As it seems like you know someone with correct background on the subject, so I wanted to ask you something I've always wanted to know as a young,(late 20s) healthy person with no existing risky precondition in this pandemic:
Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, there's an almost neglible chance of side effect, and with no information about possible long-term side effect. If the chance of me getting hospitalized is so low to begin with, what's the benefit of the vaccine to me.
It's an genuine question, as I soon have to travel (to a country that still force quarantine even with vaccine) and have vaccine session booked by next month.
With my limited info the risk vs benefits of vaccine seems to solely end on "we know too little about the vaccine".
Edit: thanks for all the thoughtful replies. It's a hard question to ask (without anonymity) these days so all the sincere replies are much appreciated. I'll read through the given links (and credibility of the link) when I wake up
I can kind of understand if someone is avoiding the vaccine and also isolating themselves to protect against the virus, but I really just don't understand the risk-benefit analysis where the vaccine is too risky but catching Covid isn't.
Also, the risk of catching Covid unvaccinated may not be that low. But, the risk of any serious vaccine side-effects, or catching Covid vaccinated, is super low. IIRC Israel did a study and, the amount of breakthrough cases requiring hospitalization for under 40 was 0.3 per 100k, and the amount of people suffering myocarditis and other vaccine complications is in the double-digits, despite vaccinations being in the billions.
We know little about the vaccine, but we also know little about the effects of social media, random pollutants, etc. And that stuff is applied without your consent, and unlike the vaccine that stuff probably is harmful long-term.
This is not true, according to the CDC (as of August 18th) there at least 742 cases of myocarditis and myopericarditis associated with vaccination, potentially upwards of ~1,300 [1].
For males age 16-17 the reporting rate of myopericarditis after 2 doses of Pfizer is 71.5 per 1 million doses administered (0.0071%) [1].
Compared to natural infection, vaccination is likely still a favorable tradeoff for most people. However the tradeoffs are highly dependent on age, health, and gender. Stratifying by these factors is essential for any scientifically accurate discussion of risks.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...
I suspect the number to be significantly higher than whats reported.
If you look into the Australia, Canada and Norway data you see that the numbers are higher than initially expected. Serious side effects like TTS were thought to happen around 1 in 100k, but they now think it would be something like 1 in 20 000. Perhaps less, if you account for people that don't even realise they're getting it.
The vaccine are something like 5x reduction in mortality, but they are not perfect.
mistakes are normal, to assume none is truly unfathomably dense....
In the case of Coronavirus vaccines, the sample size is 1/3 the population of Earth.
If hundreds of millions of vaccinated people were developing heart problems it would be noticeable.
I accurately transcribed facts from an official CDC document, and even linked the source, nothing more. Do you really think that is fear-mongering?
The CDC is actively investigating many of the reports, dismissing them as not confirmed is a bit disingenuous at the very least.
In this case a look through GP's recent comment history reveals many comments with disinformation and fear-mongering.
One thing that the paper is pretty clear about is that in order to proclaim a "case", the CDC reviewed medical records and interviewed the healthcare provider looking for specific criteria. It seems like all criteria include at least one test, e.g. EKG, in addition to symptoms reported by the patient. It's not like they ran a SQL query over a bunch of dudes reporting chest pain---the CDC did their homework. If anything, I have more confidence in the CDC and the vaccines now than I had before reading these documents.
Honest question, there were studies about the effect of the vaccine on hospitalizations. But is there any studies about the effect on long covid ? And especially is there studies showing that people under the age of 40 in healthy condition have any benefit regarding long covid by taking the vaccine ?
> I really just don't understand the risk-benefit analysis where the vaccine is too risky but catching Covid isn't.
Well, some people don't like to take drugs, so if they know that their immune system can cope with it (even if that means difficult time for a short time) they would prefer it. It is not risk-benefit positive. It is just more aligned with some people feelings. Some people make preventing death as the almost most important things in their life, so they will take drugs, be careful in life and so on. While some people are just ok dying in certain conditions, and are not willing to engage in risk-free life
If you mean risk of long-covid after getting covid with vs. without the vaccine: of course we don't know, but it's pretty likely the vaccine significantly decreases the chance of long covid. Since long-covid correlates well with infection severity, and the vaccine is particularly good at preventing severe infections.
If you mean the chance of people who already have long-covid recovering after getting vaccinated - it's pretty low.
> Well, some people don't like to take drugs, so if they know that their immune system can cope with it (even if that means difficult time for a short time) they would prefer it.
Ok. But still, "drug" is an arbitrary label, the vaccine consists of mRNA and other compounds which are in your body. I get taking risks and not being over-careful, like I definitely get why lockdowns / even masking in some situations is a bad idea. But the risk of not getting vaccinated is an unnecessary risk, kind of like driving without a seatbelt or riding without a helmet, except you only have to wear the helmet initially (idk I can't think of a better analogy).
