CV19 - Cure worse than the disease? (Vol 13)

[robscot]

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i...

"Thromboembolic Events and Thrombosis With Thrombocytopenia After COVID-19 Infection and Vaccination in Catalonia, Spain"

"We included 945,941 BNT162b2 (778,534 with 2 doses), 426,272 ChAdOx1, 222,710 COVID-19, and 4,570,149 background participants. "

Large scale real world paper. 37 page PDF preprint free to download and worth a read.

Was AZ unfairly maligned and big opportunities missed?

(Obviously the 'do your own research' expert hater lot will disagree with this paper from people, vastly more qualified, who literally did their own research.... )

[isaldiri]

johnboy1975 said:

Edit: the reason Delta did do well against Alpha was (at least partly) due to the vaccine blocking Alpha. So in fact, the fault of Delta being prevalent lies partly with the strategy of trying to vaccinate everyone. If we had opened up when the vunerable were jabbed and Alpha was still knocking about in numbers, Alpha could have gone through the non vunerable, whilst the vunerable were actually protected (from infection) by the vaccine. (Not sure if the timelines correlate, and maybe Delta with its alleged higher R0 might have prevailed in any case)

Not entirely sure b1617.2 has achieved that due to vaccine escape capability tbh. Most of the early infections were amongst younger people who would not have been vaccinated. even now, infection rates are higher in those that have 1 dose or less than the double vaxxed people. I think it's a combination of possibly some intrinsic increase in transmissibility that is mixed up with less obvious/different symptoms (a much greater factor I'd suspect) that has caused that difference in transmissibility than immune escape.

As I have said, although R0 of 6-7 regularly gets bandied around for the current variant, the rates of transmission amongst the unvaccinated cohorts have absolutely not in any way suggested it is actually a virus of that level of transmissibility as it never seems to have gone much above Rt of 2 irrespective of vaccine status of cohort. unless rule of 6 and the mish mash of tier 3 restrictions were marvellously effective in stopping transmission (in which case that makes the lockdowns especially stupid) that has reduced a R0 ~ 6 virus down to < 2 even amongst unvaccinated people, I still think the earlier claims of 50% more of a prior supposedly 50% increased transmissibility variant is an exceptionally crude way of estimating what B1617.2 actually has as a 'true' R0.

[Andy888]

Still trying to quantify how much better off I would be if I was vaccinated.

So taking data from page 18 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...

My thinking is that I don't particularly want to end up sick enough to require a hospital stay, less so ICU, and even less death.

Taking the % of hospitalised vax'd and unvax'd as a proportion of the case numbers, (orange under 50s, blue over 50s) gives me:




So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?

[cymatty]

Andy888 said:

Still trying to quantify how much better off I would be if I was vaccinated.

So taking data from page 18 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...

My thinking is that I don't particularly want to end up sick enough to require a hospital stay, less so ICU, and even less death.

Taking the % of hospitalised vax'd and unvax'd as a proportion of the case numbers, (orange under 50s, blue over 50s) gives me:




So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?

That ignores population size. It's more like 9x reduction

[R Mutt]

Boringvolvodriver said:

Article in Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/28/britai...

Few quotes

Dr Matthews added: “I’ve worked on a lot of respiratory viruses and controversially I believe this virus isn’t a killer.

“Flu kills babies and old people and it’s quite capable of killing people who have had the vaccine, but the issue here is that collectively, as a species, humans have no memory of this virus, so everyone’s immune system is starting from scratch.

“That’s ok if you’re a child but not if you’re in your 50s, 60s and 70 and relying on the memory of previous viruses.

“I think we will eventually live in a world where you will meet this virus as a kid and develop immunity early. Reaching a truce with the virus is probably where we’re heading.”

Isn't this, along with with fact that it's now mutated to be weaker, why Spanish Flu is endemic and just another flu, and why many have no symptoms from SARS COV 2?

[Andy888]

cymatty said:

That ignores population size. It's more like 9x reduction

Yeah but why do I need worry about population size?

I'm not considering whether the vaccine impacts my chances of getting it.

To me the vax is only about, "if I get Covid, will the vaccine keep me out of hospital, or keep me alive." i.e. will it reduce the likelihood of being hospitalised or worse?

