> vaccinated people who become infected with Delta SARS-CoV-2 can carry as much virus in their nose as do unvaccinated people. This means that despite the protection offered by vaccines, a proportion of vaccinated people can pass on Delta, possibly aiding its rise.
Which seems in line with I had speculated about earlier[1].
It looks like viral load diminishes faster which is a plus. However, I’d be willing to bet that almost all transmission happens when people are at their peak viral load. And so if peak viral loads are not differing between vaccinated and unvaccinated I’d guess we’re pretty much going to see unabated transmission amongst vaccinated.
I don’t have data or evidence to back this up, but my hunch is that vaccinated people are less likely to take precautions and more likely engage in the “riskiest” (for others) behaviors like attending packed indoor gatherings. That’s why I think it’s so important this message gets out, and even then only a percentage of people will care.
Vaccine passports are dumb for this reason. Somebody choosing to be at higher risk does not increase the risk to other other than clogging up hospital resources
Do you have a "obese passport", "health score"? You can't use a logic only when it's convenient. Implementing a health score and precenting unhealthy people (or even old people) from going outside would alievate hospital use. Do we want that?
Although the vaccine seems to somewhat lessen the chance of transmission, it IMO is not enough to stomp on people's freedom. I would maybe consider it if it was the black plague.
Also, most of these polices were created based on research prior to Delta becoming prevalent which showed that the vaccines indeed did reduce spread. Since Delta is more transmissible, this benefit is reduced.
Wait, I thought the general consensus is that the current vaccines reduce the severity of the infection but provide little defense against contacting and spreading it? At least, this has been used to explain why infection rates are still increasing even among vaccinated populations.
They're certainly less effective vs variants, but I haven't seen any convincing data suggesting that vaccines are totally ineffective against them.
In fact, the article also quotes one of the authors as saying:
"The bottom line is, this can happen — it can be true that vaccinated people can spread the virus. But we do not yet know what their relative role in overall community spread is."
We keep using percentages as if they had a true meaning. All the values that keep flying around cannot be compared, as they all measure slightly different things.
That 39% number (protection against symptoms) wasn't checked at the trials, or at least wasn't reported. In that same article, they state that protection against being hospitalized/ICUed is still around 90%, which are the same values we heard before. Guess that doesn't sell clicks.
If that is the case, it has absolutely nothing to do with the reported "around 90% effectivity" that was in the headlines for the four main vaccines.
Saying that delta diminishes the effectivity from over 90% to 39% is spreading misinformation. Implying it, as the above linked article does, is spreading misinformation, knowing that lots of people doesn't read beyond the headline. Vaccines are still more than 90% effective against delta variant, or any other variant so far.
The 39% above only means that vaccinated people has "only" that protection against being infected (that is, being positive on a PCR test). Even if you are asymtomatic you are counted as infected, thus the vaccine alegedly didn't protect you. But vaccinated people still has around 90% protection against being hospitalized, even in delta variant environments.
The only conclusion we can get is: herd immunity is still far. Get vaxxed ASAP, because this thing will keep spreading.
Even if you are asymtomatic you are counted as infected
Incorrect the vaccine trials only tested for symptomatic COVID not asymptomatic, so your assertion here is wrong. The 39% number is for symptomatic COVID only.
Also if you read my original comment you’ll see I only refer to symptomatic COVID and not to death or hospitalizations, perhaps you should read more closely before blindly accusing me of being misleading.
No, the consensus is that they reduce severity but also protect against contracting, just at lower efficacy rate than against earlier variants. They still reduce cases versus not having them.
You can see this happening here in Iceland where we’re going through a surge in cases thanks to Delta but almost the entire adult population is vaccinated:
> “Diagnosis of infection is three-times more likely in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated, the likelihood of hospital admission is some four-times higher, and the frequency of intensive care is five times more common in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated. So, we are seeing that vaccination is protecting against infection and especially against serious illness, which should be a spur to everyone to get vaccinated who has not been vaccinated so far,” Þórólfur said.
Anecdotally having had COVID before isn’t necessarily protection either. I’ve a relative who has now had both one of the original strains and the Delta variant.
Maybe having gotten vaccinated, if I got Delta the serum antibodies would protect me from serious illness, and I'd gain mucosal immunity from the upper respiratory tract infection to complete the set? Not that I'm planning to get infected; I'm just looking for silver linings to soothe myself about the possibility.