I get where you are coming from on the default being not taking medicine. But to me, I just don't see a vaccine as quite the same as medicine. It's basically a training program for your immune system. It tells your immune system what to look for and then when covid does enter your system, it is prepared and your immune system naturally fights it off the same way it always would. It just has a headstart in creating antibodies.
It’s almost like the government is still fulfilling the will of the people!
It was explicitly created to prevent majority rule. The Senate acted as a longer term, more stable body to counteract the more popularist House. Originally citizens didn't even vote for Senators, they were appointed by the states themselves.
An entire set of explicit rules restrained what the majority could do (Constitution and Bill of Rights).
Majority rule has a long history of abuses. We shouldn't abandon our system of limiting majority power because of a virus.
“The government wasn’t meant to fulfill the will of the people... it was meant to fulfill the will of my people!”
Minority rule has a much longer and more gruesome history of abuses, and it never ends well for the rulers.
> Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, there's an almost neglible chance of side effect, and with no information about possible long-term side effect.
There's unknowns about the long-term effects of infection, too. Several viral infections result in prolonged symptoms or decades-later re-emergence.
Bottom line IMO - there's little/no treatment for the infection resulting from this virus. So the best solution medicine can offer is the vaccine. Safe vaccines have been designed and administered before, so I hope this is among the many safe vaccines. We know it's effective at mitigating symptoms and we know it's effective at reducing the spread.
I think taking the vaccine is the net least risk, but you're right that there's stuff that we just don't know.
This is not true. Since the beginning of the pandemic front line doctors have been successfully reducing hospitalization and death through early treatment with antivirals, corticosteriods, and antithrombotics.
[1] Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
[2] Timing of Antiviral Treatment Initiation is Critical to Reduce SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load https://ascpt.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/psp4.1...
[3] Clinical outcomes after early ambulatory multidrug therapy for high-risk SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection https://rcm.imrpress.com/EN/article/downloadArticleFile.do?a...
[4] Early multidrug treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) and reduced mortality among nursing home (or outpatient/ambulatory) residents https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069...
[5] Multidrug treatment for COVID-19 https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ddt/advpub/0/advpub_202...
All of those medications can be prescribed prophylactically (early in the symptomatic phase) by just about any clinic.
I'm not advocating against vaccination, just pointing out that early treatment with widely available and existing medicines has also proven to be effective in reducing severe outcomes.
None of these papers seem to present strong clinical evidence that these drugs have actually been effective, vs some hidden covariate or something. A couple include interesting small-sample observational studies, but as I understand it those haven’t panned out in follow-on randomized controlled trials that have been done.
There are also a couple essentially viewpoint articles that are interesting. [2] is basically a pharmacokinetic calculation motivating further study, but no clinical data.
[4] is a hypothesis piece about hydroxychloroquine that draws on nine other studies. Haven’t been able to evaluate those because [4] is not open access, but this is one of the drugs that has not lived up to expectations in various RCTs that have been completed…
[1] Ivermectin in combination with doxycycline for treating COVID-19 symptoms: a randomized trial https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33983065/
[2] Fluvoxamine: A Review of Its Mechanism of Action and Its Role in COVID-19 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.6526...
[3] Baricitinib plus Remdesivir for Hospitalized Adults with Covid-19 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33306283/
[4] Remdesivir for the Treatment of Covid-19 - Final Report https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32445440/
Even persons who don't end up in the hospital can have symptoms. I'm leaving up to the reader of these are ok or not.
The excess mortality of people under 49 years in a country like france is zero in 2020 [0].
About long term effects of infections. Well the same can be said of the vaccine. In both case we have no idea
[0] https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/4493806?sommaire=449384...
Huge quality of life impact, way less understood. Estimates range from 6%-20%+ of people who get covid are still having symptoms 2 months or longer post infection. People who have symptoms two months after infection usually still are having side-effects one year later. Neurological, blood or organ impacts, but all very different and still not well understood.
So I both don't want to seem like I'm hyping it up either because again a lot is unknown it might not be a serious issue / concern.
The main point I'd say is if you're going to make a judgement based on risk make sure you're evaluating the situation completely. And for anyone looking at covid risks, they shouldn't be focused on solely death, but understand long covid as well. Current speculative thinking essentially believes it parallels either triggering auto-immune type issues, or dormant/re-emergent viruses (like chicken pox / shingles type of behavior).
A not very good article on it, but don't have time to find a better one:
I know same age group friends that have had covid and "loss of taste" have been the most common experience I've heard. It's anecdotal, but also a good data point to me since I know these people's lifestyle / demographic a bit better than sweeping big stats.
I'll check out the link you gave regarding this specific topic about covid long term effects and compare it to what we know about the vaccine
See https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19...
* History tells us that severe side effects are extremely rare, and if they if do occur, they usually happen within the first two months.
* COVID-19 vaccine technologies have been studied for years and used in other treatments without issue.
* The vaccine development process, from clinical trials to ongoing monitoring, helps to uncover and understand side effects.There are also many instances of "long" Covid we are already seeing in which people struggle with lingering symptoms, sometimes severe, for months after initially getting ill.
