My boss got it recently after being triple vaxxed and her husband and kids didn't.
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SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
My wife and 9 year old were in Dublin today at a kids book park exhibition. They then went looking for somewhere to eat around 4:30pm. She said that places were absolutely jam packed but very few people eating, it was full of drinkers spilling out into the streets at that time. I pity the police tonight.
We were out for food there and I swear there were loads more dodgy cnuts in the place than there usually would be. No doubt today is some sort of celebratory day for the anti vax wankers and they’re out eating and drinking in their droves.
Yeah I think I’ll wait, I’m not desperate for it.
might just pop to one of the local hotels for Sunday lunch
In BC today they announced that they’re doing away with contact tracing and isolating now, telling people to use their common sense and treat it like a cold or the flu.
This is the beginning of the ‘living with Covid’ period.
This is the beginning of the ‘living with Covid’ period.
What's that?
Not sure treating it like a cold or flu is common sense. Although I doubt many of us won't be treating all sniffles very differently than we would have done 2 years ago.
There is talk of doing away with QR code check ins as meaningful contact tracing is hone now there are so many cases. That said it is an easy way for businesses to only allow vaxxed people into their venue as our QR code checkin app also shows your vax status. Personally I only go to venues that don't allow the unvaxxed in.
https://www.juliusruechel.com/2022/01/the-false-god-of-central-planning.html
interesting read.
couple of key points in terms of natural immunity and probably why Omicron variant turns out to be such a mild version.
- a huge number of people were already infected way before the vaccines rollout giving them natural immunity and response to the virus.
- flu completely disappearing from the map for 2 years
- a lot of deaths attributed with COVID whilst number of deaths cause by other diseases went down.
interesting read.
couple of key points in terms of natural immunity and probably why Omicron variant turns out to be such a mild version.
- a huge number of people were already infected way before the vaccines rollout giving them natural immunity and response to the virus.
- flu completely disappearing from the map for 2 years
- a lot of deaths attributed with COVID whilst number of deaths cause by other diseases went down.
Omicron - lots to unpack in this report and my comments are after a first quick read through so I'll be interested to read it again when I have the time to look at the details more closely.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...mediated-immune-escape-and-tropism-shift.aspx
https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...mediated-immune-escape-and-tropism-shift.aspx
- Omicron receptor-binding domain (RBD) has a higher affinity for its receptor ACE2 - a 2-2.5 fold relative to the Wuhan-Hu-1 RBD which may be a factor in increased transmissibility
- Monoclonal antibodies casivirimab and imdevimab had a complete loss of neutralizing activity against Omicron - either alone or in combination. (Worked well with previous variants)
- Neutralisation of the virus by double vaccination much reduced with AZ reduced to zero (even if severity of disease was reduced).
- Third shot makes a huge difference
- Spike changes seem responsible for severity reduction
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Shows the huge benefit of vaccination even if you have had covid before
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-breakthrough-infections-spur-strong-antibody.html
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-breakthrough-infections-spur-strong-antibody.html
So NZ has now moved to our strictest settings in our covid restrictions. Which compared to before are not too bad for those vaccinated. A bunch of people have the Omicron variant in the Nelson Bays region where I am about to head for 2 weeks kayaking and hiking later this week. Im expecting when we emerge from the wilderness in the 2nd week of Feb for NZ to have 500-1000 cases per day. Rather a surreal feeling here as NZ finally enters what the rest of the world has been experiencing. We have been living in a cocoon for ages so this is going to be a rude awakening for a lot of us.
To me things should always be looked at in a more balanced way and in a more logical sense. For example compulsory vaccination for young people and even kids is a communist thing to do and I’m strictly opposed to it.
Vaccines should be required for all that fall in the risk groups and that could really save lives, but imposing green passes, lockdowns on young and healthy people is a huge no no.
Jabs can be very effective for elderly people and I’m all for that especially for those who hasn’t contacted with the virus and probably should also take flu jabs in years when they become really deadly and put direct danger on the health system.
Im not anti vax or anything, I’ve taken flu jabs in the past and in some years they worked well in some years they really didn’t, depending on which variant becomes more prominent.
But when it comes to the current vaccine if it was up to choice I certainly won’t take it personally. The only reason I would is if it violated my rights in terms of free moment and you absolutely have to take it.