Thus the "hospitalisation rate" for want of a better description, for unvax'd versus vax'd people who have actually got Covid is in orange above (for under 50s) and really shows no meaningful difference between the two groups...

[grumbledoak]

Andy888 said:

Still trying to quantify how much better off I would be if I was vaccinated.
...

So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?

That doesn't seem unlikely. The absolute risk reductions are quite small because the absolute risks are not that great, e.g.
"Pfizer/BioNTech - relative risk reduction, 95.1%; absolute risk reduction, 0.7%"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC79965...

[Andy888]

grumbledoak said:

Andy888 said:

Still trying to quantify how much better off I would be if I was vaccinated.
...

So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?

That doesn't seem unlikely. The absolute risk reductions are quite small because the absolute risks are not that great, e.g.
"Pfizer/BioNTech - relative risk reduction, 95.1%; absolute risk reduction, 0.7%"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC79965...

Yeah, I remember that being discussed in here a while ago when the press were latching on the 95% headline and we were saying "whoa hold on", but that was based on trial data. Be nice if we could prove it right with actual data.

[johnboy1975]

isaldiri said:

johnboy1975 said:

Edit: the reason Delta did do well against Alpha was (at least partly) due to the vaccine blocking Alpha. So in fact, the fault of Delta being prevalent lies partly with the strategy of trying to vaccinate everyone. If we had opened up when the vunerable were jabbed and Alpha was still knocking about in numbers, Alpha could have gone through the non vunerable, whilst the vunerable were actually protected (from infection) by the vaccine. (Not sure if the timelines correlate, and maybe Delta with its alleged higher R0 might have prevailed in any case)

Not entirely sure b1617.2 has achieved that due to vaccine escape capability tbh. Most of the early infections were amongst younger people who would not have been vaccinated. even now, infection rates are higher in those that have 1 dose or less than the double vaxxed people. I think it's a combination of possibly some intrinsic increase in transmissibility that is mixed up with less obvious/different symptoms (a much greater factor I'd suspect) that has caused that difference in transmissibility than immune escape.

As I have said, although R0 of 6-7 regularly gets bandied around for the current variant, the rates of transmission amongst the unvaccinated cohorts have absolutely not in any way suggested it is actually a virus of that level of transmissibility as it never seems to have gone much above Rt of 2 irrespective of vaccine status of cohort. unless rule of 6 and the mish mash of tier 3 restrictions were marvellously effective in stopping transmission (in which case that makes the lockdowns especially stupid) that has reduced a R0 ~ 6 virus down to < 2 even amongst unvaccinated people, I still think the earlier claims of 50% more of a prior supposedly 50% increased transmissibility variant is an exceptionally crude way of estimating what B1617.2 actually has as a 'true' R0.

Good points....


I agree- I can't see many of the restrictions having much of an effect, certainly not to take 6/7 down to 1.5.

Maybe short term sterilising immunity is providing a partial block to the rampant spread of Delta?

Its got some sort of advantage (clearly), I still think its a bit more transmissible. And the vaccine evading properties certainly help

Which would indicate Autumn will be very high cases, if 55m are susceptible to Delta, and what little sterilising immunity wanes further. Football back (70k in old Trafford, plus the pubs, plus the mingling in houses) in 3 weeks. Schools and Unis back

Equally, it says to me July 19th was far too late. All we have done is seed the autumn wave

[cymatty]

Andy888 said:

Yeah but why do I need worry about population size?

I'm not considering whether the vaccine impacts my chances of getting it.

To me the vax is only about, "if I get Covid, will the vaccine keep me out of hospital, or keep me alive." i.e. will it reduce the likelihood of being hospitalised or worse?

Thus the "hospitalisation rate" for want of a better description, for unvax'd versus vax'd people who have actually got Covid is in orange above (for under 50s) and really shows no meaningful difference between the two groups...

Ah that makes sense, still seems an odd way to look at it unless you think you will get covid either way, some of the vax benefit is reduction in chance of getting covid in the first place.

If it reduces the risk in you getting it by 80% surely that has to be fed into the risk reduction as if you don't get covid you will not be hospitalised.

[Andy888]

cymatty said:

Andy888 said:

Yeah but why do I need worry about population size?

