To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[Percy Rideout]

I'd get the vaccine if there was clear evidence that after vaccination I could not spread 'DARONA it to others. Unfortunately the CDC says this is not the case.

[The AD]

I'd get the vaccine if there was clear evidence that after vaccination I could not spread 'DARONA it to others. Unfortunately the CDC says this is not the case.

I would imagine that's awfully difficult to prove.

[old goat]

Goldmember--I wouldn't think twice about your wife getting the shot in Idaho. Do it. She's medically eligible, that's all that matters. The idea is to vaccinate everyone in the country--the fact that one state got disproportionately more vaccine than another or one town or county is more efficient than another shouldn't impact how quickly someone gets a shot. Our commerce goes across state lines, our dollars cross state lines, we cross state lines, the virus certainly crosses state lines. No ethical reason we can't cross state lines to get the vaccine if the state isn't enforcing a local residency requirement. (The idea is to vaccinate everyone in the world, but I'm not going to open that can of worms.)

[uglymoney]

You have to read between the lines. If vaccine means lower viral loads then of course it means less transmission. Does it eliminate all transmission in some cases? We don't know.

My parents are 15 days out from shot 1. Are they fully protected? No. Is covid going to kill them now if they get infected? Almost certainly not. Should we relax a little bit... like not preaching to them to get all their groceries delivered? Of course.

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[funkendrenchman]

I'd get the vaccine if there was clear evidence that after vaccination I could not spread 'DARONA it to others. Unfortunately the CDC says this is not the case.

The current evidence is showing that it is less likely you will spread it.

The CDC doesn't want to say that you're less likely to spread it until they are as sure as they can be, otherwise the vaccinated will throw any precautions to the wind.

[Adolf Allerbush]

You have to read between the lines. If vaccine means lower viral loads then of course it means less transmission. Does it eliminate all transmission in some cases? We don't know.

My parents are 15 days out from shot 1. Are they fully protected? No. Is covid going to kill them now if they get infected? Almost certainly not. Should we relax a little bit... like not preaching to them to get all their groceries delivered? Of course.

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This. The idea that someone wouldn't or that they think they shouldn't get a vaccine unless it works perfectly, seems dumb. By perfectly I mean 100% effective at keeping people from any symptoms and 100% effective at keeping any spread from happening.

[skaredshtles]

<snip> the vaccinated will throw any precautions to the wind.

I'm pretty sure this is going to happen, to some extent, anyways.

[uglymoney]

I'm pretty sure this is going to happen, to some extent, anyways.

Yep. And pretending nothing will change isn't exactly the message we should be sending to fence sitters. Science first, sure. But common sense needs to be a consideration as well.



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[GoldMember]

Goldmember--I wouldn't think twice about your wife getting the shot in Idaho. Do it. She's medically eligible, that's all that matters. The idea is to vaccinate everyone in the country--the fact that one state got disproportionately more vaccine than another or one town or county is more efficient than another shouldn't impact how quickly someone gets a shot. Our commerce goes across state lines, our dollars cross state lines, we cross state lines, the virus certainly crosses state lines. No ethical reason we can't cross state lines to get the vaccine if the state isn't enforcing a local residency requirement. (The idea is to vaccinate everyone in the world, but I'm not going to open that can of worms.)

Thanks. We just got a follow-up email from the vax site that states you need to show proof of Idaho residency or employment (Sorry, Jono, I was apparently wrong about the employment part and there is reciprocity). We can show residency with our property deed and tax bills/utility bills but are choosing not to. The state is apparently low on vaccine allocation and has decided to implement the proof piece just today. Strange, it's like someone in the state is reading TGR....

Anyway, we're going to wait it out. She should be able to reschedule her original appointment within a day or two as she was at the store and asked about it. They said they were expecting more vaccine yet this afternoon and will schedule once it's in hand. Hopefully we can get her taken care of early next week.


ETA: Aaaaaaand, just like that. Cancelled her Idaho appointment, checked the Albertson's reschedule tab and got her booked for Sunday at 1:30. Sometimes things just work out. The only down side is only getting to ski a couple hours on Sunday but worth it for peace of mind.

[Mofro261]

I'd get the vaccine if there was clear evidence that after vaccination I could not spread 'DARONA it to others. Unfortunately the CDC says this is not the case.

This article explains both the advanced understanding of vaccination in limiting virus transmission, and how the cautiousness/reluctance of the CDC to alter/update to reflect this may cause people to delay vaccination.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...moderna-pfizer

For more than two months now, the US has been vaccinating its population with two Covid-19 vaccines — one by Pfizer/BioNTech, the other by Moderna — that are highly effective at preventing illness, hospitalization, and death.


