All things CoronaVirus

[Typical Lax Dad]

Unruly dbags, Trumpnista by definition.

aka Redneck

[CU88]

I've recovered from COVID19, why do I need a vaccine?

Katelyn Jetelina
May 5

A recent study in the Lancet (a very prominent journal) found that, among a very young population in Qatar, the efficacy of “natural” infection was 95.7%. This is in line with other studies in Austria, Denmark, Qatar, Switzerland, the UK, and the US, which reported an efficacy of natural infection ranging between 80 and 95%.

So, do “naturally” infected people need a vaccine?

Yes. For four reasons.

First, getting a vaccine, even for people who have already recovered from COVID-19, strengthens your immune response (antibody and T-cell protection). This is because you get more “doses” of virus protection (one more dose from J&J and two more doses from Moderna/Pfizer). For the mRNA vaccines, this second dose is key for longevity.

Now, if you recover from COVID19 and get the first mRNA vaccine dose, do you need the second dose? This is highly debated among scientists. This strategy seems to work, but we’re waiting for more evidence to change policy.

Second, the vaccine looks to better protect against variants than natural infection. This Qatar study was before rampant spread of variants of concern (as well as other factors, like younger crowd, different level of public health compliance, etc.). We have reason to believe vaccines just don’t work as well against new variants.

For example, up until now, Israel has restricted previously infected individuals from getting the vaccine because they were considered protected. Israel has been incredibly methodical in COVID-19 testing throughout the entire pandemic. So, the Israelis have a good handle on who was infected with the virus.

But this policy initiated an intense debate among scientists once variants of concern started spreading. This eventually sparked a small study (and others), in which scientists took blood samples among healthcare workers at three time points:

After “natural” infection (participants were considered mild or asymptomatic);

Then, scientists “infected” the blood samples with variants of concern to see how well antibodies responded. What did they find?

Panel A and B: Vaccines were better at increasing the number of neutralizing antibodies than natural infection. In other words, you have more soldiers.

Panel C and D: Vaccines had more neutralizing antibodies against B.1.351 (variant in South Africa) and P.1. (variant first detected in Brazil) compared to natural immunity. This also probably means vaccines can protect against the NY variant and new “double” variant first discovered in India.

So, Israel changed directions and vaccines are now open (and encouraged) for everyone.

Another study (among 20 adults) found that both natural infection and vaccine infection produces enough neutralizing antibodies for B.1.1.7. Interestingly, they also found that the number of neutralizing antibodies is higher among vaccinated compared to infected patients. This may mean that the vaccine response will last longer among vaccinated (compared to naturally infected).

Third, the immune system is messier from natural infection. Natural infection may work, but to a lesser effect because its all over the place; its not as focused as vaccine immunity. Natural response hits a lot more targets and not all of them may be beneficial.

Forth, as a recent Atlantic article nicely articulated: “Your grandparents, elderly neighbors, and immunocompromised friends will be safer if you’re vaccinated, even if you’ve already been infected. Vaccines aren’t just about building a defensive wall around safe young bodies. We’re also collectively building a wall around the more vulnerable members of society. And little holes in the wall can lead to unnecessary deaths.”

Bottom line: Natural immunity is okay against old variants. No vaccine is perfect, but the vaccine seems to work better, especially among variants of concern.

Exhibits and charts available at this link: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substac ... ce=twitter

[Peter Brown]

Unruly dbags, Trumpnista by definition.

aka Redneck

Are you guys down to 2 masks outside by now? Or still 5?

[JoeMauer89]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/politics ... index.html

Really don’t understand people....other than most people are stupid.

It must really be a burden to be the smartest person on the planet.

Not the smartest person on the planet, the ONLY person whose opinion MATTERS. TLD's act is tired. If he doesn't agree with what you say or the point you are trying to make, he retorts with extremely dry humor in an attempt to deflect from the point you have just made. That's why you get such posts as, "Sure, lets up open bars and restaurants 100% no problem" Or, "Masks kill, where would we be if let this thing rip with no restrictions? These are just a few of many. It's purposeful, its to deflect from the point you are trying to make. Noticed this has really gotten worse with him in the last few months. I respect and value your opinion, but it makes it hard to do so sometimes when you act like a middle-schooler with some of your responses. If you don't like what someone has to post, don't trivialize it with tired, dry humor that takes away from what the poster is trying to get across.

JoeMauer89!

