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

[uglymoney]

I'll add this.

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk

[powdrhound]

Tonight, from a ski buddy:

My Lady and I are finishing up our 10 day quarantine in Texas after catching COVID there. We are both vaccinated. And we caught it from my stepson and daughter-in-law that are also vaccinated. I’m sure it was the delta variant. Even being vaccinated we were still pretty sick. I have the feeling we would have been in big trouble if we weren’t vaccinated. So my message is, you are going to catch it eventually. Get vaccinated. You don’t want to ride it out unvaccinated.

[bennymac]

100% chance coreshit gets vaccinated or already has been. But he’s invested too much into his online persona to ever admit it.

[KQ]

White House frustrated with 'hyperbolic' and 'irresponsible' Delta variant coverage, sources say

The White House is frustrated with what it views as alarmist, and in some instances flat-out misleading, news coverage about the Delta variant. That's according to two senior Biden administration officials I spoke with Friday, both of whom requested anonymity to candidly offer their opinion on coverage of the CDC data released that suggests vaccinated Americans who become infected with the Delta coronavirus variant can infect others as easily as those who are unvaccinated.

At the heart of the matter is the news media's focus on breakthrough infections, which the CDC has said are rare. In some instances, poorly framed headlines and cable news chyrons wrongly suggested that vaccinated Americans are just as likely to spread the disease as unvaccinated Americans. But that isn't quite the case. Vaccinated Americans still have a far lower chance of becoming infected with the coronavirus and, thus, they are responsible for far less spread of the disease.

"The media's coverage doesn't match the moment," one of the Biden officials told me. "It has been hyperbolic and frankly irresponsible in a way that hardens vaccine hesitancy. The biggest problem we have is unvaccinated people getting and spreading the virus."

As the Biden officials explained to me, the administration is worried that the media's focus on these instances of breakthrough infections might lead to people being more hesitant to get a vaccine. Think about it: If you're a young person, and already believe you will be OK if you do get infected, why would you now get a vaccine, given that coverage suggests you can still just as easily become infected and spread the virus after receiving a shot?
The worry about this line of messaging from major media sources worried officials so much, I'm told, that they reached out to several major news organizations with the aim of getting them to dial back the coverage...

"YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG"

Unfortunately, in some cases, those outreach efforts might have occurred too late. The New York Times, for instance, tweeted early Friday morning, "The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated, an internal C.D.C. report said." Ben Wakana, a member of the White House's rapid response team, responded bluntly: "VACCINATED PEOPLE DO NOT TRANSMIT THE VIRUS AT THE SAME RATE AS UNVACCINATED PEOPLE AND IF YOU FAIL TO INCLUDE THAT CONTEXT YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG." The Times ultimately added more context to its tweet in a follow-up.

But it wasn't just The Times. The Washington Post ran a headline that read, "CDC study shows three-fourths of people infected in Massachusetts covid-19 outbreak were infected." As Matthew Getz commented, "Please don't do this. Provincetown has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country. As vaccination rates increase the percentage of cases that are in vaccinated people NECESSARILY increases." The Post's headline was later updated to note that in the outbreak "few required hospitalization."

And NBC News also found itself facing criticism when it published a story with the headline, "Breakthrough Covid cases: At least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive." That headline failed to note that, per NBC's own data, that figure represented "less than .08 percent of the 164.2 million-plus people fully vaccinated since January." NBC updated its headline later to read, "Breakthrough Covid cases: Data shows how many vaccinated Americans have tested positive."

The focus should be on the unvaccinated

I reached out to Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN medical analyst and professor at George Washington University's medical school, to get his thoughts on Friday's coverage. Reiner told me that he believed that the focus on breakthrough infections among the vaccinated "has been a little hysterical." He explained, "The vaccines still work remarkably well in terms of preventing serious illness and death. We're seeing that the risk of death for a vaccinated person in this country is 25X lower than for unvaccinated. If you look at the P-Town outbreak there were no deaths. So let's all take a deep breath..."

News orgs aren't the only ones to blame

I also called up Dr. Leana Wen, a CNN medical analyst and former Baltimore health commissioner, who agreed that the media is "missing the big picture, but so is the CDC." Wen explained that the CDC said it was changing its mask guidance because of the new data regarding rare instances in which a vaccinated person becomes infected and can then spread the virus. "They got it wrong," she said. "The reason why the guidance is changing is that Covid-19 is spreading really quickly, Delta is a big problem, and the reason for the spread is because of the unvaccinated." Wen said the primary reason the CDC needed to change its mask guidance is because the honor system wasn't working. In other words, people who were not vaccinated were acting as if they were and not wearing masks or following other basic safety protocols...