And in children, the rare but serious phenomenon that's been called MISC, usually occurs weeks or months after the initial Covid infection has subsided.
You are right that we don't know the long term side-effects of Covid, or of vaccination, and won't for quite some time. But what evidence we do have based on previous experiences with vaccines and viruses, as well as what we have already observed in Covid infections and vaccinations, makes it clear that vaccines are a far less risky prospect than the disease is.
Moreover, we already have clinical evidence that covid causes long-term side effects in up to a third of people infected. There is no such evidence for any covid vaccine.
I just don't think this is true. Again, look at the states in the US with the lowest levels of vaccination. They are running out of ICU beds due to the amount of cases.
I'm not sure where you're located. Maybe there's a low amount of cases there, but in general, the risk of being hospitalized (and maybe not having a bed to go to) is rather high. The delta variant is also affecting young people more than other variants before it. I personally think getting the COVID vaccine is a smart choice.
In terms of vaccinated people still spreading the virus, the idea with vaccination is to reduce the chance of being hospitalized. That still seems like a big benefit to me.
The two are very different. The calculated risk includes the fact that not everyone (or even most people) will get covid during that 90 day window. It's also based on the statistics for the original covid variant - by all accounts Delta is both more transmissible and more likely to cause hospitalisation.
The likelihood on a per-case basis is significantly higher. The Economist has a tool here: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mort...
For example, a 25 year old man with no co-morbidity who receives a positive covid test has a 1.6% chance of hospitalisation. Obviously not everyone with covid will receive a positive test (I've seen an estimate of 1 in 4 are tested) - so perhaps that rate is actually 0.4%. That's way, way higher than the 0.002% you said.
Ultimately if covid is endemic, you will get it. At that point, even as a 25 year old, you're risking hospitalisation.
https://www.politico.eu/article/delta-coronavirus-variant-do...
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mort...
I'm not from US so I haven't checked the stats closely for those states. My current city of residence is Tokyo. Afaik right now hospitalization seems quite bad, and there's no strict lockdown. I'm trying to work from home and dodge rush hours as much as possible to reduce the risk for now.
Do you have any numbers of "old vs young" hospitalization in the majority unvacinated area? And stats such as "young vaccinated vs young unvacinated" would also be interesting to see I would guess.
I've heard about the delta variant being more dangerous to the young, so that's for sure a important point. But last I heard the vaccine is not that effective to Delta variant, and also the delta variant difference seems to not be that much bigger according to this[0] study I found Jeremy Howard link on Twitter (I've only read the summary so I might be wrong on this)
Edit: thanks for the link hackingforfun, I'll be sure to take a look at it (tomorrow as it's late night here right now)
[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
However, regarding efficacy on the delta variant, from here [1]: Data so far suggests efficacy rates of approximately 67 percent for the J&J vaccine, 66 to 95 percent for the Moderna vaccine, and 42 to 96 percent for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Seems like pretty good efficacy to me.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-well-covid-...
Since January the state has recorded the following numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths: [1]
Unvaccinated Vaccinated
C 278,508 6,740
H 16,322 226
D 5,709 78
[1]: https://www.kpcnews.com/covid-19/article_f0e9bff4-a968-56b3-...
1) The infection/hospitalization/death rates were highest last winter, and relatively few people were vaccinated during the peak of the infection
2) A large proportion of the people in the Unvaccinated column here were infected long before we reached the current vaccination rate.
3) Therefore, suggesting that the numbers in this table represent the outcome of vaccination is simply not correct. This data is aggregated across the entire vaccination campaign and is completely confounded by the timing of waves vs that of vaccination rates.
If the goal is to build trust and present data transparently and fairly, why not show the same data with aggregation starting in July or starting AFTER reaching 40% vaccination rate?
That article only provides cases from the week of August 15:
Unvaccinated Vaccinated
C 13,990 1,417It is not as effective as it was against earlier variants when it comes to preventing you from getting infected with COVID, but it is still very effective at preventing you from getting seriously ill or dying from COVID.
COVID is likely heading to endemic status where it is something we all get now and then, but we all have immunity from previous infections or vaccinations that largely protects us from serious illness when we do get it. In that world it is only your first infection that is dangerous for most people.
Vaccination essentially makes your first infection count as a second infection.
That's not exactly the case. Neutralizing antibodies created from the vaccines work about as well against delta as they did against alpha. The main differences are that delta:
* Spreads more efficiently
* Has a shorter incubation period
* Produces a higher viral load in those infected
Why wear your seatbelt if you can still die in a collision? Why bother with refrigeration when cold food can still rot?
You can't think of risk in terms of binaries; bad things are still possible with the best safety technologies, but that doesn't mean those technologies aren't worthwhile.
As an aside, the virus is actively changing over time, and delta variant is putting a lot more young people in the hospital.
If this is the case, this is not hugely more than the previous variants as we can't see it on hospitalizations charts
> Why wear your seatbelt if you can still die in a collision?
Why not wear a helmet in a car I'm sure it would help in some cases ?