[kramerica.inc]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/politics ... index.html

Really don’t understand people....other than most people are stupid.

It must really be a burden to be the smartest person on the planet.

Our own FanLax Cliff Claven:

[JoeMauer89]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/politics ... index.html

Really don’t understand people....other than most people are stupid.

It must really be a burden to be the smartest person on the planet.

Our own FanLax Cliff Claven:

Our own Cliff Claven!

JoeMauer89!

[seacoaster]

Commentary on the Nation, with the virus response as the example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/opin ... ty-us.html

"Could today’s version of America have been able to win World War II? It hardly seems possible.

That victory required national cohesion, voluntary sacrifice for the common good and trust in institutions and each other. America’s response to Covid-19 suggests that we no longer have sufficient quantities of any of those things.

In 2020 Americans failed to socially distance and test for the coronavirus and suffered among the highest infection and death rates in the developed world. Millions decided that wearing a mask infringed their individual liberty.

This week my Times colleague Apoorva Mandavilli reported that experts now believe that America will not achieve herd immunity anytime soon. Instead of largely beating this disease it could linger, as a more manageable threat, for generations. A major reason is that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is reluctant to get vaccinated.

We’re not asking you to storm the beaches of Iwo Jima; we’re asking you to walk into a damn CVS.

Americans have always been an individualistic people who don’t like being told what to do. But in times of crisis, they have historically still had the capacity to form what Alexis de Tocqueville called a “social body,” a coherent community capable of collective action. During World War I, for example, millions served at home and abroad to win a faraway war, responding to recruiting posters that read “I Want You” and “Americans All.”

That basic sense of peoplehood, of belonging to a common enterprise with a shared destiny, is exactly what’s lacking today. Researchers and reporters who talk to the vaccine-hesitant find that the levels of distrust, suspicion and alienation that have marred politics are now thwarting the vaccination process. They find people who doubt the competence of the medical establishment or any establishment, who assume as a matter of course that their fellow countrymen are out to con, deceive and harm them.

This “the only person you can trust is yourself” mentality has a tendency to cause people to conceive of themselves as individuals and not as citizens. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic recently contacted more than a dozen people who were refusing to get a Covid-19 vaccine. They often used an argument you’ve probably heard, too: I’m not especially vulnerable. I may have already gotten the virus. If I get it in the future it won’t be that bad. Why should I take a risk on an experimental vaccine?

They are reasoning mostly on a personal basis. They are thinking about what’s right for them as individuals more than what’s right for the nation and the most vulnerable people in it. It’s not that they are rebuking their responsibilities as citizens; it apparently never occurs to them that they might have any. When Thompson asked them to think in broader terms, they seemed surprised and off balance.

The causes of this isolation and distrust are as plentiful as there are stars in the heavens. But there are a few things we can say. Most of the time distrust is earned distrust. Trust levels in any society tend to be reasonably accurate representations of how trustworthy that society has been. Trust is the ratio of the times someone has shown up for you versus the times somebody has betrayed you. Marginalized groups tend to be the most distrustful, for good reasons — they’ve been betrayed.

The other thing to say is that once it is established, distrust tends to accelerate. If you distrust the people around you because you think they have bad values or are out to hurt you, then you are going to be slow to reach out to solve common problems. Your problems will have a tendency to get worse, which seems to justify and then magnify your distrust. You have entered a distrust doom loop.

A lot of Americans have seceded from the cultural, political and social institutions of national life. As a result, the nation finds it hard to perform collective action. Our pathetic Covid response may not be the last or worst consequence of this condition.

How do you rebuild trust? At the local level you recruit diverse people to complete tangible tasks together, like building a park. At the national level you demonstrate to people in concrete ways that they are not forgotten, that someone is coming through for them.

Which brings us to Joe Biden. The Biden agenda would pour trillions of dollars into precisely those populations who have been left out and are most distrustful — the people who used to work in manufacturing and who might now get infrastructure jobs, or the ones who care for the elderly. This money would not only ease their financial stress, but it would also be a material display that someone sees them, that we are in this together. These measures, if passed, would be extraordinary tangible steps to reduce the sense of menace and threat that undergirds this whole psychology.

The New Deal was an act of social solidarity that created the national cohesion we needed to win World War II. I am not in the habit of supporting massive federal spending proposals. But in this specific context — in the midst of a distrust doom loop — this is our best shot of reversing the decline."

[Kismet]

Absolutely spot on. Let us all hope some rogue adversary doesn't make the same assessment of us and take a shot.