Personally I’ve had it already twice and have decent amount of antibodies from couple of test I did after.
the other reason is recent events - me and my wife were at a birthday party 2 weeks ago - packed house for three days with 17 other individuals. 2 days later one of our friends had positive test for Omnicron. He was double jabbed 6 months ago with Pfizer. 5 others later have also tested positive (3 fully vaccinated). Me and my wife both came out negative in three consecutive tests . Everybody had mild symptoms and went down as a flu.
Now whether or not those who are vaccinated are protected by the vaccine in terms of hospitalisation I can’t really claim and I don’t really know. In terms of pulling out stats of vaccine effectiveness- I also would take those stats with a pinch of salt. Even before the first vaccine rolled out I’m pretty sure at least half of worlds population has already contacted the virus and already built an immune response. To claim for certain how effective vaccines are is only possible if you compare how certain individuals react to the virus when vaccinated and unvaccinated - but both never in contact with the virus before.
You can’t really say vaccines help and to what extend against Delta or Omnicron or any other variant without factoring in whether or not these people already had build an immune response and have already survived the virus in the first place.
I bought some FFP3 masks which fit tightly to the face and my glasses rarely steam up now.
The clinical trials screened serology and took medical history to check if people already had an immune response to covid before they were randomised into the trial.
Is this the CDC one?
Because a new report came in couple of days ago claiming exactly the opposite:
https://www.reuters.com/business/he...vaccination-during-delta-surge-us-2022-01-19/
No, the clinical trials for the vaccines aren’t performed by the CDC. You said that you can’t judge the efficacy of the vaccines if you don’t know whether people had previously had an infection. Well the people that ran the clinical trials also realised that and took it into account by screening for people that have had an infection.
Infection can give good protection, but the immune response from infection is more variable and from vaccination is more consistent. The best protection comes from infection + vaccination, which is what most people will eventually have.
How conclusive are the results of the screens? Last time I read reports they were something like 85% sensitive whether or not they are accurate if a person had a past infection. And which clinical trial do you mention above in terms of sample size? Would be interesting read as well.
Usually all the stats that pop up are vaccinated vs unvaccinated, yet we don't often see a sample whether or not those vaccinated have went through a previous infection.
Compulsory vaccination was Engels idea I believe and is a cornerstone of the concept of common ownership.
There's a lot of literature out there which absolutely examines this matter with vaccination plus infection being the best protection. Lots of it is linked to in this very thread, including many studies into the efficacy of different vaccinations and prior infection vs. vaccination.
You can have a look at the original publications on the clinical trials, they’re all free to access. Eg. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
Obviously now the vaccines have been given to a lot more people than originally received them in the trials! People of course study the immune response from vaccination alone, vaccination after an infection, and infection alone. This is bread and butter immunology.
Cheers, will take a look!
That probably doesn't help as much as you think. At best it is highly variable.
The graphic at the top of this article shows how vaccination provides a huge benefit to everyone not matter if you have or haven't been infected. I'd also strongly suspect that unless you had Omicron before that infection alone gives very limited protection although 2 exposures is likely to be better than 1.
I'd also suspect that this also means we will need an Omicron tweaked vaccine (due soon apparently unless a new dominant variant arrives) and a 4th shot.
Vaccinating everyone is the best way to protect everyone as at risk groups are by far the most likely to have an adverse event even after they are vaccinated. If you don't get vaccinated you are making health choices for others and not just yourself.
How do you know that didn't work very well? Of course you can catch a flu variant that isn't targeted but there is a good chance that the year you think didn't work very well would have been far worse without the vaccination. The last time I didn't get a flu vaccination was in 2009 when I got H1N1 in the initial outbreak. I only didn't end up hospitalised because I refused due to working for myself (yes I'm an idiot).
I couldn't really have because my last infection was some 3 months ago, so really couldn't have been Omicron. The other one was year ago, which was more symptomatic. I'll do another screening test after couple of weeks if I contracted it asymptotically, as we were pretty exposed. I mean given how infectious it is it's really odd that we were both tested negative on numerous occasions.
On the second bolded one, that vaccine needs to be tweaked for sure, but not make the entire population go through the whole cycle of vaccination, because it's useless really if it isn't targeted for the specific(new) variant. The moves from Moderna to make it just as a one time booster shot is in the right direction.
That's blatantly untrue, considering the vaccines doesn't stop the virus from spreading. You might not show symptoms, you might be triple boosted or whatever but you are still a carrier and you can still infect others. It's clearly visible in practically every country out there which shows cases through the roof with 90%+ of the population jabbed.
