I just have never heard of a vaccine that needs this many boosters. Given your deep knowledge of the immune system and on the specifics of vaccines, do you care to explain why natural immunity maintains effectiveness even as the virus mutates?
So we can agree that there are other viruses that need boosters. Since the "need for boosters" isn't in dispute, I don't know why anyone can just ask "Why this many boosters?" without getting more of an understanding of how vaccines work, and how this particular virus has been mutating.
You're a champ at selectively ignoring facts you don't like, Terp. It may be that post-disease natural immunity is longer lasting than vaccine immunity (at least Pfizer vac immunity). You offer a dramatic stat in favor of natural immunity from the current Israeli situation but you sidestep over and over and over again the even more lopsided data favoring the vaccinated vs the vaccinated here in the U.S. The data leaves little doubt that large numbers of people died here in recent months needlessly. If they survived, maybe their natural immunity would have given them long term protection but in hind sight I think all would go back in time and opt for the shot. Im fine with a booster, even if its as frequent as every 6 months. Your layman's hysteria suggesting that it must be dangerous to get shots on such a regular schedule is entitled to no weight.
BTW, bikefixed, I want to commend you for the effort you have been taking to research and present the science behind this in as close to layman’s terms as is possible, and with the patience of a saint to boot.
^^ Same. I muddle through this as best I can, but it's nice to have someone on this thread who actually knows what they're talking about.
Some of those changes caused by the mutations can make that new version of the spike protein's receptor-binding domain harder to recognize by the current vaccines' antibodies. THAT is one of the reasons we may need not just a booster of the same vaccine but a whole new **** vaccine, much like how the influenza vaccine needs to be reformulated each year. There are several strains of influenza that circulate the globe, each waxing and waning over time, and the WHO desperately tries to make the right guess each year so flu doesn't kill thousands more than it usually does.
Do you think the experience we're getting with mRNA vaccines, rapidly scaling up distribution, and other vaccine tech advances this pandemic has forced will translate to more effective tools against influenza, and maybe even against the cold virus (which IIUC, is also in the coronoavirus family)?
What we don't need are irresponsible "leaders" like this GOP leader, still playing politics. After all the sickness and death, he'd still rather mislead his base than be part of a solution.
Vaccines work and vaccinated Americans should not have to wear masks.
By forcing vaccinated Americans to return to masks, the Biden administration is not only casting doubt on a safe and effective vaccine but contradicting why vaccines exist.
I suppose this is fodder for those who mock those who are resisting the vaccination effort but that doesn't help the drive to save lives across the globe. I don't like knowing that my frustration causes me to wish people the potential harm of contracting COVID. I read anecdotes of people hospitalized with COVID denying it is the reason they're sick right along with other reports are about people changing their minds and wanting the vaccine - only to find it is too late for it to help them in the ICU.
What we don't need are irresponsible "leaders" like this GOP leader, still playing politics. After all the sickness and death, he'd still rather mislead his base than be part of a solution.
Vaccines work and vaccinated Americans should not have to wear masks.
By forcing vaccinated Americans to return to masks, the Biden administration is not only casting doubt on a safe and effective vaccine but contradicting why vaccines exist.
I can understand him saying that over and above playing politics though. I had to do some digging in order to understand the rationale and data behind urging us as a whole to resume using masks. Sadly, a vaccinated person may be protected against serious illness but the delta variant is able to take hold in anyone's body to a much greater extent than earlier COVID-19 versions. That means a much higher viral load to be dealt with and thus, it can also be passed on before a vaccinated person's immune system can stamp it out.
Who the hell wants to hear THAT after finally getting a taste of resumed freedom and comfortable human interactions?
What is happening in Israel is not a surprise to the majority of epidemiologists, who warned that the rapid penetration of variants, driven by the failure of large numbers of people to get vaccinated, would undermine the vaccines. In other words, it's not just the passage of time alone that makes the effectiveness of the shot wane. Is it just a coincidence that Israel, which had effectively wiped Covid out, experienced a resurgence in parallel with the fast rise of Delta? We'll see:
What we don't need are irresponsible "leaders" like this GOP leader, still playing politics. After all the sickness and death, he'd still rather mislead his base than be part of a solution.
I can understand him saying that over and above playing politics though. I had to do some digging in order to understand the rationale and data behind urging us as a whole to resume using masks. Sadly, a vaccinated person may be protected against serious illness but the delta variant is able to take hold in anyone's body to a much greater extent than earlier COVID-19 versions. That means a much higher viral load to be dealt with and thus, it can also be passed on before a vaccinated person's immune system can stamp it out.
Who the hell wants to hear THAT after finally getting a taste of resumed freedom and comfortable human interactions?