Read up on how the Roman Empire fell....very Deja vu IMHO. Collective security to every man for himself in very short order.

Nevertheless, hope I'm wrong.

[Peter Brown]

Commentary on the Nation, with the virus response as the example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/opin ... ty-us.html

"Could today’s version of America have been able to win World War II? It hardly seems possible.

That victory required national cohesion, voluntary sacrifice for the common good and trust in institutions and each other. America’s response to Covid-19 suggests that we no longer have sufficient quantities of any of those things.

In 2020 Americans failed to socially distance and test for the coronavirus and suffered among the highest infection and death rates in the developed world. Millions decided that wearing a mask infringed their individual liberty.

This week my Times colleague Apoorva Mandavilli reported that experts now believe that America will not achieve herd immunity anytime soon. Instead of largely beating this disease it could linger, as a more manageable threat, for generations. A major reason is that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is reluctant to get vaccinated.

We’re not asking you to storm the beaches of Iwo Jima; we’re asking you to walk into a damn CVS.

Americans have always been an individualistic people who don’t like being told what to do. But in times of crisis, they have historically still had the capacity to form what Alexis de Tocqueville called a “social body,” a coherent community capable of collective action. During World War I, for example, millions served at home and abroad to win a faraway war, responding to recruiting posters that read “I Want You” and “Americans All.”

That basic sense of peoplehood, of belonging to a common enterprise with a shared destiny, is exactly what’s lacking today. Researchers and reporters who talk to the vaccine-hesitant find that the levels of distrust, suspicion and alienation that have marred politics are now thwarting the vaccination process. They find people who doubt the competence of the medical establishment or any establishment, who assume as a matter of course that their fellow countrymen are out to con, deceive and harm them.

This “the only person you can trust is yourself” mentality has a tendency to cause people to conceive of themselves as individuals and not as citizens. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic recently contacted more than a dozen people who were refusing to get a Covid-19 vaccine. They often used an argument you’ve probably heard, too: I’m not especially vulnerable. I may have already gotten the virus. If I get it in the future it won’t be that bad. Why should I take a risk on an experimental vaccine?

They are reasoning mostly on a personal basis. They are thinking about what’s right for them as individuals more than what’s right for the nation and the most vulnerable people in it. It’s not that they are rebuking their responsibilities as citizens; it apparently never occurs to them that they might have any. When Thompson asked them to think in broader terms, they seemed surprised and off balance.

The causes of this isolation and distrust are as plentiful as there are stars in the heavens. But there are a few things we can say. Most of the time distrust is earned distrust. Trust levels in any society tend to be reasonably accurate representations of how trustworthy that society has been. Trust is the ratio of the times someone has shown up for you versus the times somebody has betrayed you. Marginalized groups tend to be the most distrustful, for good reasons — they’ve been betrayed.

The other thing to say is that once it is established, distrust tends to accelerate. If you distrust the people around you because you think they have bad values or are out to hurt you, then you are going to be slow to reach out to solve common problems. Your problems will have a tendency to get worse, which seems to justify and then magnify your distrust. You have entered a distrust doom loop.

A lot of Americans have seceded from the cultural, political and social institutions of national life. As a result, the nation finds it hard to perform collective action. Our pathetic Covid response may not be the last or worst consequence of this condition.

How do you rebuild trust? At the local level you recruit diverse people to complete tangible tasks together, like building a park. At the national level you demonstrate to people in concrete ways that they are not forgotten, that someone is coming through for them.

Which brings us to Joe Biden. The Biden agenda would pour trillions of dollars into precisely those populations who have been left out and are most distrustful — the people who used to work in manufacturing and who might now get infrastructure jobs, or the ones who care for the elderly. This money would not only ease their financial stress, but it would also be a material display that someone sees them, that we are in this together. These measures, if passed, would be extraordinary tangible steps to reduce the sense of menace and threat that undergirds this whole psychology.

The New Deal was an act of social solidarity that created the national cohesion we needed to win World War II. I am not in the habit of supporting massive federal spending proposals. But in this specific context — in the midst of a distrust doom loop — this is our best shot of reversing the decline."

David misses such a central point, it defeats his entire lamentation, which comes off as nothing more than some lonely lefty yenta’s whiny screed.