Despite that fact, public health officials and media outlets have been warning that vaccinated people need to behave largely how they did before they were vaccinated. That’s because we don’t know as much about the vaccines’ effectiveness at preventing transmission to others. A vaccinated person may be well-protected from Covid-19, but if they carry the virus, could they possibly infect the people around them?


But a growing body of evidence suggests the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines do, in fact, cut down on viral transmission. Two recent studies show some pretty favorable results — one from the UK that found that two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine cut down by 86 percent someone’s chances of developing an infection that they could pass along, the other a study in Israel that found an 89.4 percent reduction (though it should be noted that the Israeli study has yet to be fully released). These findings are consistent with what we know about vaccines and transmission in general.


In other words, even as we wait for more definitive studies on the vaccines’ effects on transmission, more and more scientists think we do have enough information to feel pretty good about the vaccines’ capacity to give us back a semblance of normalcy as we approach a year of life in a pandemic.

In an opinion piece, Johns Hopkins epidemiologists M. Kate Grabowski and Justin Lessler argued, “We are confident vaccination against COVID-19 reduces the chances of transmitting the virus.”

“I have been very cautious due to limited evidence on transmission effects but agree with [Grabowski and Lessler] that a large transmission effect is the best explanation of the limited evidence to date,” Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch said last week.

Studying exactly how much a vaccine affects transmission is very difficult. It requires exceptionally good contact tracing, which few countries have, or inference from lots of different forms of limited evidence. Uncertainty remains about exactly how much the vaccines reduce transmission — and that uncertainty has led many public health officials to be cautious in their public statements.

But that cautiousness can end up misleading the public, giving people the impression that scientists have no information at all. That, in turn, could also lead to vaccine hesitancy. Some people may think, if I get vaccinated but I still have to continue masking and social distancing at all times, then why get vaccinated at all?

“In their own lives, medical experts — and, again, journalists — tend to be cleareyed about the vaccines. Many are getting shots as soon as they’re offered one. They are urging their family and friends to do the same,” David Leonhardt argues in a New York Times piece. “But when they speak to a national audience, they deliver a message that comes off very differently. It is dominated by talk of risks, uncertainties, caveats and possible problems. It feeds pre-existing anti-vaccine misinformation and anxiety.”

The vaccines do reduce transmission. They do take us a big step closer toward life beyond the pandemic. And the messaging from our institutions should start reflecting that.

[Mofro261]

con't

How we should and shouldn’t talk about uncertainty

There isn’t significant doubt among epidemiologists that vaccines somewhat cut transmission.

First, almost all vaccines do that, so it was a good starting assumption before we had any data at all. (There are a few exceptions, such as the vaccine for whooping cough, but they’re very rare.)

Second, it’s where all the data on the Covid-19 vaccines points. “Everyone thinks the data indicate a reduction in total infections, as well as symptomatic infections,” Kilpatrick told me. “People disagree on whether we can accurately estimate how [large is] the reduction in total infections and infectiousness.”

In other words: There seems to be consensus that the vaccines don’t just keep the vaccinated safe — they make the people around them safer, too. The real question is how much safer. Lipsitch, who is more conservative than Kilpatrick at estimating that impact, still says that no effect on transmission would be “beyond shocking,” and that his best offhand guess is that minimum level of transmission reduction consistent with the evidence is 50 percent.

But the fact that the vaccines make other people safer too hasn’t necessarily made it into public messaging. News reports of the vaccine have foregrounded what the vaccine can’t guarantee and what we can’t do after we’ve been vaccinated.

“Yes, people with coronavirus vaccinations should still distance from each other. Here’s why,” argued the Washington Post.

“You’re fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — now what? Don’t expect to shed your mask and get back to normal activities right away,” begins an Associated Press story in which older people who have all been fully vaccinated are advised not to reunite with each other.

“Our discussion about vaccines has been poor, really poor,” Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist, told the New York Times. It has overwhelmingly emphasized the fact that post-vaccine transmission is still possible, rather than frankly discussing the probability of such transmission and leaving it up to people to make their own risk calculation.

That’s because a lot of public health officials worry about encouraging people who’ve been vaccinated to “party like it’s 1999,” potentially spreading the virus to other people who haven’t had their chance to get vaccinated yet.

It’s important to note that for a vaccinated person’s behavior to be more dangerous than an unvaccinated person’s, they’d have to go really wild. If vaccines reduce infection by 90 percent, then unless your behavior gets 10 times more dangerous after you’re vaccinated, you are still safer to be around than you were before the vaccine.