Race car drivers do wear helmets!
Risk-benefit is a simple matter of considering the relative downsides (costs) vs benefit (safety) of available options, and making some rational choices.
COVID is insanely dangerous. Even for young people, the dangers of COVID are directly comparable to professional car racing, base jumping, or similarly high-risk activities. For older people, it's comparable to being an astronaut. For people with co-morbidities, it's more risky than climbing Mount Everest!
Everybody undertaking all of those activities wears a ton of safety equipment. Did you notice?
Unfortunately, this kind of thinking has never worked for the general public, they always have to be dragged, kicking and screaming the whole way, every time.
My cousin drives his car with one hand past every traffic light with a safety camera, so that he can use the other hand to hold his seat belt near the buckle. This makes it look like it's clicked in securely, but obviously provide no safety beneft. This is insanely dangerous and much less comfortable than simply clicking in the seatbelt. (He drives a manual car, so he has to switch back and forth between the gear shift knob and the steering wheel rapidly!)
Why does he do this? Because "the man" is forcing him to wear the seatbelt, so it's a point of personal pride to refuse. "Gaming" the system by holding the seatbelt in the closed position without actually providing safety fills him with a sense of small accomplishment for having resisted the authorities.
I really wish I was kidding, but these are the kinds of thoughts that drive people to refuse to get vaccinated as well.
"No, I won't! The gubb'ment can fuck right off! I'd rather risk it and take Invermectin!" -- literally two of my friends, almost verbatim.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
I'm saying 0.06% risk of death is comparable to 0.04% risk of death.
How exactly am I spreading "misinformation"?
Googling "everest climbers death rate" yields: "Interestingly, the death rate has decreased a bit, from 1.6 percent in the earlier period to 1.0 percent in the more recent period. That said, since the number of climbers has quadrupled, the actual number of deaths has increased."
Remind me what the CFR/IFR is for COVID for over-70s with co-morbidities again? I don't want to post "misinformation" here, so I'll let you do your own research.
Edit: taking your analogy less literally, it seems the issue here is the socially acceptable level of risk. The health risks of covid are demonstrable and apparent. If we can mitigate those risks by ~90% with no ongoing cost, then that intervention makes sense. On the other hand, if additional interventions mitigate it by only an additional 5%, then those may not be worth the trouble.
Analogies: Analogies are good tools for explaining a concept to someone for the first time. But because analogies are imperfect they are the worst way to persuade. All discussions that involve analogies devolve into arguments about the quality of the analogy, not the underlying situation.
https://www.scottadamssays.com/2016/12/21/how-to-be-unpersua...
In other words: you will get your immunity either by becoming sick (and maybe get well known short term side effects of being sick, including hospitalization and death) or by getting vaccinated, with other set of short and long term known and unknown side effects. In the first case you will put more pressure to public health system (even by staying home and consuming self-prescripted basic drugs). Otherwise the choice is yours.
1. You have a 0.0001% risk of death, and a 0.001% risk of hospitalization, and will maybe spread covid to 5-8 people. Long term effects unknown.
2. You have a 0.00001% risk of death, and a 0.0001% risk of hospitalization, and will maybe spread covid to 1-2 people. Long term effects unknown.
Which choice would you take?
(note the 2nd option is a conservative estimate of the effects of the vaccine, and the odds are probably less than what I wrote)
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mort...
Basically the qcovid calculator tells you the overall risk during a specific period of the pandemic . Most people didn't get covid during that period, which makes the overall risk appear very low.
However, if you do contract covid (which seems inevitable if it becomes endemic) then the individual risk of hospitalisation is much higher - 1%+ for even young adults.
Who do you trust more? 1) something probably created in a chinese lab? 2) something created by a list of different corporations and tested independently by at least 50 countries?
I imagine this is not binary but you are likely to be less sick and less contagious.
I'm in my 30s and in good health. I've not been particularly concerned about dying myself from covid[0]. But I do have a mom and grandparents. I do have immunocompromised friends and family. How could I live with myself if I got one of them sick and hadn't taken even that simple step of a shot in the arm?
[0] though long-covid is another story, or even short-term "being sick for days/weeks" doesn't sound like a particularly good time.
In this case, why not take the vaccine?
> when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus
Because just because you "can" doesn't mean that you're as likely to[1]:
> Fully vaccinated people with Delta variant breakthrough infections can spread the virus to others. However, vaccinated people appear to spread the virus for a shorter time […] This means fully vaccinated people will likely spread the virus for less time than unvaccinated people.
(—the CDC)
> If the chance of me getting hospitalized is so low to begin with, what's the benefit of the vaccine to me.
With what data exists, the chance of side-effects from the vaccine is many orders of magnitude less than the chances of any of suffering from COVID or even death from COVID.
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var...