It seems to me that the key phrase there is "diagnosis of infection". That's likely to be reduced by protecting against symptoms, because asymptomatic people are unlikely to be tested.
Is anyone doing regular tests on large groups of people to measure the rate of asymptomatic infections?
According to the second link, 255k people have been vaccinated in Iceland, out of a population of 364k (according to Wikipedia). So about 70% of the population has been vaccinated.
And according to the chart "Number of vaccinated individuals among domestic infections", about 60% of infections are among fully vaccinated people.
That suggests vaccination may not reduce the chance of infection much. As does the recent spike (the largest to date) in the "14-day incidence per 100 000 inhabitants" despite 70% vaccination.
Vaccination is still worthwhile, of course, to protect against severe illness, but if neither vaccination nor previous illness will prevent infection, it seems like COVID is going to be an illness we'll experience many times in our lives (hopefully with less impact once our immune systems adapt).
It’s actually much higher amongst adults (>16) the remaining 30% is almost all children under 16. You need to take that into account when trying to interpret the statistics otherwise you fall into your current trap. It’s still mostly adults getting infected.
I quoted the Chief Epidemiologist’s most recent statement on the facts of the matter in Iceland in the comment you initially replied to but will do so again:
> “Diagnosis of infection is three-times more likely in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated, the likelihood of hospital admission is some four-times higher, and the frequency of intensive care is five times more common in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated. So, we are seeing that vaccination is protecting against infection and especially against serious illness, which should be a spur to everyone to get vaccinated who has not been vaccinated so far,” Þórólfur said.”
Literally out of the mouth of the people gathering and using these statistics.
I don't understand what you mean by "fall into your current trap". If I understand correctly, nearly the entire adult population of Iceland has been vaccinated, and yet since July Iceland is experiencing the most COVID cases it ever has. What am I missing?
That fact alone doesn't bode well for the hope of vaccination reducing the number of COVID infections.
Regarding the comparison between vaccination rates and infection rates: if the rates of infection are equal among children and adults, and vaccination doesn't affect the chance of infection, we'd expect about 30% of the cases to be among unvaccinated children, which isn't far from the current number. Unfortunately that page doesn't break down current infections by age, but that should be considered.
We have far more lenient controls right now. Far more people are getting infected (by a more infectious variant) but our hospitals are not (yet) being overwhelmed. Having the vast majority of the adult population vaccinated allows for this because as well as reducing the rate of infection it also reduces the rate of hospitalisation and the rate of of serious hospitalisation. One of the news articles linked above is about how that might change as things progress. Which is where I pulled this quote from the Chief Epidemiologist here:
> “Diagnosis of infection is three-times more likely in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated, the likelihood of hospital admission is some four-times higher, and the frequency of intensive care is five times more common in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated. So, we are seeing that vaccination is protecting against infection and especially against serious illness, which should be a spur to everyone to get vaccinated who has not been vaccinated so far,” Þórólfur said.
If you read further down in the statistics data there is a breakdown by population age. You need to take into account the COVID is less infectious for the young. Iceland is also going to expand vaccination for the 12-16 age group and give people who got the less effective vaccine a booster. Not coincidentally the population with the largest set of infections mixes the most and got the Jannsen vaccine, those 20-30.
> Far more people are getting infected but our hospitals are not (yet) being overwhelmed.
That makes sense. I think it's clear that vaccination makes the infection less severe and reduces hospitalization rates. But there's also a hope, which is the basis for a lot of policy decisions, that vaccination will reduce the chance of being infected, perhaps even eliminate the illness, and Iceland's data doesn't support that.
> If you read further down in the statistics data there is a breakdown by population age.
Only for isolation and for cumulative cases, not for current cases.
> You need to take into account the COVID is less infectious for the young.
Source please. I haven't heard that before; though it is less severe for the young.
I haven't checked in a while, but does the data show that the efficacy against delta is less than the 90% we thought the vaccines were going to be?
I mean, we all knew some vaccinated people would still get Covid, about 10% of them, so do we know that there is a higher number of breakthrough cases than even that?
sure we did. that ~90% number came before the south African variant, and many others. that's arguably why the j&j had a much lower rate than Pfizer, as it was tested amongst test pools with different variants circulating.
