Lately a majority of the deaths have been unvaccinated. But that was their choice not to be vaccinated. There is no "civic duty" to be vaccinated (or masked) the vaccine didn't prevent transmission, it really only lowers your chance at hospitalization and death. And cloth masks don't do much. And while other masks work the mask mandates don't. Forcing people to be vaccinated isn't the way to get more people vaccinated. A higher vaccination rate would not have "ended" this sooner.

> A higher vaccination rate would not have "ended" this sooner.

Because this never ends. COVID has killed, what, a few snow leopards?

I mean, this thing is forever. Life is way to short to spend the rest of it in fret of Covid. But that isn’t my call that make, nor is it yours or the governments. We have multiple vaccines, treatments, etc. COVID is here forever. It’s no longer anybody but each individual to decide how to deal with that.

Unclear this is true. There’s no herd immunity for any other coronavirus. Antibodies wane quicker than for other diseases.

We have a SARS virus that we hope is actually just a common cold. That’s the plan. Hope and see.

Even highly vaccinated European societies are seeing a sharp rise in cases now that winter is here. Even Portugal, which vaccinated basically 100% of adults, has seem cases triple in a month.

They seem to be doing alright, but antibodies are currently fresh from recent vaccines. We’ll see how this goes long run.

But there’s no empirical support from any society, anywhere, that we could be done. Before any place can claim victory they have to make it through their traditional flu season.

You can do a year on year comparison to compare deaths. Last year, Portugal had the same number of cases with a similar acceleration on October 21st. This year the 7 day death average is 11. Last year it was 15. So about a 33% improvement. Good, but what happens if/when cases go higher? Portugal already vaccinated everyone.

> But there’s no empirical support from any society, anywhere, that we could be done. Before any place can claim victory they have to make it through their traditional flu season.

Certainly. I'm not claiming victory yet, and I don't think we should. But all current evidence points to vaccines being both short-term effective against infection and long-term effective against severe illness, which are the two metrics we (should) all care about.

> You can do a year on year comparison to compare deaths. Last year, Portugal had the same number of cases with a similar acceleration on October 21st. This year the 7 day death average is 11.

Do you have a link for that? I'm curious whether Portugal breaks it down by vaccination status; the numbers I've seen from Singapore show mortality rates around tenfold for the unvaccinated. It's not inconceivable that deaths there are disproportionately spread among pockets of unvaccinated individuals, as we've seen elsewhere.

Just looking at the stats in Google, which are sourced from our world in data.

There is indeed a good relative protection compared to the unvaccinated. However, Delta seems to be worse in the absolute by about 2x. At least for intensive care, not sure anyone studied death.

The other thing is that severe disease protection did decline as well in Israel. Pre booster they fell to 80%, instead of the previou 95-98%.

This doesn’t sound like much, but it amounts to only 5x relative protection, vs earlier 20-50x relative protection.

And since Delta is 2x worse in absolute for severe disease, you get only a 2.5x absolute reduction in severe disease for the same level of cases. Then, if cases go up by 2.5x the actual number of severe disease instances are equal.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-severe-covid-cases-cou...

>You can do a year on year comparison to compare deaths. Last year, Portugal had the same number of cases with a similar acceleration on October 21st. This year the 7 day death average is 11. Last year it was 15. So about a 33% improvement. Good, but what happens if/when cases go higher? Portugal already vaccinated everyone.

Why did you pick Oct 21st for a comparison? Why not the latest data? Say Nov 21st. The deaths are far lower.

Picking two data points like that is not meaningful.

This relationship is pretty similar across different countries. Pick the current point, pick a point with a similar curve, you’ll see differences are at most 2-3x better, often much less so. Much less of an improvement than the quote 20-fold protection against severe disease (95% efficacy)

Those saying “live with it” argue for a removal of NPIs leading to even higher caseloads. If improvement per case is only 2-3x at most then if you go 2-3x past prior peaks the absolute problem is as bad.

I checked the Uk and got 2-3x depending on metric (icu 2x better, hospital and death, 3x)

Denmark is .5-2x better on these metrics from prior peak.

Germany 3x better on deaths (checking prior case peak, December 21st 2020)

Can you find a country which does not have this pattern, where they are actually 10-20x better for a given caseload?

If not, I posit the pattern holds and that this method has some use in predicting future results at a given caseload in a country at European average levels of vaccination, without boosters.

Last year Delta didn't exist. If you want to see efficacy of vaccination, compare incidence among vaccinated and non-vaccinated (which will be about 4x).

Yeah but my point is that people point to relative efficacy when it is absolute reduction which matters. Delta being 2x worse means you need a stronger relative protection.

What do you mean by 4x: relative severe disease protection? That would be 75% efficacy, a marked drop from 95% efficacy (20x protection). I think most of the west still has higher severe disease efficacy than that, though Israel fell as low as 80% pre booster.

Err. What country has reached herd immunity? Even 99% vaccination doesn't seem to make much difference.

Not saying you're wrong, but who is at 99% vaccinated?

My bad, Singapore is at 91% vaccination rate [1]. Unfortunately, they are seeing a surge of cases right now[2]. I wish herd immunity was true but it doesn't seem to be working.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

[2]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/singapore/

As mentioned below, Gibraltar has a >99% double-vax rate and recently decided to cancel its Christmas celebrations given its current surge in cases. [1]

I'm not really sure what to make of this, though the country's so tiny (population of 33k), I wouldn't jump to any major conclusions.

[1] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/christmas-cancelled-gi...

Hello! I read in an old post that you worked for Quanta. My name is Humberto Mockel, I´m form Bahia Blanca, Argentina. I´m a volunteer for a retro computers museum in my city. Recently we got some equipment from a local TV channel. One of them is a Quanta "Quantafont" character generator. I´m looking for software and documentation for it, as there´s nothing online. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have any info!! Thanks in advance

Yes, I did work for Quanta, but no, I don't have any software or documentation for a Quantafont. My best advice would be to contact Utah Scientific, at 4750 Wiley Post Way, Suite 200, Salt Lake City, UT 84116 USA. They may have inherited the corporate remains of the Quantafont product line, or they may know who did.

Thank you so much! Will do so. Any other info that you may remember later, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Good luck Humberto! Retro computing museums are wonderfully fascinating places and are only possible because of folks like you. Your work is appreciated!

Gibraltar