Sometimes this feels like a dress rehearsal for the flu that wipes out 99% of humanity, but, thankfully they're all alive and none was admitted to hospital.
Addressing a vitamin deficiency doesn't hurt, but it's taken a lot of data to figure out vitamin D's relevance to COVID. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8669943/#!po=1.... There are so many people with low vitamin D levels that it would be hard to blame any one outbreak on it.
It hasn't actually taken a lot of data it figure out vitamin D's relevance to COVID. While updated review articles are always appreciated, we had clear data from clinical studies over a year ago.
The last nail in the coffin for the argument of vaccinating young children. They have “statistical immunity” from covid itself and as this article shows, the notion that the vaccines significantly prevent transmission is fanciful at this point.
The only reason Covid vaccines for young children are seen as so important is the absurd politicisation. To be fair, they're not harmful on balance - they just don't seem to have much benefit that justifies them. The UK government actually failed to convince the independent vaccine advisory board here to support them even for over-12s for that reason, and ended up just ignoring their advice and going ahead anyway for essentially political reasons.
Parts of the media were pushing the idea that the government was incompetent and dragging their feet for not doing it, including I think even the BBC, and there seems to be a reasonably large chunk of parents that think not doing so was massively harming their kids due to wildly wrong estimates of how much risk Covid poses to them. Also, a bit of the usual need to be seen to be doing something on top. Normal boring stuff - no 5G implants or secret kickbacks from big pharma in sight.
These are not political reasons for 'pushing' the vaccine. They are reactions to the government being held back (by political/ideological reasons) from pushing the vaccine.
Studies have indicated a positive health benefit for children, so let's get on with it. No politics needed to make that judgement.
For the sake of factual accuracy, the vaccine being “completely safe” for children should be rephrased “short term side effects outweighed by risks associated with the disease; medium and long term cost/benefit unknown.”
Either way bunk without a source, is it even true for all ages that short term side effects are outweighed by the disease? Is it still true if stratified further by known comorbidities/autoimmune issues?
That is misinformation. While the vaccines are generally safe and effective, they are not "completely" safe. There is a small but real risk of serious side effects, particularly myocarditis which has mainly affected young males. The risks from not getting vaccinated are still higher, but let's be straight with parents about the safety profile.
“Caution: Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.”
Yes? I don't know what you're referring to by "the news media it specifically mentions" but speaking as someone who doesn't have a dog in this fight, but who does actually want to know what's going on, it seems (to me) worth knowing that the paper being held forth as evidence that the vaccine is dangerous carries the disclaimer that it's a pre-print, not peer reviewed, and should not be used to guide health-related behavior. Is the vaccine dangerous? I would like to know! Is this paper strong evidence that the vaccine is dangerous? It is not convincing to me in its current state, though maybe it will go on to be proven a valid and important piece of work.
If your point is that there is a lot of low-quality media out there, then I agree. My sense is that we should increase, not decrease, our skepticism in response.
> That is misinformation. While the vaccines are generally safe and effective, they are not "completely" safe. There is a small but real risk of serious side effects, particularly myocarditis which has mainly affected young males.
You should note the preprint you've quoted refers to a study covering "people aged 13 or more". Therefore, I'm not sure it's relevant to any claim on the risk to "youh children", given the youngest are already teenagers.
It’s all about probabilities. Vaccinated people have less of a viral load and infect fewer people. It’s never all or nothing. Reducing the r-value even by just 0.1 compounds in huge returns in exponential growth scenarios.
I can see that in theory, but when you look at the cases curve in the US pre and post-vaccination you can't really tell there has been a "huge" effect, I would even call that a failure, frankly if we had given everybody enough vitamin D to fix the significant average deficiencies, that would have a much more dramatic effect on reducing infection and spread. Maybe we could even have a vitamin D pass :P...
You’re not seeing how the delta variant would have spread in a fully unvaccinated population. Notice how the original variant and the more infectious alpha variant failed to thrive post-vaccine. There was some competition effect from delta but it isn’t as if one variant directly suppresses another. Delta would have ravaged the country without vaccination reducing its rate of spread.
It does seem better, but can we know for sure to what this can be attributed? Usually places that had an easier time in 2020 got worse this year, and vice-versa, which makes sense...