No, I'm not going to give Kevin McCarthy the benefit of the doubt like that. We're all unhappy about the new guidance. But, not all of us are ranting, "So this means you doubt whether vaccines work". He's playing politics, feeding the ignorance of his anti-vax base instead of trying to help with the solution.
I don't know how scientists can win arguments against rabble-rousing sound byte politicians. To understand scientific arguments, as with anything complex, you have to spend a lot of team reading and working to understand arguments.
We see it here arguing with Terp. The central fact is that with 100% vaccination of age and health eligible people, we would be having a rather different discussion about Covid right now. Clearly, the D variant would be spreading, but the medical community would be much less stressed by the surge in cases and fewer people would be dying. But Terp always likes to shift attention to outlier issues.
Do you think the experience we're getting with mRNA vaccines, rapidly scaling up distribution, and other vaccine tech advances this pandemic has forced will translate to more effective tools against influenza, and maybe even against the cold virus (which IIUC, is also in the coronoavirus family)?
The mRNA in liposomes technique is decades old. I wish it was available in the early '90s - I could have used it in my doctoral work. I had to use a much less [I initally goofed and wrote more] efficient genetic engineering technique to express the gene product needed for my experiments. The liposomes with mRNA now allow much more efficient experimenting for basic science and on specific diseases at the applied/clinical level. You can introduce a new gene, a corrected gene, or even knock out a gene's expression by sending in anti-sense RNA strands. It turns out that a 'mirror image' or anti-sense RNA sequence will couple up with the normally occurring RNA sequence and that complex gets stuck in the ribosome's translation machinery - the mRNA cannot be translated into the complete protein and so you're able to temporarily knock a gene's expression without altering the DNA and fundamentally changing the cell. It's like a reversible mutation.
Well anyway, THIS is a discouraging report. In order for this technology to work best, one would have to find a key section of an important functional protein that is common to several viruses to use as your target. I don't think there is a good candidate based on this short review. It would be nice though.
As for influenza, there might be a chance since there is a smaller number of Type A influenza viruses around. Perhaps a vaccine with the targets from the most likely current strains could be formulated with the liposome-mediated mRNA technique. However, the animal reservoirs of this virus will always be a source of new strains down the line at some point. This is also the case for coronaviruses. It is only a matter of time before some new mutation tweaks the finished virus in just the right way to make it a virulent strain our immune system is not prepared for.
The vaccines we currently use are a mix of individual vaccines for specific influenza A strains scientists track all the time. Each year, the most prevalent ones are chosen and production of the corresponding vaccines is ramped up for that year's mix. Such a product may be necessary for COVID-19 (or 20, 21, 22, etc) protection. This new technology could make the development process easier and faster so candidate vaccines could get to the clinical trial phases sooner.
Yes, vaccines present selective pressure that can result in new dangerous strains. That does not serve as a valid reason to not use them as a way to treat them. There are myriad other selective factors in nature for almost every organism in the world. We humans have found ways to keep evolutionary forces from culling the disadvantaged over the millennia and it breaks my heart knowing there are people who don't think that is a good idea - until, that is, they are affected by one of them personally.
I don't know how scientists can win arguments against rabble-rousing sound byte politicians. To understand scientific arguments, as with anything complex, you have to spend a lot of team reading and working to understand arguments.
Even without my penchant for tangents and storytelling, there is so much context and nuance needed to really express these ideas and it is hard to keep focused on a whole concept. I don't really know if I do a good job of it and so I've never sought a job as a science writer. Memes and soundbites are much more easily digested. And with biological science, our knowledge is constantly changing just as biology is constantly changing.
On top of that, we now understand that epigenetics is a real phenomenon. It causes changes in our actual genes that are not the same as mutations - those affect the genotype. Epigentic changes affect a gene's phenotype (the functional end product) like brown eyes vs. blue eyes. Over a lifetime genes can be tweaked without actual changes in the gene sequence due to environmental factors - and [shudder] those can sometimes be inherited. I didn't want to believe that but whatever.
Even the Delta variant is not a major threat to everyone in the United States. It is largely a threat to the unvaccinated. It’s more infectious, it’s spreading more quickly, and most people aren’t being as careful as they were months ago. Delta is therefore causing the unvaccinated to get sick, and they’re still going to the hospital, and they’re still dying.
Unvaccinated people were dumb to begin with, but if people still refuse to get vaccinated even with this new wave of sh*t, man the stupidity is just off the charts.
Unvaccinated people were dumb to begin with, but if people still refuse to get vaccinated even with this new wave of sh*t, man the stupidity is just off the charts.
It isn't a question of intelligence. The public health argument has become a point of political religion. Science was kicked out of the room long ago.
Unvaccinated people were dumb to begin with, but if people still refuse to get vaccinated even with this new wave of sh*t, man the stupidity is just off the charts.
It isn't a question of intelligence. The public health argument has become a point of political religion. Science was kicked out of the room long ago.