Many communities still band together. When you live in a cloistered upper west side lefty snake pit, overseen by a big bird doofus like deBlasio and helplessly watching your city deteriorate, you have no idea just how supportive of our neighbors many of us are elsewhere. And yes, community sense is much stronger in conservative states and definitely NOT in liberal states.

The reason is, most people with common sense recognize how disengaged any government official is from the people they serve. Not Democrats though. And their cities are swirling down the drain. Chalk that up to Democrats bowing down to public sector unions, Democrats bowing down to official power, and Democrats abandoning America’s promise.

Conservatives know to support each other and not beg government to get involved when there are problems.

Family, faith, community, shared values, shared language, shared desires: many cities have this. Most liberals cities do not. This ain’t hard to understand.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/05/politics ... index.html

Really don’t understand people....other than most people are stupid.

It must really be a burden to be the smartest person on the planet.

Our own FanLax Cliff Claven:

few other folks here probably fit the description better. I am often told that I don’t offer any solutions or make wild speculations.

[jhu72]

CDC changes guidance to allow for longer range aerosol based infection.

[Peter Brown]

CDC changes guidance to allow for longer range aerosol based infection.

How many masks do you sport, champ? While hiking alone. On a mountain trail.

Thx.

[jhu72]

... I'm in your head loser.

[wgdsr]

CDC changes guidance to allow for longer range aerosol based infection.

we are the dumbest pandemic country in the world. it's may of 2021. but "masks".

[Typical Lax Dad]

CDC changes guidance to allow for longer range aerosol based infection.

we are the dumbest pandemic country in the world. it's may of 2021. but "masks".

Open up. Nothing wrong with standing around a bar laughing and drinking.

[Peter Brown]

... I'm in your head loser.

The over under on you is 5. That’s hiking on a mountain trail, alone.

On a city street, it’s 10.

[JoeMauer89]

CDC changes guidance to allow for longer range aerosol based infection.

we are the dumbest pandemic country in the world. it's may of 2021. but "masks".

Open up. Nothing wrong with standing around a bar laughing and drinking.

Enough with this tired act. We are opening up, whether you like it or not. So saying this doesn't even achieve the purpose of your dry,subtle deflection because you don't like it. You do this only in this thread, I don't get it. You have been saying open up for 6+ months now, as if it it's Dr. Kevorkian's magic saying or something.

JoeMauer89!

[DocBarrister]

Let’s just compare Trump and the U.S. to the Gold Standard for the COVID-19 pandemic response, South Korea.

South Korea: 52 million people and just 1,860 COVID-19 deaths to date (and their data are unquestionably more reliable than ours). https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... uth-korea/

Trump’s America: 330 million people, over 400,000 COVID-19 deaths by his last day in office. https://khn.org/news/nation-records-400 ... residency/

That’s basically hundreds of thousands of Americans who died unnecessarily ... blood on Trump’s hands, and that of his enablers.

DocBarrister

[JoeMauer89]

Let’s just compare Trump and the U.S. to the Gold Standard for the COVID-19 pandemic response, South Korea.

South Korea: 52 million people and just 1,860 COVID-19 deaths to date (and their data are unquestionably more reliable than ours). https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... uth-korea/

Trump’s America: 330 million people, over 400,000 COVID-19 deaths by his last day in office. https://khn.org/news/nation-records-400 ... residency/

That’s basically hundreds of thousands of Americans who died unnecessarily ... blood on Trump’s hands, and that of his enablers.

DocBarrister

This fool is still talking about South Korea, this is a clear representation of someone who ABSOLUTELY REFUSES to let their political leanings be INDEPENDENT of their opinions of a virus that is extremely nuanced. Stick to JHU lacrosse

JoeMauer89!

[Typical Lax Dad]

CDC changes guidance to allow for longer range aerosol based infection.

we are the dumbest pandemic country in the world. it's may of 2021. but "masks".

Open up. Nothing wrong with standing around a bar laughing and drinking.

Enough with this tired act. We are opening up, whether you like it or not. So saying this doesn't even achieve the purpose of your dry,subtle deflection because you don't like it. You do this only in this thread, I don't get it. You have been saying open up for 6+ months now, as if it it's Dr. Kevorkian's magic saying or something.

JoeMauer89!

I am talking about months ago.....not now....my buddy understands the context. Anyway....I am fully vaccinated and the rate of transmission is falling. Not at all like May of 2020 or October of 2020.....unless you believe the way we behave now should have been the way we behaved at the height of the outbreak? That’s what you are going with? What’s the point of vaccines?