Herd Immunity .. Filling the Gaps | 50 comments (50 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (none / 1)

HMO: Early vaccinees [LOL] are twice as likely to catch COVID as later recipients

The report, published by the healthcare provider Leumit, comes on the heels of other Israeli studies that suggest a decreasing vaccine effectiveness, partly as a result of the Delta variant and partly because of the passage of time. However, British data indicates the Israeli studies may be overstating the case.

So. 3-month useful life of active ingredients? Or magical T-cell memories?

Data released by the Health Ministry on Thursday suggested that people vaccinated in January were said to have just 16% protection against infection now, while in those vaccinated in April the effectiveness was at 75%.
[...]
"In a previous analysis we showed that as time passes since the vaccine, the level of antibodies drops at a rate of about 40% per month. This new study builds a clearer picture of the effect seen in the months after vaccination," said Shenhar.

archived Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Spain (ENE-COVID): a nationwide, population-based seroepidemiological study, July 2020

by Cat on Tue Jul 27th, 2021 at 11:51:07 PM EST

Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (none / 1)

Israel breaking ranks

Since the mass vaccination drive kicked off last December, Israel has inoculated more than 5.3 million out of its 9 million citizens [~ 58%]. Although the country hasn't reached herd immunity yet, the number of people who have been vaccinated was enough to let the country function and keep its public offices and private businesses open.

asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 δ carriers, formerly known as "silent spreaders"

The Delta variant is believed to be more resilient to the vaccine but recent research shows that it still prevented symptoms in 88 percent of cases. It also helped to keep patients from hospitalisation in 96 percent of cases.
Yet, oddly enough, the Israeli government is not in a rush to bring those jabs to Israel. At the beginning of the month, Bennett vowed that the country will have enough vaccines for all of its citizens but during a weekly meeting with his ministers he said only 200,000 of them will be brought on 1 August.

most ignorant, litigious nation on planet REPORTS: "community transmission"--formerly known as (FKA) "positivity productivity" FKA "super spreading" FKA "droplets" FKA "communicable disease"--has entered the room. The CDC is recommending masks for vaccinated people in high transmission areas. What does that mean?

What is high transmissibility?
Community transmission is calculated using two metrics: how many new cases per 100,000 persons have occurred in the last seven days, and the percentage of positive diagnostic and screening nucleic acid amplification tests in the last seven days. Counties are categorized as having low, moderate, substantial, or high transmissibility.
[...]
Just under half of all U.S. counties, 46.43%, are currently identified as having high COVID transmission, according to the CDC, an increase of over 17% from seven days ago.

NEW! dashboard

You can enter your state, county or metro area to find out what the transmissibility is like where you live by going to this site.

CENSUS number of Counties and Statistically Equivalent Entities, a/o Jan 1990: 3,006 or 3,141
wikiwtf number of counties, a/o Jan 2020: 3,143

by Cat on Wed Jul 28th, 2021 at 11:21:47 AM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (none / 0)

Alaska health care officials worried about steep rise in Covid-19 hospitalizations

Alaska's rise in coronavirus patients comes as much of the United States experiences increases. This latest rise in cases is being largely driven by the highly contagious delta variant ["]working its way["] through the unvaccinated.

by Cat on Thu Jul 29th, 2021 at 04:52:24 PM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (none / 0)

Served "rare": Over 25% of cases in Los Angeles are fully vaccinated people, reports Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

by Cat on Fri Jul 30th, 2021 at 02:44:00 PM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (4.00 / 3)

Vaccination is not a panacea. Still have to mask and practice personal protection protocols.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Thu Aug 12th, 2021 at 01:17:57 AM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (4.00 / 3)

I'm never going to stop being mad that we have these borderline miracle vaccines and we're wasting them. The CDC mask burning party. The absurd waffling here in Europe.

Just mandate the vaccines and keep mask mandates in place. The vast majority of anti-vaxxers are over-privileged whiny babies. They'll buckle the moment they face real pressure.

We as a society are already gambling that the vaccines will solve most of the problem for us and no one really gets to opt out of the let-it-run-rampant-and-hope-for-the-best strategy. Unless you're in semi-conductors and have workable Mandarin.

by generic on Thu Aug 12th, 2021 at 08:34:58 AM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (4.00 / 2)

And of course even with the best possible vaccination rates you're looking at this:

by generic on Thu Aug 12th, 2021 at 08:37:15 AM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (4.00 / 2)

What we need is a cheap, patent-free, virus-sterilizing one-shot (nasal) vaccine (or dozen) that can be administered to most people on the globe within six months.

And a cheap, patent-free, over-the-counter antiviral treatment (or two) for those cases where people are infected anyway.

Then, and only then Covid would go the way of the smallpox. Maybe.

by pelgus on Thu Aug 12th, 2021 at 12:03:39 PM EST
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SARS-CoV-2 (4.00 / 2)

is going the way of common influenza, an endemic mutating pestilence, whose etiology and the morbidity associated with chronic respiratory infection is well-respected. Likewise, expect seasonal vaccine formula adjustments and administration to the usual suspects--the very old and the very young bracing doctor recommended advice to everyone aged between.

