The Vaccine Thread

[beeatnik]

I'm curious what you intend to do with that data. Call me wary.

I'm going to urge my step son not to go into a career where he would work at a site similar to yours! I keed.

Anyhoo, just curious. You're one of the few non-HCW's I'm "acquainted" with who's seen a high prevalence of transmission and disease in the non-elderly. I'd invite anyone else reading this thread who's not a "frontline" HCW to post similar reports.

[beeatnik]

So, what's your point? You often bring up snippets of data, link a study, or reference a news item such as the Aaron Rodgers COVID positive. It seems to this reader that you are somewhat passive-aggressively promoting an agenda that the vaccines aren't very affective and that COVID isn't a very big deal. With that impression in mind, I'm asking what is the intent of your postings/messaging? I'm genuinely curious.

Greg

No intent. It's called The Vaccine Thread. Some cats post about boosters. I post about breakthroughs. Call it a PSA.

[zetroc]

It's a curious pattern of behavior, to only post about vaccine inefficacy. Curious!

[bironi]

No intent. It's called The Vaccine Thread. Some cats post about boosters. I post about breakthroughs. Call it a PSA.

Curious, are you boosted?

[bigbill]

I'm going to urge my step son not to go into a career where he would work at a site similar to yours! I keed.

Anyhoo, just curious. You're one of the few non-HCW's I'm "acquainted" with who's seen a high prevalence of transmission and disease in the non-elderly. I'd invite anyone else reading this thread who's not a "frontline" HCW to post similar reports.

The county is at 38% vaccinated so I'd assume the workforce is similar. As a location, we've only seen one breakthrough case out of close to 200. The age groups are likely to gather in social settings outside of work. But, I still suspect you're fishing for data to once again discuss vaccine efficacy. In my own personal experience, the vaccine is valuable to help prevent spread and preventing deaths. The same age groups still represent the greatest number of deaths (>70 years old), but the 20-40 are quickly passing the older groups in infections.

[beeatnik]

It's a curious pattern of behavior, to only post about vaccine inefficacy. Curious!

Not vaccine "inefficacy," just balance:

Minnesota is one of the few states tracking reinfections. Oklahoma may as well.

Data from MN Department of Health.

Since the pandemic began:
64,844 vaccine breakthrough cases
9,129 reinfections
7:1 ratio
Over the past 4 weeks, the ratio is 20:1.

or put another way:
≈8000 confirmed reinfections in at most 767766 unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, 1.04%.
64844 breakthroughs in 3218230 FV, 2.02%.

Breakthroughs or reinfections are not stratified by vaccination status. Are previously infected individuals, who are reinfected after completing a vaccine series, classified as a breakthrough, reinfection or both?

https://www.health.state.mn.us/disea...situation.html

[beeatnik]

Curious, are you boosted?

In my 40s.

[beeatnik]

The county is at 38% vaccinated so I'd assume the workforce is similar. As a location, we've only seen one breakthrough case out of close to 200. The age groups are likely to gather in social settings outside of work. But, I still suspect you're fishing for data to once again discuss vaccine efficacy. In my own personal experience, the vaccine is valuable to help prevent spread and preventing deaths. The same age groups still represent the greatest number of deaths (>70 years old), but the 20-40 are quickly passing the older groups in infections.

Really just looking for data points. Early in the Pandemic there were 300 plus infections at a packinghouse and 200 plus at a Blue Apron type warehouse near my childhood home. We know about warehouses and meatpacking plants, obviously. Again, just curious if other facilities are just as "risky."

[bigbill]

Really just looking for data points. Early in the Pandemic there were 300 plus infections at a packinghouse and 200 plus at a Blue Apron type warehouse near my childhood home. We know about warehouses and meatpacking plants, obviously. Again, just curious if other facilities are just as "risky."

Well, I'm going to cast doubt on your intentions. It's not that hard to analyze industry to see manufacturing or processing plants where people are at risk due to their proximity to coworkers. I think you're just trolling at this point, you want people to give you data so you can make anecdotal remarks or assumptions which you want people to believe are based on data.