I also don't think it is worth putting stock into fear of the unknown with this vaccine: scientists have developed vaccines before. If anything, the structure of this particular vaccine — an mRNA strand inside a lipid bubble — seems a lot safer and much less ad-hoc than what I understand of earlier vaccines; in fact, it seems like downright engineering, and to me, it is exciting that we've gotten tech for that at such a crucial time. My high-school level biology knowledge of how mRNA interacts with a cell makes me feel that part should be pretty safe; what side-effects the spike protein might have are, I suppose, an unknown, but without the virus, your chances of not getting infected, are, IMO, not good, and the virus will generate far more than just spike proteins, and in far greater numbers. We also know just as little about the long-term side effects of the virus, but thus far, the reports on side-effects from the virus are much worse than reports on side-effects from the vaccine.
That's also just assessing it from the standpoint of "me", but part of the other reason I got the vaccine is that, while I might be young and healthy and might be able to give COVID a run for its money (though honestly, the idea of a respirator scares me far more than anything about the vaccine) I have people around me who are not so young or not so healthy; while I might live, I do not want to transmit a a virus that could be potentially lethal to them.
The good outweighs the bad. (Very clearly, IMO.) Yes, there are some unknowns, but nothing in life is certain.
>I have people around me who are not so young or not so healthy; while I might live, I do not want to transmit a a virus that could be potentially lethal to them.
This is also the reason I did sign up for vaccination,(traveling with work and all) but it also put a dent in the reasoning that the people I'll meet will highly likely be vaccinated due to their age.
>I also don't think it is worth putting stock into fear of the unknown with this vaccine
You have a valid point and I do trust the scientist to do their work well(although after entering research this year my trust for science have been slightly jaded), but trusting the vaccine means I have to trust not just the scientists but all entities involved along the line (mass production, distribution, quality control, government logistics, safe storage and transportation).
With the entire vaccine thing being so highly politicized and tribalized, having the (healthy) level of scepticism and trying to express it to inform myself through dialogue have been very hard, so I appreciate your comment a lot. I'll ponder a bit where my doubts are valid/not valid and what action is reasonable based on that
Gotta stop thinking in binary terms.
Breakthrough cases happen though. So even if the people you're seeing are vaccinated, if they are unlucky they can still pick up the virus from you, and if they are even more unlucky they can still have a pretty bad infection from it.
Vaccination reduces spread, and reduces severity, but it doesn't just flip those from 1 to 0.
Vaxed you + vaxed them is less risk to them than unvaxed you + vaxed them.
The vaccine reduces the likelihood you will get severe covid and require hospitalization. It's like a 22x reduction in risk.
The vaccine reduces your infectious period if you do catch covid, this reduces R0 (R-naught) will help shorten the pandemic.
The delta variant is hospitalizing healthy and young people with no preexisting conditions. Future variants are likely to do so as well.
So, by this point, you’re telling me I can’t understand what editing a cell in my excel spreadsheet will do without a huge test of hundreds or thousands of people all making the same edit to figure out if it’ll work.
We know it works. We know how it works. It works by handing the task to the immune system and getting the fuck out of the way.
Clinical trials are to assess if it works well enough to consider widespread use.
Yes, I still test my code.
But when I write it, I do it with the lessons I’ve learned over decades, and it’s usually close to working before the first test comes into the picture.
That’s where we are with vaccine production: we’ve been cranking them out for decades, and the process is so robust that failures at in the six plus nines range of outliers.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Drug-discovery-and-devel...
You’re building things from a library of tested techniques.
Vaccines aren’t drugs.
They’re a method of delivering material to the immune system for it to do its thing.
We do that by finding the thing we want to present, finding a pipeline to extract that, and finding a delivery mechanism that is tested and compatible.
We don’t “discover” a new flu vaccine ever my season, we put together this seasons release.
That’s why it didn’t take years to design and release a new vaccine for covid: we have the technology already, we just needed to pick the payload and select the rocket best suited for the job.
Studies are still required because a hypothesis is just that - a hypothesis - but I wouldn't completely dismiss a discussion of the mechanism, because this may still provide meaningful context and/or help form an initial understanding of risk before having real study results.
SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome
I haven't seen it in this thread either, but it's been a very common [false] talking point in the conspiracy/anti-vax circles.
>it would also invade the actual cell.
Before complaining about misinformation, you might want to freshen up on your basic microbiology.
I get that this has become more about the narrative than the facts, but this comment gets quite a few fundamentals very very wrong for it to be up top with the HN crowd.
In terms of the quote about the spike protein, someone else thankfully corrected that (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28382167). In terms of the quote about invading the cell, I meant that the SARS-CoV-2 virus would also invade the cell nucleus (yes, saying just cell was not correct because the cytoplasm is part of the cell). Those two quotes were the two specific things that were incorrect about my post, that I'm aware of, and I'm happy that others corrected those.
I posted what I did to counter some of the more ridiculous claims I've seen made, not just on HN, but also elsewhere. I consider HN to be a great source of information and I wanted to contribute to that. My intention was to pass on information that I was happy to learn and which helped me understand what was in the mRNA vaccines and how they work (at least at a high level). I would hope that anyone would evaluate and research for themselves, whether they hear it on HN or elsewhere.