You can't really stop it with masks or vaccines. What vaccines can do is reduce the severe cases in the older population, but will do feck all in terms of limiting respiratory viruses from spreading year after year. Besides, that jab(even the booster one) is effective for how long? A month, two? Are you going to vaccinate the whole population every three months to come up against every variant of the virus? That's really not sustainable strategy. We're stepping in the endemic stage of the virus and all restrictions should drop off in months time, otherwise you'll be doing a lot of economical damage that would be pretty tough to overcome in the long run.
Exactly the bolded one. You take a flu shot for a specific variant. When another one becomes more dominant you still get sick and the vaccine becomes useless. It's exactly what we see with Omicron now. Also vaccinations are always done before the flu period, not in the midst of it, otherwise there are alterations and new versions pop up.
My experience so far has been 2 jabs and I went through the flu season without getting sick and 2 jabs that I got through the season with probably another flu variant. From that time on I just stopped getting ones.
Its amazing how some just dont understand that things dont have to be a total absolute to be able to help.
Vaccines don't need to be sterilising to be effective and very few are. It is absolute and undeniable fact that vaccines reduce transmissions, fewer people get infected and if they do they are infectious for a shorter period. You not getting vaccinated means that you get infected more often (twice so far) and when you have it you pass it on to more people than you otherwise would and in turn they pass it on to more people. You are very definitely making health choices for others by not getting vaccinated and this goes for every form of vaccination.
You can still get killed in a car crash but that doesn't mean seatbelts and airbags don't save many lives.
You aren't aiming to 100% stop it with any single measure. You are aiming to mitigate the efefcts with mutliple measures that compound to give great benefit to all.
Masks are a good example. A standard cloth masks give some protection both in terms of protecting yourself from infection and protecting others if you are infected. If you use one of the blue surgical masks that is slightly better as there are multiple layers and an electromagnetic attraction in the layers. A P2/N95 mask is much better as they both filter better and fit better (ones with valves prevent others getting your infection slightly less but can be worn tighter as air can still get in etc etc right up to a hasmat suit giving you 100% protection. Obviously nobody is suggesting that a hazmat suit is a reasonable everyday expectation but wearing masks at indoor venues or work or where and where social distancing isn't possible. And wearing a mask isn't much of a hassle. A bit hot in summer but so what?
Utter rubbish. Y+Theye reduce severity for the majority of people.
We don't know for sure but years most likely. Memory cells seem to be holding up ok and at the most it looks like am annual booster will be needed when we eventually get in to more endemic state. The third (and any subsequent shots) are due to us being in pandemic and to deal with new variants by increasing our immune response and keeping active antibodies in our bodies. When we get out of the pandemic phase memory cells will likely be enough.
You only need the extra shots while we are in pandemic and yes, f course you keep vaccinating until we are still in a pandemic and then move to annual boosters if needed.
Flu vaccines target specific variants but that doesn't mean they give no protection to other variants, just less so. Covod vaccines haven't become useless, far from it and we are only weeks away from an Omicron adjusted vaccine anyway. Why would us being in a pandemic be a good reason not to vaccinate? Are you implying that vaccination is causing new variants to arise?
Flue jabs aren't meant to stop you getting sick even if they sometimes do. They are primarily meant to reduce severity and this in turn reduces the overall spread. Stopping getting a flu jab because you still got flu (or quite possibly something else such as a severe cold virus) is madness. You might not have had flu or you might have had flu and it would have been much worse.
Which means your prior infection gives you little or no protection. You are the person in the middle with a single Y - likely no protection Omicron.
Why develop a better vaccine if you aren't going to use it for the very purpose it was developed for? And Moderna are also developing an Omicron version of their vaccine, not just Pfizer. We will keep getting extra shots until the pandemic ends and we are in an essentially endemic state. Then boosters ill be needed if immunity, specifically memory cells, wanes and coronavirus memory cells usually persist for at least a few years so it is very doubtful that more than an annual booster will be needed, it that.
If we take Omicron as a case study:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/omicron-largely-evades-immunity-from-past/
This seems very similar numbers to me even if you factor in past infection being 19% (upper range), two jabs doesn't give you the reduced transmission you are implying. Only booster dose gives you better rates (55-80%), but then again that's absolutely not given in the case of a new variant of the virus.
There are many double jabbed who get reinfected (not just me) and many that have the full immunization cycle that also got reinfected. On top of that many vaccinated people have already encountered the virus and have immune reaction to it alongside the vaccine.