I'm not considering whether the vaccine impacts my chances of getting it.

To me the vax is only about, "if I get Covid, will the vaccine keep me out of hospital, or keep me alive." i.e. will it reduce the likelihood of being hospitalised or worse?

Thus the "hospitalisation rate" for want of a better description, for unvax'd versus vax'd people who have actually got Covid is in orange above (for under 50s) and really shows no meaningful difference between the two groups...

Ah that makes sense, still seems an odd way to look at it unless you think you will get covid either way, some of the vax benefit is reduction in chance of getting covid in the first place.

Ok, thanks. I can see sense in looking at the ratios.

And yes, in my mind I will get it at some point, irrespective of vax or not. And there seems to be stuff appearing now that would indicate it's not as good as hoped at stopping transmission, but that's neither here nor there.

Personally speaking I have paid scant regard to rules for 16 months and have managed to avoid it thus far, or not noticed it. So yes, I'm really only interested in whether it'll keep me from being properly sick or dead. And atm there doesn't look to be much advantage.

[APontus]

johnboy1975 said:

Good points....


I agree- I can't see many of the restrictions having much of an effect, certainly not to take 6/7 down to 1.5.

Maybe short term sterilising immunity is providing a partial block to the rampant spread of Delta?

Its got some sort of advantage (clearly), I still think its a bit more transmissible. And the vaccine evading properties certainly help

Which would indicate Autumn will be very high cases, if 55m are susceptible to Delta, and what little sterilising immunity wanes further. Football back (70k in old Trafford, plus the pubs, plus the mingling in houses) in 3 weeks. Schools and Unis back

Equally, it says to me July 19th was far too late. All we have done is seed the autumn wave

And those 70,000 vaccinated football fans will be able to spread Covid asymptomatically between themselves, increasing the chance of vaccine busting variants emerging.

[SebastienClement]

scottyp123 said:

skwdenyer said:

Let's play this out from a scientific perspective.

Right now, this thing could go one of two ways:

Scenario 1: a combination of herd immunity, existing levels of vaccination, and a dose of good luck mean that the follow-up variants are less troublesome and this virus fades into the background, coming back now and again like flu

Scenario 2: a dose of bad luck has the next variant twice or more as nasty, and society grinds to a halt.

What are the odds for each scenario? I don't have that data; it is likely nobody does. But so far variants are not looking "nicer" - Delta is the most transmissible virus ever studied, apparently.

So how do you do the best you can to protect against the effects of a possible Scenario 2? The only thing you can do is to try to boost the levels of immunity in the community by whatever means you have available to you. That means mass vaccination.

Like so many Government decisions, this one's a lose-lose. If you take the precaution, and the nasty variant never shows up, you were over-reacting. If you don't take the precaution and the nasty variant does show up, you've got XXXXX deaths on your hands & a collapsed NHS.

We know what the effects of lockdowns, masks, social distancing, etc. are. So if "the big one" comes we've got a handle on how we could deal with it. But we also know the cost of that. Instead, we need more immunity.

Now, people are going to say "but the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission of Delta." No, it seems it doesn't. But it does reduce transmission of the original virus. It might prevent or reduce transmission of later strains. And it does appear to massively reduce the severity of illness amongst those infected.

So what it seems we *can* say from the data is that more vaccination is leading to reduced negative outcomes.

We can't predict the future by looking at the past. Just because the variants to date haven't tried all that hard to wipe us out, doesn't mean the next one won't. This is not theoretical - this is an actual active pandemic with a fast-mutating virus.

If anyone would like to point out where the missing Scenario 3 is, I'm happy to listen. I'm not into scare-mongering, I've no desire for doom. But we appear to be at a point at which this pandemic could go one of two ways. I sincerely hope it is Scenario 1. However, the old "hope for the best, plan for the worst" is precisely what we have Governments for.

Does that justify imposing restrictions on those who aren't vaccinated? That's the big moral question here. But I don't think it fair to say there is no underlying scientific reason why one might wish to do it - it isn't *only* an Orwellian nightmare

Its all iff's and maybe's though, in any given year the flu virus could have mutated into a mass killer of everyone but we never decided to vaccinate the whole planet just in case.

