staff/locals/other visitors at wherever they're heading to.
On the specifics of letting positive cases stay - there's a bit of a do you feel lucky in the equation?
A lot depends on your house - separate rooms, bathrooms, garden access etc. And on yourselves and the kids. How will they handle being held prisoner in their rooms. What would you do if one of them did get ill? I've got friends who looked after a kid who tested positive to help out a relative who has an immune deficiency - which seemed like a good thing to do. But for a holiday - no, not really.
feck sake. Tell them to cop on. (or at least that's what I'd do if I wasn't extremely conflict-averse)Struggling to get my ahead around them actually asking you that for a few reasons
Definitely would increase your risk of catching covid, vaccinated or not. Plus your 11 year old isn’t vaccinated so hanging round with two covid positive kids makes her a hell of a lot more likely to catch it than with just one.
As others have already said, leaving a sick child behind to piss off on holiday seems like a real cnuty thing to do. Especially when they shouldn’t go anywhere as close contacts of a confirmed case. Leaving that sick child where they can make other families unwell is just doubling down on that selfishness. Tell them to feck off.
Tell them to do one. What shitty parents leave their 9 year old with someone else while they go on holiday? I don't think a post on here has ever wound me up as much as this one.
Thanks for all the replies! You’ll be glad to hear they have cancelled because as a few people pointed out they maybe negative now but that could change as they are close contacts and at least till the rules change on Monday they have to isolate.
I should have been clearer and pointed out that though their daughter has tested positive she is symptomless at the moment and only tested because our daughter is positive.
She’s been staying over at ours since she was a baby and is like part of our family so it wasn’t as shitty as it came across in my 1st post.
But they are doing the right thing!
I should have been clearer and pointed out that though their daughter has tested positive she is symptomless at the moment and only tested because our daughter is positive.
She’s been staying over at ours since she was a baby and is like part of our family so it wasn’t as shitty as it came across in my 1st post.
But they are doing the right thing!
In science, all we can do is to test the formulated premises with neccesary criteria in order to derive theories that suit the current available data. It's not about revealing 'insightful' information per se (that is the point where i would respectfully disagree with you). My .intent is to try to have an as balanced view as possible, discussing the topic from different perspectives and to have an open mind to learn.
You've mentioned (in regards to the strategy of immunization) that 'we can do it vaccinated or as immune naive cases'.
Hence why i referenced sources which give insight on this specific aspect. The conclusion of the Pre Paper of bioRxiv stated:
'We conclude that memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination. These results suggest that boosting vaccinated individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines would produce a quantitative increase in plasma neutralizing activity but not the qualitative advantage against variants obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals. (bioRxiv).
Note, this is not convincing evidence in the sense that it is peer reviewed, this pandemic is still 'young' and new data will more likely then not become more available during the course of this pandemic. it would be unscientific to present this as an 'absolute' fact, hence the little note here. The above quote is merely a perspective to be considered.
I fully agree that as a public health strategy there are severe complications which result from lockdowns, such as increased mental health, child abuse/drug and alcohol abuse etc.Lockdowns come with a deadly cost and implementing it as a public healthy strategy when its more likely then not that Corona is here to stay is a serious violation of one's self determination and right to live life. This opens up another discussion in itself, in regards to sacrifying 'values' of one's self for the greater good, the societal risk.
I also respectfully disagree that i'm obscuring a public health reality. I've cited WHO and the bioRxiv Pre Paper and a Reuters article as sources to discuss a specific topic, which is immunity through natural infection and vacciniation. I do find it interesting that you described the public health as a 'bit of crap strategy'. Does that mean you disagree with it? Or does that mean you agree with it and the effects of lockdown are simply collateral damage for the greater good?
In the end, i see this situation as an immune vs not immune situation, and those who are immune compromised should take the vaccine. Those (healthy individuals) who want to naturally recover should have the right to do so, unless there is significant data to substantiate that natural immunation through infection is a significantrisk for one's self and others. Hence why i requested studies or articles specifically about this, so that i can research them in order to increase my knowledge about it.
Appreciate the conversation!
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It should be mandatory in places of health care. You can argue all the others if you like but in a medical facility it should be mandatory
But there are lots of examples of previously fit and healthy people with no pre condition dying or getting long covid. Plenty of examples.
natural immune system will not beat this without help. You are spreading dangerous nonsense
No idea re your question but how could they go off and leave their daughter? I wouldn’t be able to if one of my sons was sick