I don't think that's an apt example and we're yet to see the long term effects of getting jabbed every three months.
there are multiple reasons why masks aren't effective and people are wearing 2 year old masks, or washing them on daily basis (not the cloth ones) and reusing them when they are intended to be used only once. Not to mention half are not wearing them right or giving them false sense of security, or touching their faces and masks numerous times this allowing even more germs on their face, but that's where we digress..
The percentage of hospitalized people under the age of 40 is really low compared to those above 40. Let alone 30 and 20. The majority of those people don't really need those jabs as they have no symptoms. You can't simply make every flu jab out there required for all people it's madness. There are also some very rough flu seasons that are deadly for many people over the years and carry the same percentage of hospitalization in terms of age segregation.
As I've said, I'm not opposed to vaccines - everyone is free to take it. If we're talking about mandatory jabs - then only the people at risk IMO should be the ones that should be required to take it. That's my take on it and you might disagree with it so it's pretty fine.
That's really impossible on many ways to keep doing it on year to year basis (and get at least 75% of the population to do it). In terms of logistics, supply and actually 75% of the people wanting to go ahead with it. It's not really a sustainable way to target the virus IMO.
Yes, this was what I was saying on both points - vaccines are effective to some variants and less to others. And yes if you begin vaccinating people in the midst of an endemic or pandemic new variants pop up due to the way virus circulates. At least this is how it has always been so far - you get vaccinated prior to the outbreak to happen, not after it.
At the end of the day your immune system is pretty well equipped (along with other medications if needed) to cope up with most viruses. It should be a personal and educated choice whether or not you should take one every season. Once again I have no problems with jabs, have taken them in the past for various purposes, most likely will in the future too especially traveling to some specific countries, but my opinion on the current ones is that I'm not really convinced they are effective enough to warrant making them mandatory and limiting other civil rights in terms of free movement and destroying economies. That's my take on it.
The third dose isn't a booster. It is a changed vaccine regime. Vaccines often have different number of shots at different intervals. Boosters are typically when memory cells decline to a very low level which isn't currently the case. When we get a stable variant and a vaccine tweaked to deal with it then we will see what the final regime is and if/when boosters are required. And are you saying that 55-80% protection isn't worth having? In fact it looks like the thrid shot gives up to a 90% protection against hospitalisation.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022...ective-against-omicron-hospitalisations-study
This is also confirmed with Australian data which suggests an even higher level of protection with 3 shots.
https://www.afr.com/politics/chance...close-to-zero-for-the-boosted-20220121-p59q5h
Didn't you look at that diagram. infection/reinfection gives you little protection without vaccination. Triple vaxed is very good and only triple vaxed plus an infection is better. Anything other than triple vaxxed and you are playing with ither people's lives without their permission.
It is a good analogy (none are perfect or they wouldn't be an analogy). Seat belts and airbags don't stop all injury or death but they do significantly reduce them just as vaccination significantly reduces covid infections, transmisson and severity of disease.
And why would you think there would be long term effects of being vaccinated. if you didn't have any of the incredibly rare severe side effects the odds of having them with further shots vastly reduces to almost vanishingly rare.
You don't need to use masks only once. That has been standard advice for a long time now. Let them air between uses and having a number of them that you rotate daily is a good idea. Covid doesn't persist in mask for very long at all as t=long as they are dried between uses. Less than idea use is still better than no use at all because there is a benefit and just because some people wear them as chin nappies doesn't mean they don't work overall. One person wearing their seatbelt incorrectly doesn't mean seatbelts are useless.
You get vaccinated for yourself and you get vaccinated to protect others, the old, those with other conditions, the immune compromised and those to young to get vaccinated - current deaths are almost exclusively in these demographics plus the unvaccinated. Protecting others also protects yourself further because there is less infection about so you are less likely to catch it.
I don't propose holding someone don and sticking it in their arm but I have no problem with those who choose not to also choosing to live with the consequences. I don't want to be in a workplace where there may be unvaccinated people. I only got to pubs and restaurants where staff and customers must be vaccinated. If people don't like the consequences of not being vaxed tough luck. There are lots of things I don't like in society that I do because it is the norms of the society I live in. That is life.
Why? In most countries it just needs people to stop being snowflakes and go and get the shots.
That makes no sense. How do you get vaccinated for something that doesn't yet exist? All vaccines were introduced when the thing they protect against were widespread. If you never vaccinated in case a new variant arises then you would never ever get vaccinated for anything. Ever.