[splat]

White House frustrated with 'hyperbolic' and 'irresponsible' Delta variant coverage, sources say

Wen said the primary reason the CDC needed to change its mask guidance is because the honor system wasn't working. In other words, people who were not vaccinated were acting as if they were and not wearing masks or following other basic safety protocols...

[bodywhomper]

I mean, what else would we do on Saturday night?

Crank up that old Victrola!!

[uglymoney]

White House frustrated with 'hyperbolic' and 'irresponsible' Delta variant coverage, sources say

The White House is frustrated with what it views as alarmist, and in some instances flat-out misleading, news coverage about the Delta variant. That's according to two senior Biden administration officials I spoke with Friday, both of whom requested anonymity to candidly offer their opinion on coverage of the CDC data released that suggests vaccinated Americans who become infected with the Delta coronavirus variant can infect others as easily as those who are unvaccinated.

At the heart of the matter is the news media's focus on breakthrough infections, which the CDC has said are rare. In some instances, poorly framed headlines and cable news chyrons wrongly suggested that vaccinated Americans are just as likely to spread the disease as unvaccinated Americans. But that isn't quite the case. Vaccinated Americans still have a far lower chance of becoming infected with the coronavirus and, thus, they are responsible for far less spread of the disease.

"The media's coverage doesn't match the moment," one of the Biden officials told me. "It has been hyperbolic and frankly irresponsible in a way that hardens vaccine hesitancy. The biggest problem we have is unvaccinated people getting and spreading the virus."
..

I've noticed this all over. Mostly anti vaxxers running with the headline as if they actually have something that makes their untenable position make sense. We suck at nuance. Headline writers want to suck people in. Journalists as a whole are probably have less understanding around the ever unfolding info coming out than the average person in this thread who is paying close attention (not counting the trolls and bullshit artists of course).

Obviously the CDC has to balance between giving us advice based on science and giving advice based on getting people to actually do what they need to do. I wish I had the answer here. That is a tough balancing act. I think they seem to be trying which is good but they fucked the pooch earlier when they dropped the universal mask mandate, even though I agreed with them at the time. Hindsight. People are retards.

So yeah, the new news is if you get infected you can spread it unlike with alpha. But most vaccinated people are still not getting infected at least not anywhere near the rate of unvaccinated clown shoe pro propaganda gobblers, whereas the unvaxxed are getting fucking hammered and checking themselves into hospitals at rates that are much higher than I would have guessed even a week ago.

At least I think so. I reserve my right to change my mind in the morning based on new facts and data.

[jono]

Viral load is a spectrum. Testing is binary and whether to test or not is a little arbitrary. There are going to be some confusing pieces of data as a result. Extra confusing for the binary thinkers.

[The AD]

100% chance coreshit gets vaccinated or already has been. But he’s invested too much into his online persona to ever admit it.

My wife was just telling me she read a story that some people in Missouri are getting vaccinated on the sly because they don't want their friends and family to know they're vaccinated. Pathetic, but at least they're getting vaccinated.

Even though vaccinations are down substantially from the peak there are still about half a million vaccinations being administered per day in the U.S.

[Adolf Allerbush]

My wife was just telling me she read a story that some people in Missouri are getting vaccinated on the sly because they don't want their friends and family to know they're vaccinated. Pathetic, but at least they're getting vaccinated.

Even though vaccinations are down substantially from the peak there are still about half a million vaccinations being administered per day in the U.S.

I'll say there's a very good chance coreshit never had the Rona and is now vaccinated. He and those like him have no problem lying to further whatever stupid agendas they push.

[neufox47]

Wow, 18 months in and we have someone who doesn't know the difference between IFR and CFR.

With 35m cases and 613k deaths, for the ifr to be .3% there would have to be 5.8 times more cases than positive tests and that would mean 204M actual cases in the US

[LongShortLong]

The media's Covid reporting is generally pretty sad. That said, many health officials, including CDC distribute hot garbage for the media to report on. For example, the CDC is not tracking breakthrough cases, so if you want a straight answer about breakthroughs, good luck!