If you would care to elaborate any further, I'd be happy to listen, so that I can learn more myself.
The mRNA produces a piece of the spike protein once inside the cell, it’s not the protein itself.
it's hopeful and altruistic to try to educate the ignorant, but politically-charged topics have a characteristic that when misrepresented -- even accidentally -- someone may use that foul-up to reduce the efficacy of the advice by injecting the shadow of doubt.
(to be clear, issues with data should be corrected by others; my issue is with the grandparent poster getting the small details wrong while Speaking From On High and quoting scientist friends)
This not only hurts the credibility of 'scientist friends' by proxy, but it also just creates another foot-hold for the already suspicious to continue being suspicious; something that is trying to be remedied by the whole speech in the first place.
Please, if you feel the need to educate on something politically charged like this, gather the facts first and triple-check -- otherwise you will likely harm your base motivating premise incidentally through loss-of-trust.
> [1] https://fortune.com/2021/08/25/states-icu-beds-covid-cases-d...
I can't see the article due to paywall, but based on how you're presenting I have to say: Due to the phrasing it isn't a straight lie, but it's definitely not true either and is meant to be misleading. Hospitals are not being overrun by covid patients, most of the capacity is being used by things from last year that people were putting off.
For example in the least vaccinated state, Idaho [0], most hospitals are running at around 50% capacity [1], and even then only around 10% of beds are covid-19 cases.
On top of this you have to remember that hospitals are for-profit institutions, and beds are counted not just by physical beds but by having nurses to attend to them. Empty beds cost the hospital money, so they try to run fairly full anyway. I remember reading 80-90% in the past, but have found a source [2] that says 60-70% is the average across all hospitals, and another that gets into the 80-90% range for only large hospitals [3].
[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-07-27/...
[1] https://data.commercialappeal.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/185904/hospital-occupanc...
Even in Washington (70+% with one shot) and Seattle (83% one dose, 77% complete series) a number of hospitals are full enough to be cancelling elective surgeries again.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...
It is true that there are many possible factors for this, that planning at that hospital might have been questionable and/or very profit-oriented. Also, I've read that a lot of medical staff have gotten fed up with the situation, and in some cases quit their jobs.
But matter the underlying causes, it's a scary picture.
I'm happy to hear Idaho is fine. It doesn't sound like these other states are.
Arkansas: https://data.commercialappeal.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity... - Mostly not being overrun, and again covid is only like 20-30%.
Florida: https://data.commercialappeal.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity... - Similar to Alabama, and like Alabama, mostly not covid.
Georgia: https://data.commercialappeal.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity... - Only a handful are out of beds, with the covid patients looking like an even smaller proportion, around 15-20% in most of them.
Mississippi - https://data.commercialappeal.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity... - Only the smallest hospitals are out of beds, with covid again looking like the 20-30% range for most of them.
Texas - https://data.commercialappeal.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity... - About half of them are on the high end; Texas looks like it's in much better shape than the other five states. Again covid cases are on the low end, 15-20%.
If there's something overrunning these hospitals, it's still most likely deferred treatments from last year. (Edit: And as the comment sibling to yours points out, they're currently doing elective surgeries that can probably be postponed to open up more capacity if really needed)
You also seem to think that somehow 20-30% of hospital beds being occupied solely by people sick with Covid is somehow not significant. Hospitals aren't designed to have so much capacity that they run on empty. Nor are they meant to be running at near max capacity at all times. But if a hospital is generally running on having 50-60% of beds occupied normally, and there is a surge like we've seen over the last 6 weeks that adds 20-30% on top of that solely because of Covid, then yes, its Covid that is causing hospitals to be overrun.
Come to think of it, two of those states aren't near the bottom, so that's also just wrong: Texas and Florida are around the halfway point when the states are ranked by vaccination rate, Texas just below and Florida just above. [0]
So yeah, I definitely think there's something else going on.
[0] https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-st...
Humanity suffered from smallpox for centuries before it was finally eradicated. It's not clear that it was becoming meaningfully less severe.
Dengue is endemic in tropical regions. A reinfection often leads to severe disease.
Yellow fever did not get better over time.
We vaccinated actual measles in children somewhere close to oblivion. Pockets of vaccine resistance still lead to localized outbreaks in the US. Measles is, according to most estimates, significantly more infectious that Delta, and yet we still managed to reach crowd immunity instead of throwing up our hands and relying on hopes and prayers.
Finally, HIV is perhaps our most recent experience with a viral epidemic. If we expect Covid to turn into a cold, maybe we should expect AIDS to turn into a cold first. It has a 40-year lead!
We already have 4 endemic coronaviruses that cause common colds, and we suspect that they started as deadly pandemics too, which were historically reported as the flu. Many specialists suspect that the OC43 coronavirus caused the 1889 "Russian flu".