[beeatnik]

Well, I'm going to cast doubt on your intentions. It's not that hard to analyze industry to see manufacturing or processing plants where people are at risk due to their proximity to coworkers. I think you're just trolling at this point, you want people to give you data so you can make anecdotal remarks or assumptions which you want people to believe are based on data.

Just as I'm the only person posting data about breakthrough cases and reporting agencies, you're the only person posting first hand accounts of infections and deaths in individuals under 60. My impression is that your posts are seen as more representative (for the low risk population here) of the reality of Covid-19 and the breakthrough data is easily dismissed. I'd argue they're both important data points, especially for (older) individuals who are at risk of more serious outcomes whether vaccinated or unvaccinated.

[bironi]

In my 40s.

I see in the news today that California has opened up booster access to all adults.

[beeatnik]

^I'll get one next winter.

Spent two weeks in late Aug catering and sleeping next to a person with a serious mild case and I didn't get infected. I'm sure my antibodies and T-cell immunity are good. Gotta trust the Science.

[bironi]

^I'll get one next winter.

Spent two weeks in late Aug catering and sleeping next to a person with a serious mild case and I didn't get infected. I'm sure my antibodies and T-cell immunity are good. Gotta trust the Science.

This winter coming up or the one following?

[beeatnik]

This winter coming up or the one following?

This morning after my neighbor and I had dropped off our kindergartners, he brought up our school's Covid-19 outbreak. We've had as many cases in the last two days as the previous 3 months combined. While a small sample, he speculated that the outbreak could be related to the introduction of vaccination for 5-11 year olds. Our town has a 95% vaccination rate for eligible children and 90% plus for adults. He works in city government and has seen data which shows upticks in infections after the first dose during the period between the first and second dose. After his update, I made the mistake of mentioning that Moderna had been suspended for under-30s in Germany, France, Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden (a dosing issue possibly and in the Nordic countries only suspended in males, I believe). He became instantly defensive and dismissed my statement as some type of anti-vaxx rhetoric (as so often happens here). But the information wasn't relayed with commentary (implied or otherwise), it came to mind as a matter of dosing. And as he works in government and interfaces with public health regularly, it seemed of value to ask him his opinion. Anyway, I'm hopeful that Moderna and Pfizer dosing will be optimized and they'll be updated to better target new variants. So, looking forward to that booster in Winter 2022.

Transparency and open dialogue could prevent these events:

(Pro MTB content above)

[jimcav]

not sure how waiting a year for a booster follows SCIENCE. multiple studies show vaccinated breakthrough infections are less severe and less infectious than in unvaccinated. One example, from a recent Israel study:

Here, analyzing viral loads of over 11,000 infections during the current wave in Israel, we find that even though this wave is dominated by the Delta-variant, breakthrough infections in recently vaccinated patients, still within 2 months post their second vaccine inoculation, do have lower viral loads compared to unvaccinated patients, with the extent of viral load reduction similar to pre-Delta breakthrough observations. Yet, this infectiousness protection starts diminishing for patients two months post vaccination and ultimately vanishes for patients 6 months or longer post vaccination. Encouragingly, we find that this diminishing vaccine effectiveness on breakthrough infection viral loads is restored following the booster vaccine. These results suggest that the vaccine is initially effective in reducing infectiousness of breakthrough infections even with the Delta variant, and that while this protectiveness effect declines with time it can be restored, at least temporarily, with a booster vaccine.

[beeatnik]

not sure how waiting a year for a booster follows SCIENCE. multiple studies show vaccinated breakthrough infections are less severe and less infectious than in unvaccinated. One example, from a recent Israel study:

Jim, personally, I'm not concerned with protection against infection or transmission as much as severe outcomes. If protection against transmission is variable, seasonality is more of an issue for me; I can reduce my risk of exposure when prevalence is high. The risk of severe illness and death for a person my age with my health status is tiny; the vaccine reduces that risk to very tiny (excuse the informal terminology). And, as far as I'm aware, for my cohort, protection against severe illness and death has been robust and hardly waned for nearly 10 months (and no reason for it to not last longer). By the time the upcoming winter wave passes in LA, I'll be at the 10 month mark. So I think the numbers are on my side.