"Do not prevent spreading" suggests a kind of black-and-white perspective. This is not about fully preventing, it's about reducing the risk. Vaccines substantially reduce the risk of spreading or catching Covid.
Isn't without vaccines the death rate from Covid is around 4%? I read earlier 80% of unvaccinated in 2018-2020 stage, won't even show much symptoms. Singapore even gone thru extensive testing and their death rate was very low well below 1% and this was before availability of vaccines. So reducing the risk of that 4% chunk isn't significant.
The death rate is nowhere near 4%. The CDC estimated the infection fatality rate in the US at 0.6% back when almost no one was vaccinated. The vaccines and other improved treatments have now cut that risk way down.
Yes and the CFR in people 20 - 30 appears to be about 0.01% (very roughly).
Obviously some subpopulations are more or less vulnerable. Averaged over the whole population it generally comes to somewhat under 1%.
Check out the CFR for RSV (a common cold virus) or influenza in people over 80. Viruses that almost never incapacitate let alone kill healthy younger adults can often kill the medically weak.
Vaccines do not entirely prevent spreading. But nothing does.
Vaccines are not entirely useless to prevent spreading. It's one of the few measures that has an effect. Less so with Omicron, to be sure.
Would you say "When wearing a bulletproof vest, you can still be shot in the arm or head, so bulletproof vests do not prevent injury" (and might as well not wear one when in a dangerous situation)
Medicine is not Boolean logic, none of this is binary, all or nothing. We need risk reduction, not sweeping reductive statements.
Viral load is not the only factor; there is also a) how long that infectious viral load is present for, and b) chance of getting infected with that viral load in the first place.
No analogy is perfect, but I think that this one is instructive, as it breaks the binary logic.
The statement "vaccines don't prevent..." conflates two very different statements, i.e. "vaccines don't prevent all occurrence of $outcome" (which is often true but not the point) and "vaccines don't have any impact on $outcome, prevent any occurrences of $outcome" (which is false, but is often implied).
It's clear that COVID-19-Omicron is infectious to a crazy degree, but that's a different statement to "this defensive measure does nothing".
Only after they get a breakthrough infection, which is still presumably less likely when vaccinated. That still works very nicely with the bulletproof vest analogy.
That is not the correct definition of a vaccine. Nobody would say that about a polio or diphtheria vaccine. COVID shots should NEVER have been called a vaccine.
They are instead similar to seasonal flu shots. Flu shots do not prevent spreading, their main advantage is reduce hospitalization and death.
Cancer immunotherapy candidates have been referred to as cancer vaccines for a long time without controversy, and they are generally not intended to prevent cancers. They are medicines that work via an immune response.
Sure, public health communication could use some improvement, but arguing over the definition “vaccine” I think is not productive
Ask someone why they'd support mandatory vaccination and generally you will hear: to stop unvaccinated people from spreading the disease. Definitions do matter here. Governments are leaning heavily on this misunderstanding.
I agree that definitions matter, and it’s important to have a clear discourse on policy implications of public health research.
But my point is that it’s incorrect to call the current Covid vaccines “not vaccines” just because they don’t 100% prevent transmission or infection. That’s only muddying the waters at the expense of a real discussion of the evidence and trade offs for any given policy position.
> I agree that definitions matter, and it’s important to have a clear discourse on policy implications of public health research.
And yet, you insist on using "vaccine" to push mandates, knowing that most people think you're promising that that said "vaccine" will keep people from spreading covid, knowing full well that it doesn't.
Where am I pushing mandates? I think there are valid policy positions on both sides of the issue, and that you’re misrepresenting the logic of those who still are in favor of vaccine mandates.
You also haven’t offered any substantive counterpoint to my main point, which is that the widely accepted definition of vaccines is broadly consistent with the current coronavirus vaccines. The scare quotes aren’t necessary and detract from a reasonable discussion of their actual utility and tradeoffs
They're not scare quotes. I'm writing about word choice, so it's appropriate to use delimiters to make it clear exactly what word I'm writing about.
Most people think that "vaccine" has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people.
Ok, sorry if I misinterpreted your punctuation, the last instance is what read like scare quotes to me; maybe `backtick` is a better delimiter for this case
> Most people think that `vaccine` has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people.
I disagree that it’s dishonest, it’s the correct term.
I agree that if most people have a misunderstanding of what constitutes a vaccine, then failing to address that is going to lead to suboptimal public health communication.