Covid seems to follow the same path: a disease that is mostly harmless to the young but potentially deadly to older adults with no acquired immunity. It is likely that in a generation or two, everyone will be infected at a very young age, building immunity and occasionally get breakthrough colds. Breakthrough cases already look a lot like colds.
The second argument is that over a century ago, an epidemic might have possibly been caused by a coronavirus, and might have possibly become a common strain of the flu. This tenuous and unprovable line of reasoning is exactly what I see as wishful thinking.
https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/175...
Could do, yeah. I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I guess that for this to happen, it needs to mutate in various directions, and the strains to feel selection pressure to become non-lethal to humans. Which I guess means that a lot of people need to die of more lethal strains faster than they spread it, and that way the surviving strains will become the dominant strains while the people-killing strains wipe themselves out by killing their hosts quickly.
This does not feel like a great solution; using human deaths as a way to select for the less lethal variants. Feels like that involves a lot of humans dying, which people have a strong bias against.
These "nano"-bubbles of fat were advertised as nano-particles. It was just this old doctor that wanted to be cool for once but it has become a grave mistake...
That said, I don't see the current concern in that regard. People believe they will be lied to when there are counter-indications for the efficiency, that side-effects won't be reported on, that they need to provide vaccination and medical passes. And to be honest, these fears are 100% valid. It is very likely there will be media blackouts about such issues. Especially if you know a bit about politics and how people build a profile. Safety sells better than sex in politics.
And the hysteria about misinformation isn't at all conductive for real scientific debate. On the contrary, it is far more disruptive than conspiracies of any form. The self-imposed defenders of science are fools in their approach to contain information.
While there are no cures yet, there was a political campaign against substances that helped, even if the benefit was small. This should be a scandal on its own.
This can’t be right. Antibodies fade: for other coronaviruses within 6-12 months. They aren’t a thing the body keeps around forever.
Lasting immunity would be from memory T cells or memory T cells, if their long run response worked well and the virus didn’t change enough between infections.
I mostly just wanted to pass on the information from her regarding the ingredients and how the mRNA only interacts with the cytoplasm of the cell, and not the actual DNA. That's the important part.
I find that hard to believe, considering that these states didn't run out of hospital beds in any of the previous waves that also had higher incidence and far higher mortality.
I quote:
> "Another nine states have less than 20% of their ICU beds available."
This is still on the high end, by international standards. Optimal occupancy rate is estimated at 70-75%:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24373914/
Running near capacity doesn't mean there isn't emergency capacity that can be made available, otherwise ICUs wouldn't be able to run above 100% capacity.
Both technologies have never been widely deployed before. The fact that we could not predict and still do not understand these side-effects is quite concerning. It also puts into question the "COVID infection is like the vaccine only worse" narrative.
What's this based on? Given the occurrence of myocarditis in actual COVID infections at a higher rate than with the vaccines, it seems more likely to be an immune-mediated response, at least partly to the spike fragments included in the mRNA vaccines.
It's a common feature of the LNP-based vaccines, not the viral-vector-based ones.
[1] https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/comment/myocarditis-covi...
When reading that chart, keep in mind that lymphadenopathy is just swelling of the lymph nodes, and is an expected and not-serious effect of the vaccine; it's a sign that an immune response is being triggered.
Citing your source:
2.7 events per 100,000 persons (vaccinated)
11.0 events per 100,000 persons (SarS-COV2 positive)
This already doesn't look that great, considering that the risk of a PCR-confirmed infection is not 100%. More importantly, it doesn't take into account age.
The age group at highest risk from Myocarditis following vaccination is 16-17 year-old males, latest numbers from the CDC[1]:
5.1/71.5 events* per 100,000 first/second Pfizer doses administered (within 7 days)
This has a strong bias towards the second dose, it's not clear yet how booster shots fare here, which may need to be administered at 5 months intervals.
It stands to reason that the Myocarditis risk from COVID infection in that age group should also be higher, but it's not clear whether the benefit outweighs the risk in that age/sex group, considering that both infection count and side-effect cases tend to be under-reported.
*) It's not clear whether that number includes the cases "under investigation". If so, this would further raise the risk by up to 66%.
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... (Page 13)
Because vaccinated people can still spread infections vaccinations, just like lockdowns, do not help ‘getting things under control’. They only delay progression of the pandemic.
You say ‘it will probably be a common cold, once humans have enough antibodies’. Humans do not get permanent antibodies from the vaccines. They get antibodies from getting infected. Lockdowns and vaccines only delay the inevitable.
The only argument there is is that vaccinated people get less seriously ill than unvaccinated people. But then it affects only themselves so it’s pretty hard to argue for schemes that force people to get vaccinated against their will.
>Because vaccinated people can still spread infections vaccinations, just like lockdowns, do not help ‘getting things under control’. They only delay progression of the pandemic.
Delaying the progression DOES help get things under control.
>The only argument there is is that vaccinated people get less seriously ill
No it's not. Vaccinated people are less likely to get ill at all, get seriously ill, or spread the virus.
Vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the delta variant. If you disagree, please post your proof. Until then, please stop spreading misinformation.