Yep. I told the highly intelligent terp how we could have beaten this thing in 2-3 weeks and he laughed and asked me to cite sources like it wasn’t thoroughly obvious.
Unvaccinated people were dumb to begin with, but if people still refuse to get vaccinated even with this new wave of sh*t, man the stupidity is just off the charts.
It isn't a question of intelligence. The public health argument has become a point of political religion. Science was kicked out of the room long ago.
Not sure I agree. Even Trump got (quietly) vaccinated. So if you're a Trumper, I think the smart thing to do is to follow his lead and go get vaccinated. You don't have to tell anyone. Then continue to rail against vaccines and wait for Trump to return to the White House on Aug 13 (or whatever the latest tinfoil hat date is).
Not sure I agree. Even Trump got (quietly) vaccinated. So if you're a Trumper, I think the smart thing to do is to follow his lead and go get vaccinated. You don't have to tell anyone. Then continue to rail against vaccines and wait for Trump to return to the White House on Aug 13 (or whatever the latest tinfoil hat date is).
Quietly grab a life preserver and loudly tell everyone the ship is fine...
Even if it does hold up, what are the practical implications?
Maybe none? In the context of attempting to engage with terp and sharing my understanding of how vaccination and immunology work, though, it'd be unexpected to me, meaning I'd need to adjust my understanding to fit this new information. But practically? Well as you noted "to avoid covid, get covid" is a clearly nonsensical take-away.
The entire WFT coaching staff is vaccinated. Despite that, Rivera said he wears a mask around unvaccinated people because he is immune-deficient after battling cancer in the last year. He was deemed cancer-free this past January.
While the Delta may be breaking through to the vaccinated more easily and perhaps increasing the proportion of those who are testing positive as being breakthrough cases, this article confirms how extremely unbalanced the numbers are in favor of the vaccinated when it comes to serious cases: https://abcnews.go.com/US/vast-majority-icu-patients-covid-19-unvaccinated-abc/story?id=79128401
Bad numbers today in NJ though some are expressing hope that the steady downturn of cases in the UK and elsewhere means we will get to peak Delta sooner than originally predicted. Maybe 2 or 3 weeks.
Unvaccinated people were dumb to begin with, but if people still refuse to get vaccinated even with this new wave of sh*t, man the stupidity is just off the charts.
It isn't a question of intelligence. The public health argument has become a point of political religion. Science was kicked out of the room long ago.
Not sure I agree. Even Trump got (quietly) vaccinated. So if you're a Trumper, I think the smart thing to do is to follow his lead and go get vaccinated. You don't have to tell anyone. Then continue to rail against vaccines and wait for Trump to return to the White House on Aug 13 (or whatever the latest tinfoil hat date is).
Apparently some people halfway across the country saw my post and took my advice.
Unvaccinated people were dumb to begin with, but if people still refuse to get vaccinated even with this new wave of sh*t, man the stupidity is just off the charts.
It isn't a question of intelligence. The public health argument has become a point of political religion. Science was kicked out of the room long ago.
Not sure I agree. Even Trump got (quietly) vaccinated. So if you're a Trumper, I think the smart thing to do is to follow his lead and go get vaccinated. You don't have to tell anyone. Then continue to rail against vaccines and wait for Trump to return to the White House on Aug 13 (or whatever the latest tinfoil hat date is).
Apparently some people halfway across the country saw my post and took my advice.
apparently there is now a freakout over 800+ cases tied to Provincetown on July 4 weekend because most of the cases are among vaccinated people. I haven't seen any reports of how many people visited that weekend so it's hard to put the number of cases in context, but I looked and of the states within a reasonable driving distance to Provincetown, only Rhode Island (at 11) is reporting more than 10 cases per 100,000. Still pretty strong evidence that states with higher vaccination rates are not becoming virus hot spots.
but the delta variant obviously requires us to be more vigilant. And probably going back to masks indoors. And if the vaccinated among us do go back to wearing masks, it's really to protect the unvaccinated. Because even if a vaccinated person comes down with delta, they're not likely to get very ill.
I'm not as confident that mask wearing is really only to protect the unvaccinated in this Delta phase. I've been a forceful advocate of vaccinations but there is an undercurrent of opinion and info out there that the Delta is eating somewhat into the vaccinated population and making it an increasing percentage of new positive cases. Me and mine are wearing masks first and foremost for us.