> that's arguably why the j&j had a much lower rate than Pfizer, as it was tested amongst test pools with different variants circulating.
J&J was tested in populations that didn't have the SA variant, and Pfizer was tested in populations that did (in addition to the other combinations you mentioned). Tests were done worldwide and we had natural experiments due to different tests in different time in different (relatively) isolated populations.
That effect exists, but only covers a small percentage of the difference in efficacy.
The consensus is that vaccination also reduces spreading significantly. If I recall correctly it goes down to 25% Also vaccinated people social distance less and social distance measures are being removed so infection rates should go up.
Looking at countries with high vaccination rates but still dealing with uncontrolled outbreaks, the breakdown of the infected pretty closely mirrors the percentage vaccinated in the overall population.
If the vaccine provided you with strong protection against infection, you'd expect the numbers to be highly skewed towards the unvaccinated.
First that is not true - in the UK for instance, hospital admissions are around 50:50 last I've seen, with 89% of adults vaccinated (pointing to 80%+ vaccine efficacy).
Second, even if it were true, the proportion of vaccinated people among the highly susceptible older population is far higher. These older people have higher chance and severity of breakthrough infection, so comparing raw number will get you misleading results.
I'm not talking about hospital admission, which yes, are way lower in the vaccinated.
I'm talking about those with confirmed Covid infections. It looks like the vaccination does lower the risk of infection, but it's relatively marginal. But yes, it strongly protects against serious disease.
Unfortunately there is increasingly more data that shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not benign in children.
For example this rather early analysis from 2020 included more than 2,000 children who got infected. 10.6% of infants under 1 year of age had severe or critical symptoms. All of these infants survived but a small number of infants in the United States have died following diagnosis with COVID-19 even then before Delta (or even Lambda and other variants).
Apart from more severe outcomes for babies than what we thought there are children that increasingly have to be treated for pneumonia at hospitals. Also long covid is on the rise. This has been widely reported recently.
Delta is apparently pretty risky to kids. And kids are at risk from long-COVID.
Why they are doing in person school and fighting over mask mandates I'll never understand. Even if children suffered no ill effects, they'll act as disease vectors for adults and breakthrough cases.
I have heard of this too, but never looked into it.
So I just looked into it. I found a couple of news articles [0][1]. [2] says:
> Kids remain, as they have been throughout the pandemic, at much lower risk of getting seriously sick with the coronavirus, especially compared with unvaccinated adults. But the recent rash of illnesses among the nation’s youngest is a sobering reminder of the COVID-19 adage that lower risk is not no risk. With so many children unable to access vaccines and their health contingent on those around them, parents and guardians must now navigate the reality that Delta represents a more serious danger to everyone—which means it’s a more serious danger to kids as well.
Why is nobody recommending a highly saline nasal irrigation as a prophylactic? Or even a lower saline nasal irrigation with a very diluted amount of hydrogen peroxide???
Yeah, poor guy. He earned so much credibility with his no-nonsense, straight-shooting communication style full of poignant truths that it’s such a mystery why no one took him seriously on a subject in which he was so clearly well-versed and knowledgeable!
You need to have well sterilized water for that just not to lead to a sinus infection which will leave you more susceptible. Tapwater isn't good enough, and is going to be rather harsh out of most taps in the US. Clean water in general isn't a solved problem.
If you decide to do this with tap water, leave it out for a day or so to let the chlorine evaporate and then boil it for at least 5 minutes. Netti pots are also basically waterboarding fyi. Have fun!
At volume to supply literally everyone? Welcome to public health problems, where actions you recommend will be taken by nontrivial portions of the population.
> Why is nobody recommending a highly saline nasal irrigation as a prophylactic? Or even a lower saline nasal irrigation with a very diluted amount of hydrogen peroxide???
Is there any indication that any sort of nasal irrigation is effective at all?
Early in the pandemic some people recommended gargling with antiseptic solutions. From what I've heard that is generally not a good idea because it kills the natural bacterial flora too and that plays a role in the defense against infections.
the idea of using povidone-iodine as a nasal prophylactic is interesting, but I think your explanation is lazy. for one, it's hard enough to get people to wear masks, much less snorting cleaner every morning! second, if this works, why wouldn't doctors and nurses be using it? they were at tons of risk before the vaccines.