Don’t go bar-hopping, but having also-vaccinated friends over is likely fine, Dr. Leana Wen of the George Washington School of Public Health argues in the Washington Post. Letting your grandparents hold your kids? Families might reasonably conclude that’s also fine, she says.

Vaccinated people should, of course, respect businesses’ rules about masks — the essential workers asked to enforce those rules have no way to know if you’ve been vaccinated. And while most people are still unvaccinated, the vaccinated should be thoughtful about protecting those who haven’t had a chance at the vaccines yet. But those reminders shouldn’t drown out an accurate understanding of the fact that the vaccines are really effective.

“Advising people that they must do nothing differently after vaccination — not even in the privacy of their homes — creates the misimpression that vaccines offer little benefit at all. Vaccines provide a true reduction of risk, not a false sense of security,” epidemiologist Julia Marcus argued in the Atlantic.

Our recommendations for vaccinated people should reflect our best current understanding of the evidence.

It’s true that there’s still some uncertainty about the magnitude of the effects of the vaccines on transmission. It’s possible that as we learn more from Israel, recommendations will change. And it’s important that people get fully vaccinated — two shots, plus some time for the immunity to fully take hold — before they assume the vaccine has fully protected them and the people around them.

But what’s important to remember is that we aren’t operating from complete ignorance. We know a lot about the vaccines, and what we know points toward them being very effective at reducing transmission and protecting those around us. If you’re hesitant about taking the vaccine because you heard that it might not protect others, you shouldn’t be, because the evidence suggests it does. That message is at least as important as warnings for the vaccinated not to “party.”

[bodywhomper]

Thx, mofro261!

[funkendrenchman]

Yep. And pretending nothing will change isn't exactly the message we should be sending to fence sitters. Science first, sure. But common sense needs to be a consideration as well.



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I'm fine with fence sitters. More vaccines for people who recognize the benefits. By mid-summer (if not sooner), those fence sitters will come around.

It's ironic. In the beginning, people didn't want to wear masks because they said it only protected others not the wearer. Now you have vaccines that protect the patient, but people don't want them because they're not sure if they prevent spread.

[glademaster]

In the beginning, people didn't want to wear masks because they said it only protected others not the wearer.

And those selfish fucking assholes should have been rounded up and liquidated. I would have volunteered to help shovel.

I get round #1 of the Pfizer vax tomorrow.

[John_B]

Volunteered at the local vaccination clinic today. Part of me hoped they'd have a few extra shots lying around but as a healthy 32 year old the other part hoped they'd go to someone that needed it more. No dice on getting vaccinated but it sure felt nice to help out a little bit. It was cool to see the process and watch almost 1% of our county get their second Moderna shot.

[neufox47]

I'd get the vaccine if there was clear evidence that after vaccination I could not spread 'DARONA it to others. Unfortunately the CDC says this is not the case.

Dude, there’s not even evidence that you CANNOT get Covid after the vaccination. Just that your risk of getting it goes way down (and your risk of a bad case goes WAY down). If you can still be symptomatic of course you can spread it. As Mofro pointed out better than I could, your odds of spreading it to others likely goes down significantly with vaccination. I think you’ve set the bar impossibly high here.

The pregnant wife just got the vaccine today. So far she has not lost the baby. We are hoping baby gets some super powers out of this.

[bodywhomper]

Maybe baby will increase your cell reception. Maybe that fabled 6G!!

Moderna #2 just now. My fucking cell reception still sucks. Wtaf?! It’s the only reason I signed up for this shit!

[old goat]

The emerging data on transmission is one more complicating factor in deciding whether to delay the second shot, since no such data is available for one shot mRNA vaccines.

[CarlMega]

I've never seen such a mass of people, exert so much energy in militant pursuit of the idea "doing nothing" is the best strategy against a demonstrable threat.

[Catfish]

Well we would rather be exerting that energy living our lives normally but you people won’t let us do that so that’s what you’re left with.

[GoldMember]

Well we would rather be exerting that energy living our lives normally but you people won’t let us do that so that’s what you’re left with.

....sniffs at the bait....slowly swims away...

[PB]

... pees on the bait....slowly swims away...

FIFY

[GoldMember]

FIFY

[wooley12]

You know the guy who doesn't think of anyone below when he cuts a slope? Well he's on this page.

[Tri-Ungulate]

....sniffs at the bait....slowly swims away...

....quotes the dumbass troll....hook, line, sinker...