Here's an example trying to generate some useful breakthrough data from state reporting.
http://kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19...om-the-states/
It has a fatal flaw, that I also see elsewhere. They report % of breakthrough cases, which sounds good - as a vaxxed fool, that's almost what I want to know. However, looking closely, this number is usually computed over a time period starting Jan 1, 2021. Well, we were in a big surge in Jan/Feb, and hardly anyone was vaccinated then. So, the %breakthrough is artificially low because the vast majority of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths occurred in January and February and is padded with a very large number of unvaxxed cases.

Another stat various experts like to report is what percent of vaccinated folks have experienced a breakthrough, or been hospitalized, etc. Again, the generated number often suffers from a short time period or a time period when cases are relatively low, so the result is a tiny number that looks good, but is meaningless without context.

The concern of course is that if infections become widespread, the vaxxed folks will be exposed many times. Making up numbers here.... If 10% ultimately experience breakthroughs, and 1% of them die, that's 1 in a thousand of us dead. (At 100% vaxxed, that equates to very roughly 340,000 Americans). Add on all the disabled and long Covid cases. Consider the unvaxxed suffering 10x the toll. Maybe we decide allowing infections to rise is a bad idea. OTOH If only 1% get breakthroughs and we get all the fools vaxxed, we could call it a bad flu year and move on.

I think even the experts are getting confused by junk statistics. We need good numbers, or good estimates to make good policy.

[bennymac]

COVID-19 false dichotomies and a comprehensive review of the evidence regarding public health, COVID-19 symptomatology, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, mask wearing, and reinfection

“In this comprehensive narrative review, we deconstruct six common COVID-19 false dichotomies, address the evidence on these topics, identify insights relevant to effective pandemic responses, and highlight knowledge gaps and uncertainties. The topics of this review are: 1) Health and lives vs. economy and livelihoods, 2) Indefinite lockdown vs. unlimited reopening, 3) Symptomatic vs. asymptomatic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, 4) Droplet vs. aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2, 5) Masks for all vs. no masking, and 6) SARS-CoV-2 reinfection vs. no infection.”

“ There is a need for meaningful public health communication and science-informed policies that recognize shades of gray, uncertainties, local context, and social determinants of health.”

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.c...21-06357-4.pdf

[bodywhomper]

Here’s some info about the cape cod cluster. I wish they’d share more demographic details, especially about the kids that got infected: https://www.barnstablecountyhealth.o...n-provincetown

[ticketchecker]

Just saw the Gov of So Dakota lifted the mask mandate in prisons, what could possibly go wrong there?

[The AD]

Graphs in Today's New York Times.




It's abundantly clear that vaccinations are THE silver bullet for reducing COVID deaths, and that should be the #1 goal.

[MultiVerse]

Here’s some info about the cape cod cluster. I wish they’d share more demographic details, especially about the kids that got infected: https://www.barnstablecountyhealth.o...n-provincetown

Demographics aside, it was ideal conditions for Covid spread. A superspreader event. Thousands in packed clubs with lots of mixing of vaccinated and unvaccinated people jammed together.

In spite of this being a worse case scenario, mRNA vaccinated folks were 5X less likely to experience symptomatic infections than their unvaccinated peers. There were no deaths and very few severe illnesses among the vaccinated.

Vaccinated folks are way less likely to spread Covid. In the past when a superspreader event like this happened it spread to the community at large but probably thanks to vaccines breaking transmission chains this one fizzled out.

[JaytaeMoney]

All you need to do is look at the UK to see how effective vaccines are: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

Their Delta wave peak number of cases (7 day avg) was pretty close to their winter wave peak. Their 7-day average daily deaths peaked at 1,250 during the last wave, current Delta wave deaths are likely peaking right now at 72.

[DougW]

what NYT tweeted
Delta variant infections in vaccinated people are rare, compared with those who are unvaccinated, the internal CDC report said. But vaccinated people with a breakthrough infection may spread the virus just as easily."

Yes that puts a different spin on it. Though I have to say that if everyone was going to spread it then the parasitic anti vaxxers ( those who rely on the vaced status of others getting to herd) would have to rethink position. Then being vacced would only save self from getting seriously sick or dieing.

[MultiVerse]

Just to make it clearer: vaccinated people do not transmit the virus at the same rate as the unvaccinated.