So why did we bother developing vaccines for anything? Perhaps these gravestone here in Sydney might provide the answer.
If you look at the graves after the various vaccines for these diseases were developed magically there are almost no deaths due to them.
Our immune system is great but without help lots and lots more people die.
The trouble is that people aren't educated and they are appalling at comparing the risk of things which is why society has to impose rules, regulations and laws to protect people from themselves and from inflicting harm on others.
And why do you keep making baseless statements that vaccines aren't effective enough. The shit show without them would be unbelievable.
Here in NSW 95% of adults are double or triple vaxxed. 50% of people in ICU a week or two ago were unvaccinated adults. That means the unvaccinated are 19 times more likely to end up in ICU where close to half die. And more recent figures seem to suggest even greater protection if you have the third shot. Seems convincing to me.
@Enigma_87
For arguments sake, let’s say that being vaccinated has absolutely zero effect on transmission rate (which isn’t true, but let’s say it is). Choosing not to get vaccinated still puts you at greater risk of hospitalisation which in turn means you are taking a bed that should be available to someone else.
This idea that these decisions are personal ones and they are decisions without any impact on others quite frankly, utter bollocks. If you’re not brave enough or too selfish to do one small action which could have a positive impact for someone other than yourself, just admit it. You’re wasting your time trying to argue that your decision only affects you.
For arguments sake, let’s say that being vaccinated has absolutely zero effect on transmission rate (which isn’t true, but let’s say it is). Choosing not to get vaccinated still puts you at greater risk of hospitalisation which in turn means you are taking a bed that should be available to someone else.
This idea that these decisions are personal ones and they are decisions without any impact on others quite frankly, utter bollocks. If you’re not brave enough or too selfish to do one small action which could have a positive impact for someone other than yourself, just admit it. You’re wasting your time trying to argue that your decision only affects you.
"Half the world" - that's a pretty strange thing to be pretty sure of, given that China for example was still pursuing a zero covid approach.
In the UK, where we really are pretty sure about past infections, we know from antibody surveys that about 10% had covid (infection) antibodies in September 2020. That rose to around 25% in younger (unvaxxed) age groups at the end of the Alpha wave in April 2021, by which time most of the older age groups had been vaccinated.
In fact it's really easy to spot the vaccine rollout patterns in the UK by looking back at S antibody monitoring.
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In terms of the vaccine trials, they only reported on people without antibodies at the start of the trial. In fact that's partly why those early efficacy numbers were so high. Vaccine v immune naive is a very easy win for vaccines.
Vaccine v past infection is a tougher test and it's part of the reason why vaccine performance (like waning) based on population wide stats, needs to be interpreted with care.
You can't do it based on individual anecdotes about them and their mates - that's for sure. You have to look at some real data.
The UK HSA had been monitoring groups of health workers for the past couple of years. They break down the results according to vaccine status and past infection. They publish the data.
It doesn't tell you about what will happen to a particular individual. It does give people an idea of what impact vaccines have at a community level though.
As to what that looks like for the average Brit during the Omicron wave, the ICU data offers an idea. Again, it's not a guide to a particular individual's risks. I will say some of those unvaxxed cases will have imagined themselves immune due to past infection or to faith that they were in a low risk group - hence why they are unvaxxed.
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Quick question for those more knowledgeable - I decided to go for an antibody test today. I've had 2 x J&J shots, and my IgG line was extremely extremely faint. To be honest, the nurse said he could see something, and I only really saw if I shined my phone torch on the test. Does this mean I have very low antibody levels? And are these levels only from past infection, or are they also affected by vaccines? I've tried to google this but it really isn't clear.
My mum tested positive last Saturday morning (21st), still testing positive as of this morning on LF. Other than keeping herself in her room for most of the 2 days she hasn't really been isolating from me in the house yet I've tested negative the whole time and hopefully still will ..... touch wood.
Does anyone know if the US are likely to change the incoming 1 day before test for travellers in the next month?
Swedish study shows that nearly half of those who caught covid in the first wave are still suffering from an impaired sense of smell.
https://www.theguardian.com/society...ses-may-suffer-lasting-harm-to-sense-of-smell
https://www.theguardian.com/society...ses-may-suffer-lasting-harm-to-sense-of-smell
That's a benefit in Sweden, they can now enjoy surströmming.
Is that definitely because of covid, or because they went skiing during half term?
Maybe they lied when they were seventeen?
wondering the same thing!