Weird, I've yet to get chicken pox/shingles, mumps, polio etc despite being vaccinated against them as a child. And I still catch the flu regularly despite having already had it.
We obviously do not know yet whether we can get permanently robust immune response to SARS-CoV-2, either from vaccines or from natural infection; the virus is only two years old. We know that we can get permanently robust immune response to the viruses you mentioned in your post. But this cannot be easily generalized to any new virus that comes along.
That’s why the new push is for ‘booster shots’.
The original strain upon which the current vaccines are based has basically died out and Delta carries a lot more viral load (400x or so?), which changes the game a bit.
In comparison, smallpox virus was pretty much the same across centuries, so it was comparably easy to target and eradicate. No animal hosts helped, too.
Pfizer themselves have performed studies that show immunity declining. I do know that they tell from the levels of antibodies seen in blood but I don’t know if the effect of variants has been measured (if it can be measured at all without unethical experiments).
and with the AZ vaccine, due to the vector chosen, supposedly it (spike protein) does enter the nucleus. Oops.
(note I'm not suggesting the AZ vaccine causes any alteration of our DNA)
AstraZeneca’s vaccine uses adenovirus-vectored technology, which is different [1].
[1] https://www.prevention.com/health/a35118263/astrazeneca-vs-p...
From what I read, the mRNA vaccines manages to get the spike in to the cytoplasm, just like the real virus, so it to that extent mimics what is desired.
Whereas the viral vector (a different delivery technology) used for the AZ vaccine manages to get the spike in to the nucleus, due to picking the "wrong" vector, so to that extents it could be said not to mimic what is desired.
There was speculation that if it had used a different vector which delivered to the cytoplasm, then some of the low probability issues may have been avoided. So one could argue that the choice of vector was/is a bug with the AZ vaccine. Despite that, it does seem to be having the desired effect - reduced hospitalisations.
Mind, I've had the AZ vaccine, and so far have survived.
:-)
That is what I read, just that I couldn't remember the term "endoplasmic reticulum", and so used "cytoplasm" as a hand wavy stand in.
:-)
https://pdb101.rcsb.org/sci-art/goodsell-gallery/sars-cov-2-...
Check the rest of the site, he does awesome watercolor illustrations of microbiology. Including of the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself ( https://pdb101.rcsb.org/sci-art/goodsell-gallery/sars-cov-2-... )
From the article:
> Some types of virus, such as retroviruses, integrate their genetic material (including the new gene) into a chromosome in the human cell.
Therefore the claim that an injection of RNA could modify your DNA is possible. Whether the COVID injections do this is a different story, and seems unlikely.
[1] https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/therapy/proce...
Absolutely not. This is like saying water is a neurotoxin because a tiny subset of neurotoxins contain water. Or that almost any food can modify your dna, since mRNA, RNA and DNA are in any cells you eat.
reverse transcription doesn't just happen. Retroviruses work because they carry reverse transcriptase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcriptase
No reverse transcriptase, no DNA integration. The vaccine leaves out any other parts of the virus besides the spike coding. That makes it SAFER in that respect than conventional or monoclonal vaccines, which include tons of other viral parts! You know what might do reverse transcription? Covid: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/21/e2105968118
Good thing the mrna vaccine leaves out all those parts that could be activating LINE1 retrotransposons!
One of the key differences is the mRNA vaccines are not delivered with the necessary enzymes to actually cleave and splice DNA, e.g. [1].
0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cas9
SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome
Continues with anecdote of conversation with anonymous molecular biology PhD.
-
Isn't that the optimal breeding ground for misinformation?
Your epigenetic argument against mRNA vaccines is unfalsifiable. The same is true for eating a sandwich. Or crossing the street. Or existing. And the mainstream medi- I mean the “orthodox” dOsn’T wAnT you to KNow high school biology?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but epigenetic changes by definition don’t alter DNA, just change expression.
Your assertion that history/nature is law has been disproven countless times. “This is the way things have always been and always will be” is the classic phrase humanity loves to find a way to prove wrong.
Your arguments would have been similarly applicable to all previous novel vaccines. Should we ignore progress because “this is the way it’s always been” and that despite testing on large time horizons on massive numbers of people “it could in theory still have some unknown effect due epigenetics because ???”?
I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me.
The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the entire virus, basically, a much higher dose, and it would also invade the actual cell.
She also described the ingredients of an mRNA vaccine, which were basically:
-mRNA (which is gone from the body in a few days)
-lipids
-salt and sugars
It's also worth noting that the mRNA does not interact with a person's actual DNA. I just don't see why there is so much concern out there. This is a potentially deadly virus. Look at the states with the highest amount of unvaccinated individuals in the US. They are running out of hospital beds [1]. This is not about taking our freedoms, this is about getting this under control.
I do agree with the other posters here that say that COVID will likely just become endemic. My understanding is that eventually it will probably be a common cold, once humans have enough antibodies for it.
[1] https://fortune.com/2021/08/25/states-icu-beds-covid-cases-d...