> The mucosal immune system is the largest component of the entire immune system, having evolved to provide protection at the main sites of infectious threat: the mucosae. As SARS-CoV-2 initially infects the upper respiratory tract, its first interactions with the immune system must occur predominantly at the respiratory mucosal surfaces, during both inductive and effector phases of the response. However, almost all studies of the immune response in COVID-19 have focused exclusively on serum antibodies and systemic cell-mediated immunity including innate responses.
That's why vaccinated people can still get infected (upper respiratory tract) and have no symptoms (serum antibodies). They can infect others (upper respiratory tract) when they are infected but don't have symptoms or a temperature check saying they should stay at home. Hence the CDC now recommends tests for vaccinated people who are exposed to Covid.
It was stated by Fauci and others in 2020 that current Covid vaccines are non-sterilizing. There are new Covid vaccines in development which provide sterilizing immunity, delivered via nasal inhaler instead of deltoid arm muscle. The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is sterilizing, i.e. prevents infection and transmission.
Thank you for the clear explanation. Here in Europe we have Covid passports - if you are vaccinated or tested negative, you are allowed admission to, for example, shopping malls and no need to wear a mask indoors.
Does this mean that Covid passports actually help spread Covid from vaccinated to non-vaccinated people who mix together without masks?
Luckily in Germany masks are still mandatory indoors.
Also Istael has reinstated the indoor mask requirement after the number of infections increased dramatically even with many vaccinated people
Does this mean that Covid passports actually help spread Covid from vaccinated to non-vaccinated people who mix together without masks?
Not crazy about the wording of that sentence; it reads, to me at least, that the vaccinated kind of "duped" the un-vaccinated into thinking intermingling was safe. It removes the agency from the un-vaccinated, as if remaining both un-vaccinated[1] and mitigation of possible exposure is beyond their control.
(Nobody asked me but...) I would have worded it more like: "Does this mean that the un-vaccinated, hoping to parlay herd immunity into abdication of personal and societal responsibility, ended up playing themselves?"[2]
[1] I'm separating the legit medically immuno-compromised from voluntarily un-vaxxed.
[2] I'm in Texas and was fully vaccinated as early as possible with two kids that can't be vaccinated yet and am currently watching a surge drown our local hospitals so I'm super fucking jaded.
Statistically most people, vaccinated or non-vaccinated, are not infected. Once infected, both vaccinated or non-vaccinated can transmit if there is sufficiently high viral load. Normally, a high viral load causes symptoms that would cause someone to self-isolate or fail a temperature check, reducing transmission. Because a vaccinated person can be infected without symptoms, there may be some cases where they should be isolating, but are not, and are thus transmitting to anyone, vaccinated or not.
> Even if they’re not showing symptoms, fully vaccinated people should “get tested 3-5 days after exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until they receive a negative test result,” the agency’s website says. The CDC previously said fully vaccinated people didn’t need testing after exposure unless they showed symptoms. “Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told The New York Times in an email. “Testing is widely available.”
A subset of all populations globally, especially in young people, have already recovered from a Covid variant and have some natural immunity, which is sterilizing immunity (both upper respiratory system--since that is how they got naturally infected--and serum antibodies + T-cells). Governments have the option of performing national sero-surveys to statistically estimate the percentage who are already immune without a vaccine. Individuals who can afford to pay for testing can determine if they have natural immunity, including the newest FDA-EUA test for T-cells (costs $210 with blood draw, only in US for now), https://t-detect.com
> Here in Europe we have Covid passports - if you are vaccinated or tested negative, you are allowed admission to, for example, shopping malls and no need to wear a mask indoors.
That's a national policy thing; in Ireland, for instance, you can use the covid pass to go to a pub or restaurant, but if you're in an indoors public space you are still required to wear a mask. Same in France and Germany AIUI.
In theory, a vaccine delivered via inhaler requires little or no training for administration, so the supply chain would be simplified. Given the current focus on vaccine passports, governments will probably want an approved witness to the vaccine being administered, even if they could technically be self-administered.
Bharat biotech and Altimune have done phase one trials. Altimunes was disappointing and they gave up on their vaccine. Bharat have not published info yet.