General confidence in a stable, predictable standard of treatment to alievate COVID-19 symptoms--as with other viraly or bacterial respiratory diseases-- would be nice, though.

by Cat on Mon Aug 16th, 2021 at 05:34:13 PM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (none / 1)

Breakthrough [vaccine] COVID infections ~~after vaccination~~ can lead to ["]long-haul["] symptoms [of disease], Israeli study shows

[Brown University School of Public Health dean Dr. Ashish] Jha said he is troubled by the fact that young, healthy people would get so-called breakthrough infections within a few months of vaccination. Scientists expected ["]protection["] to wane over time, and they expected the vaccines to be less effective among older people and those with pre-existing health conditions. But that's not who got sick in this study.
[...]
The good news is none of the 39 [Israeli] people who got infected passed the coronavirus on to anyone else, according to the study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant COVID-19 Outbreak Associated with a Gymnastics Facility -- Oklahoma, April-May 2021, CDC contact tracing

He said current vaccines are great at preventing serious infection deep in the lungs, but not at blocking infection in the upper airways [cranial olfactory bulb "blood-brain barrier"]. What's needed, he said, is a nasal-spray vaccine that would stop the coronavirus from taking hold at all.
[...]
The study followed about 1,500 Israeli health care workers for four months after they received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Anyone who tested positive more than 11 days after the second dose was considered a breakthrough case.

misplaced imprecision

Most had the alpha variant of the virus, which is more contagious than the original version [?], but less infectious than the delta variant that now accounts for most cases in the United States.

humor me

by Cat on Thu Jul 29th, 2021 at 03:13:02 PM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (none / 1)

CDC crisis management communications (not peer-reviewed for clinicaltrials.gov), How to savor "natural" and "experimental" antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), or gain of function, in the lab or in the wild!

'You're vulnerable': Delta variant substantially more contagious than other variants, CDC presentation warns

The agency had been criticized for making the [mask wardrobe] recommendation without adequately supporting its reasons for the policy shift. But the presentation, first made public by The Washington Post, appears to do just that. CDC declined to comment late Thursday on the slideshow or its contents.

The struggle to rationalize "technical" nomenclature and "evidence-base" data continues!

Once infected, though, vaccinated people are just as contagious as those without that ~~protection~~ vaccination -- meaning they need to wear a mask and keep their distance to avoid passing on the virus.
[...]
If more people had been vaccinated earlier this year, cases would not be rising now and a return to masking wouldn't be necessary [?], said Dr. Eric Topol, director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California.
"We wouldn't be in this pickle if we'd had 70% of the population vaccinated," he said. "When you have more than half your population not (fully) vaccinated, you're vulnerable."
[...]
In one Israeli study, vaccinated people over 60 were shown to be 97% protected against the alpha variant, but only 85% protected against delta. "Ninety-seven percent is phenomenal, but 81%? [!]" Topol said. "We've got a bigger challenge than ever before."

soooo when everyone is a "silent spreader", no one is contagious?

In a study posted online this week by Pfizer and its collaborator [BWAH!] BioNTech, but not yet peer-reviewed, the companies found their vaccine to be effective for at least six months. Effectiveness topped 90% for that period, according to the study, which was largely conducted before the delta variant became widespread [O RLY?].
[...]
In a Tuesday briefing, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky downplayed the possibility that a vaccinated person could pass on the virus, without giving the details about the viral load [OG titer] contained in the slideshow.

reference
lab Wan et al., "Molecular Mechanism for Antibody-Dependent Enhancement of Coronavirus Entry"
wild Li et al., "Viral infection and transmission in a large well-traced outbreak caused by the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant"

by Cat on Fri Jul 30th, 2021 at 01:06:41 PM EST
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Re: wut NPI? (none / 1)

China races to curb Delta-fuelled COVID outbreak, worst in months

Authorities reported 328 symptomatic infections in July - almost equal to the total number of local cases from February to June.
[...]
More than 260 infections nationwide have been linked to a cluster in Nanjing city in eastern Jiangsu province, where nine cabin cleaners at an international airport tested positive on July 20. Hundreds of thousands have already been locked down in the province, while Nanjing has tested all 9.2 million residents twice.
[...]
After one asymptomatic case was discovered in Zhengzhou - the epicentre of recent deadly floods in central Henan province - city officials on Saturday ordered mass testing of all 10 million residents. The head of the city health commission was also sacked.
[...]
"The COVID vaccine's protection against the Delta variant may have somewhat declined, but the current vaccine still has a good preventative and protective effect against the Delta variant," said Feng Zijian, virologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

by Cat on Sat Jul 31st, 2021 at 04:41:02 PM EST
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< wipes tears > (none / 0)

Slide No.1: What we have here is a failure to communicate ... virulence.
NY Post: spreads like chicken pox

by Cat on Fri Jul 30th, 2021 at 02:37:31 PM EST
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Re: wut "virulence"? (none / 0)

Slide No.6 vaccine efficacy (VE)

by Cat on Fri Jul 30th, 2021 at 02:51:27 PM EST
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Re: wut "breakthrough vaccine cases"? (none / 0)

Slide No. 12: "Communication challenges around VE and differential risk [of no-low-moderate-severe COVID-19 disease]"

Slide No. 14: Spreads like chicken pox (disease) or varicella (virus), possibly shingles (the disease caused by asymptomatic varicella-zoster virus SLEEPER CELLS!!1!).
Story developing ...

by Cat on Fri Jul 30th, 2021 at 03:12:07 PM EST
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Re: wut "virulence"? (none / 1)