[jimcav]

I'm not really following that rationale. If there was some significant personal or financial risk incurred in helping protect others in society by getting a booster, I'd see your point regarding being personally at lower risk and less in need of booster. However, there really isn't any documented significant additive risk in getting the booster after the initial 2-dose series (or single J&J), and for most here in CA, "can't afford the booster" isn't really a thing.

The studies show the booster not only increases personal protection to a personally serious negative outcome, but also reduces the infectiousness (ie spread) to others that aren't or can't get vaccinated (and these individuals continue to die in far greater absolute numbers each day than the high(er)-risk already-vaccinated). So, I don't really fathom the decision to not get the free, available booster.

Even if one is not at high-risk of a personal bad outcome from C-19, not getting the booster means any breakthrough infection one might get is more infectious than if post-booster: ie a choice to be a greeter risk to others. Each time a possible path for Delta to maximize it's purpose (max reproduction and reaching the next host) is allowed to remain, versus being reduced, that just ensures the pandemic continues. With widely circulating virus still present, all these seemingly small, individual decisions in total have large consequences, often for other individuals who have very limited options.

[beeatnik]

Jim, by your logic there should be no difference in the number or frequency/spacing of boosters for all age groups? It seems that's the policy now in Israel. Whether or not that makes sense for the rest of the world is a different issue. If the "most vulnerable" are boosted (gigavaxxed) and the less vulnerable are vaccinated, then disease burden is lowered overall, regardless of the prevalence of breakthrough infections. Boosters in the young should have a negligible impact on a population where boosters are universal for 50 plus and masking is universal in indoor spaces (LA). Also, is there consensus on number of shots required to complete a Covid-19 vaccination series? I've read 4 or 5, possibly.

I'm not really following that rationale. If there was some significant personal or financial risk incurred in helping protect others in society by getting a booster, I'd see your point regarding being personally at lower risk and less in need of booster. However, there really isn't any documented significant additive risk in getting the booster after the initial 2-dose series (or single J&J), and for most here in CA, "can't afford the booster" isn't really a thing.

The studies show the booster not only increases personal protection to a personally serious negative outcome, but also reduces the infectiousness (ie spread) to others that aren't or can't get vaccinated (and these individuals continue to die in far greater absolute numbers each day than the high(er)-risk already-vaccinated). So, I don't really fathom the decision to not get the free, available booster.

Even if one is not at high-risk of a personal bad outcome from C-19, not getting the booster means any breakthrough infection one might get is more infectious than if post-booster: ie a choice to be a greeter risk to others. Each time a possible path for Delta to maximize it's purpose (max reproduction and reaching the next host) is allowed to remain, versus being reduced, that just ensures the pandemic continues. With widely circulating virus still present, all these seemingly small, individual decisions in total have large consequences, often for other individuals who have very limited options.

[jimcav]

hmm, my logic is that the current science (current studies) show the vaccine and the booster provides protection directly to those who are vulnerable and indirectly to all-vulnerable by decreasing the infectivity of those who, while they may be 'not-really-that-vulnerable', but who nonetheless can/will spread C-19 (currently Delta variant) when infected.

I do not know, nor have I read a consensus on the long-term # of vaccines and boosters for each age-group. Current studies are showing the older one is, the more quickly immunity wanes, so possibly (perhaps likely) more frequent boosters for the aged, and less frequent for the healthy adolescent to adult ages. Delta is widely spread, and not likely to go away anytime soon, as there are plenty of reservoirs for it to stay circulating in places both here (CONUS) and abroad (OCONUS), so if/when immunity wanes for certain age groups, the risk could well remain (ie potential for future boosters).

As for young kids, whose immune system is not fully developed, that ultimate vaccine schedule will depend on what the data shows, as data are monitored post-vaccination for those ages.

[Chik]

Some people seem to be wired differently.

Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots
As mandates spread, anti-vaccine groups have been trafficking in pseudoscience treatments meant to remove or counteract the vaccines. Experts say it's like trying to "unring a bell."