I am not sure if I am the only one, but I found it surprising that the immune system components you mention (serum antibodies and upper respiratory tract mucosal membrane) do not “learn from each other”. I suppose I had a naive / uneducated perspective on this, but is there an obvious reason why they don’t learn from each other?
That said, if the virus spreaded the same with the vaccine, the advantaged would be that the virus wouldn't have as much evolutionary pressure to change and become resistant. For example, it could make it harder for lambda variant, which might be symptomatic, to become prevalent
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 102 ms ] threadWhich seems in line with I had speculated about earlier[1].
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28003932
Here's a graph from one such study that backs your claim
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1421874289398194187
The vast majority of vaccinated people who get sick, do not get sick enough to go to the hospital.
So it doesn't have an impact except for when it does?
Although the vaccine seems to somewhat lessen the chance of transmission, it IMO is not enough to stomp on people's freedom. I would maybe consider it if it was the black plague.
Which is significant.
Also, most of these polices were created based on research prior to Delta becoming prevalent which showed that the vaccines indeed did reduce spread. Since Delta is more transmissible, this benefit is reduced.
Since the vaccines cause fewer people to be infected, the unconditional viral load is lower.
In fact, the article also quotes one of the authors as saying:
"The bottom line is, this can happen — it can be true that vaccinated people can spread the virus. But we do not yet know what their relative role in overall community spread is."
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-variant-pfizer-covid-v...
That 39% number (protection against symptoms) wasn't checked at the trials, or at least wasn't reported. In that same article, they state that protection against being hospitalized/ICUed is still around 90%, which are the same values we heard before. Guess that doesn't sell clicks.
Saying that delta diminishes the effectivity from over 90% to 39% is spreading misinformation. Implying it, as the above linked article does, is spreading misinformation, knowing that lots of people doesn't read beyond the headline. Vaccines are still more than 90% effective against delta variant, or any other variant so far.
The 39% above only means that vaccinated people has "only" that protection against being infected (that is, being positive on a PCR test). Even if you are asymtomatic you are counted as infected, thus the vaccine alegedly didn't protect you. But vaccinated people still has around 90% protection against being hospitalized, even in delta variant environments.
The only conclusion we can get is: herd immunity is still far. Get vaxxed ASAP, because this thing will keep spreading.
Incorrect the vaccine trials only tested for symptomatic COVID not asymptomatic, so your assertion here is wrong. The 39% number is for symptomatic COVID only.
Also if you read my original comment you’ll see I only refer to symptomatic COVID and not to death or hospitalizations, perhaps you should read more closely before blindly accusing me of being misleading.
https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/08/12/janssen-group-most-at-ri...
https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/08/12/people-told-vaccinate-to...
> “Diagnosis of infection is three-times more likely in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated, the likelihood of hospital admission is some four-times higher, and the frequency of intensive care is five times more common in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated. So, we are seeing that vaccination is protecting against infection and especially against serious illness, which should be a spur to everyone to get vaccinated who has not been vaccinated so far,” Þórólfur said.
Anecdotally having had COVID before isn’t necessarily protection either. I’ve a relative who has now had both one of the original strains and the Delta variant.
Is anyone doing regular tests on large groups of people to measure the rate of asymptomatic infections?
Iceland has been as well you can see the breakdown on where infections came from here: https://www.covid.is/data
According to the second link, 255k people have been vaccinated in Iceland, out of a population of 364k (according to Wikipedia). So about 70% of the population has been vaccinated.
And according to the chart "Number of vaccinated individuals among domestic infections", about 60% of infections are among fully vaccinated people.
That suggests vaccination may not reduce the chance of infection much. As does the recent spike (the largest to date) in the "14-day incidence per 100 000 inhabitants" despite 70% vaccination.
Vaccination is still worthwhile, of course, to protect against severe illness, but if neither vaccination nor previous illness will prevent infection, it seems like COVID is going to be an illness we'll experience many times in our lives (hopefully with less impact once our immune systems adapt).
I quoted the Chief Epidemiologist’s most recent statement on the facts of the matter in Iceland in the comment you initially replied to but will do so again:
> “Diagnosis of infection is three-times more likely in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated, the likelihood of hospital admission is some four-times higher, and the frequency of intensive care is five times more common in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated. So, we are seeing that vaccination is protecting against infection and especially against serious illness, which should be a spur to everyone to get vaccinated who has not been vaccinated so far,” Þórólfur said.”