As for us not getting "very ill," if you are equating that with "mild", its been clear from the beginning that the word "mild" in the Covid context doesn't mean what we ordinarily mean by it. Basically, if you don't go to the hospital, you have a "mild" case no matter how miserable you are or how long your illness lasts. I know an otherwise healthy young woman who had a breakthorugh case. She had cold symptoms for five straight weeks and also lost her sense of taste and smell. Was never in danger of going to hospital. I'm sure they would classify that as mild. I don't want that mild case.
apparently there is now a freakout over 800+ cases tied to Provincetown on July 4 weekend because most of the cases are among vaccinated people. I haven't seen any reports of how many people visited that weekend so it's hard to put the number of cases in context, but I looked and of the states within a reasonable driving distance to Provincetown, only Rhode Island (at 11) is reporting more than 10 cases per 100,000. Still pretty strong evidence that states with higher vaccination rates are not becoming virus hot spots.
but the delta variant obviously requires us to be more vigilant. And probably going back to masks indoors. And if the vaccinated among us do go back to wearing masks, it's really to protect the unvaccinated. Because even if a vaccinated person comes down with delta, they're not likely to get very ill.
The vaccine's first goal was always to prevent illness. I remember as they were rolling out reading that we were unsure how well they would reduce transmission, since that is not what the clinical trials tested for, but that it seemed very likely they would. They were, and continue to be, very good at this primary goal.
It looks like for most variants they have indeed greatly reduced transmission, but it's very disappointing that delta seems to still be transmissible. Seems like even with delta the rate of transmission is still less though? From what I understand, the data is still unclear; not sure if someone else know more? From what I've been reading, how delta differs is that it's basically a bum-rush of the body -- a much higher viral load than other variants. That makes sense for whey the vaccinated can still get breakthrough infections but still largely avoid getting seriously ill -- virus can get in and start replicating but the vaccinated, primed immune system generally can ramp up before things get too serious. I don't fully understand how this higher viral load is possible though, as replication still needs access to host cells. Maybe it is really good at replicating in your nose, where the immune system is not as vigilant?
apparently there is now a freakout over 800+ cases tied to Provincetown on July 4 weekend because most of the cases are among vaccinated people. I haven't seen any reports of how many people visited that weekend so it's hard to put the number of cases in context, but I looked and of the states within a reasonable driving distance to Provincetown, only Rhode Island (at 11) is reporting more than 10 cases per 100,000. Still pretty strong evidence that states with higher vaccination rates are not becoming virus hot spots.
but the delta variant obviously requires us to be more vigilant. And probably going back to masks indoors. And if the vaccinated among us do go back to wearing masks, it's really to protect the unvaccinated. Because even if a vaccinated person comes down with delta, they're not likely to get very ill.
The vaccine's first goal was always to prevent illness. I remember as they were rolling out reading that we were unsure how well they would reduce transmission, since that is not what the clinical trials tested for, but that it seemed very likely they would. They were, and continue to be, very good at this primary goal.
It looks like for most variants they have indeed greatly reduced transmission, but it's very disappointing that delta seems to still be transmissible. Seems like even with delta the rate of transmission is still less though? From what I understand, the data is still unclear; not sure if someone else know more? From what I've been reading, how delta differs is that it's basically a bum-rush of the body -- a much higher viral load than other variants. That makes sense for whey the vaccinated can still get breakthrough infections but still largely avoid getting seriously ill -- virus can get in and start replicating but the vaccinated, primed immune system generally can ramp up before things get too serious. I don't fully understand how this higher viral load is possible though, as replication still needs access to host cells. Maybe it is really good at replicating in your nose, where the immune system is not as vigilant?
once again it tells us we should have as many vaccinated people as possible. Even in places like NJ where infections are up, the infections are way, way below the last peak. And this is with the health emergency regulations rescinded.
I'm not as confident that mask wearing is really only to protect the unvaccinated in this Delta phase. I've been a forceful advocate of vaccinations but there is an undercurrent of opinion and info out there that the Delta is eating somewhat into the vaccinated population and making it an increasing percentage of new positive cases. Me and mine are wearing masks first and foremost for us.
As for us not getting "very ill," if you are equating that with "mild", its been clear from the beginning that the word "mild" in the Covid context doesn't mean what we ordinarily mean by it. Basically, if you don't go to the hospital, you have a "mild" case no matter how miserable you are or how long your illness lasts. I know an otherwise healthy young woman who had a breakthorugh case. She had cold symptoms for five straight weeks and also lost her sense of taste and smell. Was never in danger of going to hospital. I'm sure they would classify that as mild. I don't want that mild case.
agreed. I do NOT want to lose my sense of taste and smell.
But keeping this in perspective, in NJ over the past couple of weeks, we're seeing only very small percentages of vaccinated people being infected. In the summer time, we probably have as much chance being struck by lightning (which did in fact happen near enough to my home to fry our TV and cable boxes) as we do having long-term effects from COVID if we're vaccinated.
So we can agree that there are other viruses that need boosters. Since the "need for boosters" isn't in dispute, I don't know why anyone can just ask "Why this many boosters?" without getting more of an understanding of how vaccines work, and how this particular virus has been mutating.