What about a killer asteroid, its possible one could be hurtling towards us right now big enough to wipe our whole country out, it could be a matter of days away for all anyone knows, why are we not building massive underground bunkers to sustain life just in case?

Let's hope there is something huge that's going to wipe us all out. Boom. Done.

Much more of this stuff I'll be checking out. Pretty much done

[Carl_Manchester]

Andy888 said:

grumbledoak said:

Andy888 said:

Still trying to quantify how much better off I would be if I was vaccinated.
...

So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?

That doesn't seem unlikely. The absolute risk reductions are quite small because the absolute risks are not that great, e.g.
"Pfizer/BioNTech - relative risk reduction, 95.1%; absolute risk reduction, 0.7%"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC79965...

Yeah, I remember that being discussed in here a while ago when the press were latching on the 95% headline and we were saying "whoa hold on", but that was based on trial data. Be nice if we could prove it right with actual data.

If you go back in the thread, it was, via Israeli heath service data. The vaccines are approx 93% effective or, as was posted approx 9x less likely to be seriously ill or, die.

Unfortunately this is what happens when the anti-science crew keep steam-rolling the thread with nonsense, the good stuff gets lost.

[anonymoususer]

A scary NEW variant is thought to be behind todays RISE in cases.
Speaking from the bullst bunker Professor Neil Ferguson said "what can I say. I told you that we were not out of the woods and some can't see the forest for the trees. I can be right even when I'm wrong but I will remain strong and resolute."

The distinguished top notch scientist added that "It's clear that this new variant is possibly probably a more virulently viral variant of the deviously inclined variant that took us all by surprise last week as I urged caution whilst pontificating we may be over the worst of it"

When questioned about the ability of the vaccine to cope the professor raised the idea that paying to have a double mixed jab of various vaccines one in the arm and one in the left buttock may be the way foreward.

[Darth Paul]

Andy888 said:

Just had another earful from wife about not taking the vaccine. Apparently here in Northern Ireland there are plans afoot to start winding down the vax programme.

To me, all the press around this reads very much like typical marketing patter - restrict the access and create some urgency in order to sell more!

Anyway, then it came - majority of those in ICU are un-vaxed, under 40s.

Now maybe I've missed it, but where exactly is the data that shows the vax/unvax split of those in hospitals? It seems to be all over the press but I can't actually find any source data showing same...

Our local news was playing the same tune. Apparently everyone in ICU is unvaccinated and 40% are under 45 or something. Like you say, try and get this data quantified, you can’t.

[Andy888]

Carl_Manchester said:

Andy888 said:

grumbledoak said:

Andy888 said:

Still trying to quantify how much better off I would be if I was vaccinated.
...

So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?

That doesn't seem unlikely. The absolute risk reductions are quite small because the absolute risks are not that great, e.g.
"Pfizer/BioNTech - relative risk reduction, 95.1%; absolute risk reduction, 0.7%"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC79965...

Yeah, I remember that being discussed in here a while ago when the press were latching on the 95% headline and we were saying "whoa hold on", but that was based on trial data. Be nice if we could prove it right with actual data.

If you go back in the thread, it was, via Israeli heath service data. The vaccines are approx 93% effective or, as was posted approx 9x less likely to be seriously ill or, die.

Unfortunately this is what happens when the anti-science crew keep steam-rolling the thread with nonsense, the good stuff gets lost.

Except Israel are now saying Pfizer is supposedly only 39% effective! Ah sure!

[APontus]

Andy888 said:

Except Israel are now saying Pfizer is supposedly only 39% effective! Ah sure!

Different regions may see different efficacy at different times depending on the local strains' ability to overcome the vaccines.

[Boringvolvodriver]

APontus said:

Andy888 said:

Except Israel are now saying Pfizer is supposedly only 39% effective! Ah sure!

Different regions may see different efficacy at different times depending on the local strains' ability to overcome the vaccines.

Have a look at this and let me know what it means because I am confused!

https://www.jpost.com/%20israel-pfizer-news/is-isr...

[cymatty]

APontus said:

Different regions may see different efficacy at different times depending on the local strains' ability to overcome the vaccines.

The truth seems close to that.

https://mobile.twitter.com/dvir_a/status/142005912...