Literally out of the mouth of the people gathering and using these statistics.
That fact alone doesn't bode well for the hope of vaccination reducing the number of COVID infections.
Regarding the comparison between vaccination rates and infection rates: if the rates of infection are equal among children and adults, and vaccination doesn't affect the chance of infection, we'd expect about 30% of the cases to be among unvaccinated children, which isn't far from the current number. Unfortunately that page doesn't break down current infections by age, but that should be considered.
> “Diagnosis of infection is three-times more likely in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated, the likelihood of hospital admission is some four-times higher, and the frequency of intensive care is five times more common in the non-vaccinated than the vaccinated. So, we are seeing that vaccination is protecting against infection and especially against serious illness, which should be a spur to everyone to get vaccinated who has not been vaccinated so far,” Þórólfur said.
If you read further down in the statistics data there is a breakdown by population age. You need to take into account the COVID is less infectious for the young. Iceland is also going to expand vaccination for the 12-16 age group and give people who got the less effective vaccine a booster. Not coincidentally the population with the largest set of infections mixes the most and got the Jannsen vaccine, those 20-30.
That makes sense. I think it's clear that vaccination makes the infection less severe and reduces hospitalization rates. But there's also a hope, which is the basis for a lot of policy decisions, that vaccination will reduce the chance of being infected, perhaps even eliminate the illness, and Iceland's data doesn't support that.
> If you read further down in the statistics data there is a breakdown by population age.
Only for isolation and for cumulative cases, not for current cases.
> You need to take into account the COVID is less infectious for the young.
Source please. I haven't heard that before; though it is less severe for the young.
You do you but that isn’t actually correct.
I mean, we all knew some vaccinated people would still get Covid, about 10% of them, so do we know that there is a higher number of breakthrough cases than even that?
J&J was tested in populations that didn't have the SA variant, and Pfizer was tested in populations that did (in addition to the other combinations you mentioned). Tests were done worldwide and we had natural experiments due to different tests in different time in different (relatively) isolated populations.
That effect exists, but only covers a small percentage of the difference in efficacy.
* this is a joke reflecting how’s the childhood game of telephone can be easily translated to “consensus says”
If the vaccine provided you with strong protection against infection, you'd expect the numbers to be highly skewed towards the unvaccinated.
Second, even if it were true, the proportion of vaccinated people among the highly susceptible older population is far higher. These older people have higher chance and severity of breakthrough infection, so comparing raw number will get you misleading results.
I'm talking about those with confirmed Covid infections. It looks like the vaccination does lower the risk of infection, but it's relatively marginal. But yes, it strongly protects against serious disease.
I say get back to normal and let the unvaccinated adults suffer the consequences of their own actions.
For example this rather early analysis from 2020 included more than 2,000 children who got infected. 10.6% of infants under 1 year of age had severe or critical symptoms. All of these infants survived but a small number of infants in the United States have died following diagnosis with COVID-19 even then before Delta (or even Lambda and other variants).
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/ea...
I have rolled too many d10 not to worry a lot about this.
Apart from more severe outcomes for babies than what we thought there are children that increasingly have to be treated for pneumonia at hospitals. Also long covid is on the rise. This has been widely reported recently.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/long-covi...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/heal...
https://youtu.be/_MvRUtbUEqU
Why they are doing in person school and fighting over mask mandates I'll never understand. Even if children suffered no ill effects, they'll act as disease vectors for adults and breakthrough cases.
So I just looked into it. I found a couple of news articles [0][1]. [2] says:
> Kids remain, as they have been throughout the pandemic, at much lower risk of getting seriously sick with the coronavirus, especially compared with unvaccinated adults. But the recent rash of illnesses among the nation’s youngest is a sobering reminder of the COVID-19 adage that lower risk is not no risk. With so many children unable to access vaccines and their health contingent on those around them, parents and guardians must now navigate the reality that Delta represents a more serious danger to everyone—which means it’s a more serious danger to kids as well.
0: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/04/delta...
1: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-06/children-need-covid-p...
2: https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/619712/
one source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/delta-var...
The NYT says 1% of infected kids ends up in the hospital: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/health/coronavirus-childr... (Obviously, you need to recognize more kids are catching delta so the base is increasing.)