In other words, vaccinated people don't transmit the virus at the same rate because they are considerably less likely to be infected in the first place. If a vaccinated person is infected, however, the increased viral load from the Delta variant can make even vaccinated people infectious.

[bodywhomper]

Demographics aside, it was ideal conditions for Covid spread. A superspreader event. Thousands in packed clubs with lots of mixing of vaccinated and unvaccinated people jammed together.

In spite of this being a worse case scenario, mRNA vaccinated folks were 5X less likely to experience symptomatic infections than their unvaccinated peers. There were no deaths and very few severe illnesses among the vaccinated.

Vaccinated folks are way less likely to spread Covid. In the past when a superspreader event like this happened it spread to the community at large but probably thanks to vaccines breaking transmission chains this one fizzled out.

I don’t see the data in the cape cod reports or the cdc’s report that allow for these conclusions, but maybe I’m just missing it. For instance, I do not see the info regarding the # of unvaxed and infected that experienced symptoms. Here’s the cdc report: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/...cid=mm7031e2_w

I agree that the available information indicates that the vax is working because the outbreak was relatively small in a community that is highly vaxed. One thing also not available that is a piece of the puzzle is the general community behavior related to other Covid mitigation. Mitigation measures were recommended in the area in mid-July and mandated near the end of July, but what were people doing beforehand?….

[ron johnson]

With 35m cases and 613k deaths, for the ifr to be .3% there would have to be 5.8 times more cases than positive tests and that would mean 204M actual cases in the US

"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the current "best estimate" for the fatality rate among Americans with COVID-19 symptoms is 0.4 percent. The CDC also estimates that 35 percent of people infected by the COVID-19 virus never develop symptoms. Those numbers imply that the virus kills less than 0.3 percent of people infected by it—far lower than the infection fatality rates (IFRs) assumed by the alarming projections that drove the initial government response to the epidemic, including broad business closure and stay-at-home orders."
https://reason.com/2020/05/24/the-cd...ate-below-0-3/

Unfortunately the CDC no longer gives raw IF% for all ages on their website. They changed the metric to deaths/1,000,000 infections broken down by ages. Either way, what is your point? There is a big difference between IFR and CFR.

[jono]

I just made this up from my imagination and a cursory understanding of math. If someone collected the real data I don't know if the "tested" level and the "symptoms" would even be in that order and you'd have to define "mega spreader" etc.




Purple is unvaccinated, blue is vaccinated. Just a visualization tool. But the point is, if on average the viral load of people being tested due to symptoms is some number that's common to both vaxed and unvaxed and the level at which people are highly contagious is close to that same value then it should be expected that "among those who test positive as a break through case" there may be a similar level of contagiousness. But the fraction of infections that reach that level is still lower among the vaccinated--probably a LOT lower, judging from all the other data. But the headline can still be "breakthrough cases can be just as contagious as unvaxed cases," because we only count breakthrough cases that have a high enough load to test positive in the first place. The headline is both obvious and totally irrelevant to all but the Sinovac salesman and the (unregistered?) Russian FUD agent. I'm sure they'll be along shortly to try to sew confusion.

Looking at it another way, if contagiousness between the PCR-positive is not vaccine dependant that would be a huge win for the tests because it means that positivity (accounting for all factors--including the decision to test) is closely calibrated to contagiousness.

Experts feel free to critique and improve upon this, obviously.

[MultiVerse]

I don’t see the data in the cape cod reports or the cdc’s report that allow for these conclusions, but maybe I’m just missing it. For instance, I do not see the info regarding the # of unvaxed and infected that experienced symptoms. Here’s the cdc report: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/...cid=mm7031e2_w

I agree that the available information indicates that the vax is working because the outbreak was relatively small in a community that is highly vaxed. One thing also not available that is a piece of the puzzle is the general community behavior related to other Covid mitigation. Mitigation measures were recommended in the area in mid-July and mandated near the end of July, but what were people doing beforehand?….

The CDC also provided a set of slides putting mRNA vaccine effectiveness between 75-85% against delta in preventing symptomatic infections and >90% effective preventing severe disease, a 5X reduction in comparison with the unvaccinated.

FWIW, your link provides some demographic info. 87% male, median age 42. Of the four vaccinated severe illness patients, one received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and three received the Janssen vaccine.

[bodywhomper]

Supposedly, the cdc has not been tracking mild symptomatic breakthrough cases. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e3.htm