France tells us about kids facing long covid: https://www.france24.com/en/health/20210812-young-people-hit...
And studies indicate vaccinated ppl may stay infectious a shorter timespan.
If you decide to do this with tap water, leave it out for a day or so to let the chlorine evaporate and then boil it for at least 5 minutes. Netti pots are also basically waterboarding fyi. Have fun!
Is there any indication that any sort of nasal irrigation is effective at all?
0 - https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/povidone-iodine-kill...
edit: less sketchy link to a study of Iota-Carrageenan nasal spray for covid prophylaxis: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.13.21255409v... not peer reviewed, but a registered clinical trial reporting positive results.
Also, the I-MASK+ early outpatient protocol mentions using a nasal & oral rinse: https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/F...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7733922/
> The mucosal immune system is the largest component of the entire immune system, having evolved to provide protection at the main sites of infectious threat: the mucosae. As SARS-CoV-2 initially infects the upper respiratory tract, its first interactions with the immune system must occur predominantly at the respiratory mucosal surfaces, during both inductive and effector phases of the response. However, almost all studies of the immune response in COVID-19 have focused exclusively on serum antibodies and systemic cell-mediated immunity including innate responses.
That's why vaccinated people can still get infected (upper respiratory tract) and have no symptoms (serum antibodies). They can infect others (upper respiratory tract) when they are infected but don't have symptoms or a temperature check saying they should stay at home. Hence the CDC now recommends tests for vaccinated people who are exposed to Covid.
It was stated by Fauci and others in 2020 that current Covid vaccines are non-sterilizing. There are new Covid vaccines in development which provide sterilizing immunity, delivered via nasal inhaler instead of deltoid arm muscle. The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is sterilizing, i.e. prevents infection and transmission.
Does this mean that Covid passports actually help spread Covid from vaccinated to non-vaccinated people who mix together without masks?
Not crazy about the wording of that sentence; it reads, to me at least, that the vaccinated kind of "duped" the un-vaccinated into thinking intermingling was safe. It removes the agency from the un-vaccinated, as if remaining both un-vaccinated[1] and mitigation of possible exposure is beyond their control.
(Nobody asked me but...) I would have worded it more like: "Does this mean that the un-vaccinated, hoping to parlay herd immunity into abdication of personal and societal responsibility, ended up playing themselves?"[2]
[1] I'm separating the legit medically immuno-compromised from voluntarily un-vaxxed.
[2] I'm in Texas and was fully vaccinated as early as possible with two kids that can't be vaccinated yet and am currently watching a surge drown our local hospitals so I'm super fucking jaded.
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210729/cdc-reverses-guidan...
> Even if they’re not showing symptoms, fully vaccinated people should “get tested 3-5 days after exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until they receive a negative test result,” the agency’s website says. The CDC previously said fully vaccinated people didn’t need testing after exposure unless they showed symptoms. “Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told The New York Times in an email. “Testing is widely available.”
Stanford University will test all students, including those who are vaccinated, https://twitter.com/stanforddaily/status/1425554996683149313
A subset of all populations globally, especially in young people, have already recovered from a Covid variant and have some natural immunity, which is sterilizing immunity (both upper respiratory system--since that is how they got naturally infected--and serum antibodies + T-cells). Governments have the option of performing national sero-surveys to statistically estimate the percentage who are already immune without a vaccine. Individuals who can afford to pay for testing can determine if they have natural immunity, including the newest FDA-EUA test for T-cells (costs $210 with blood draw, only in US for now), https://t-detect.com
That's a national policy thing; in Ireland, for instance, you can use the covid pass to go to a pub or restaurant, but if you're in an indoors public space you are still required to wear a mask. Same in France and Germany AIUI.
> There are new Covid vaccines in development which provide sterilizing immunity...
How far along are those and how long before they hit the shelf? I am guessing these can be self-administered?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/10/covid-intranasal-vaccine...
In theory, a vaccine delivered via inhaler requires little or no training for administration, so the supply chain would be simplified. Given the current focus on vaccine passports, governments will probably want an approved witness to the vaccine being administered, even if they could technically be self-administered.
That said, if the virus spreaded the same with the vaccine, the advantaged would be that the virus wouldn't have as much evolutionary pressure to change and become resistant. For example, it could make it harder for lambda variant, which might be symptomatic, to become prevalent