I take your point, but by correct I meant “consistent with the established definition,” which was the original context we started in
Like I said, maybe it’s not the optimal term to use in public health communications, and that could be because of dishonesty, but it could also be due to ineptitude or just failure to appreciate a widespread misunderstanding
It's not the "established" definition with the target audience. Your argument is basically "I don't speak Spanish, so I'll talk louder and add a long 'o" at the end of words when talking to someone who only speaks Spanish."
It's hard to find a public health organization that doesn't say that communicating with the public is a key goal and core competency.
So, are they:
[1] Incompetent
[2] Using a different definition of "goal", "communicating", "core competency", etc?
[3] ????
Note that communications isn't the only problem.
One of the arguments for [1] is that the public health folk have long said "hey, we're necessary to avoid a repeat of the Spanish Flu." yet they were largely unprepared. (Then again, flu kills 30-80k Americans every year and most of the good transmission research was done in the late 40s...)
I think I agree, that these are definitely vaccines even according to traditional definitions, but the etymology is unduly impacting real world understanding IMO. To be clear, I did not put my point to refute yours but to perhaps add an additional perpendicular view on the subject of how we are talking about these things and how selective misunderstanding is allowed to persist.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I do agree that the public discourse has not been very productive, and the news coverage has been overconfident and one-sided in one way or another, especially around omicron lately.
Immunity: Protection from an infectious disease. If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected. Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease
I'm not sure you hit an eventual consistency thing while you read the source you cited, but the definition of a vaccine in it does not match your definition.
A vaccine, according to the CDC source you quoted, is:
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. (...)
Keep in mind that your personal definition of a vaccine does not match how most vaccines work, if any vaccine at all.
From the CDC: Vaccine = "Produce immunity". Immunity = "you can be exposed to it without becoming infected" It's right there. This definition, and the most common understanding is that a vaccine means "without being infected".
Not in this case. The covid vaccines just turned the vaccinated into asymptomatic delta superspreaders. There was no likely endgame where we reach herd immunity with the current vaccines.
The study refers to a private social event attended by 33 participants comprised of triple-vaccinated healthcare workers, where 21 triple-vaccinated attendees contracted COVID.
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[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadSo it's like a dress rehearsal?
https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/
(apart from implanting 5G of course)
Studies have indicated a positive health benefit for children, so let's get on with it. No politics needed to make that judgement.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.23.21268276v...
“Caution: Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.”
If your point is that there is a lot of low-quality media out there, then I agree. My sense is that we should increase, not decrease, our skepticism in response.
You should note the preprint you've quoted refers to a study covering "people aged 13 or more". Therefore, I'm not sure it's relevant to any claim on the risk to "youh children", given the youngest are already teenagers.
There are afaik no contraindications for children with the vaccine, so why not vaccinate them?
https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/120-children-hospitalized-...
They are even thinking about using that specific batch for adults.
It does seem better, but can we know for sure to what this can be attributed? Usually places that had an easier time in 2020 got worse this year, and vice-versa, which makes sense...
A better comparison would be Bulgaria to Portugal.
Bulgaria looks like reporting is not reliable: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...
https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/covid-19/news/viral-loads-sim...
Do you have other references?
Second, fewer vaccinated people have breakthrough infections in the first place, so overall spread is lowered because of vaccinations.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-less-l...
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
Your own source shows quite clearly that the estimated death rate for >65yo lies between 3.8% and 4.0%.
The >65yo cohort is both the one reporting the lowest number of total infections (~18M) and the highest death count (~700k).
Check out the CFR for RSV (a common cold virus) or influenza in people over 80. Viruses that almost never incapacitate let alone kill healthy younger adults can often kill the medically weak.
...said the person who hasn't died of COVID.
Meanwhile, those who died from COVID typically undergo an excruciating death.
https://www.vox.com/2021/2/20/22280817/covid-19-deaths-us-nu...
Vaccines do not entirely prevent spreading. But nothing does.
Vaccines are not entirely useless to prevent spreading. It's one of the few measures that has an effect. Less so with Omicron, to be sure.
Would you say "When wearing a bulletproof vest, you can still be shot in the arm or head, so bulletproof vests do not prevent injury" (and might as well not wear one when in a dangerous situation)
Medicine is not Boolean logic, none of this is binary, all or nothing. We need risk reduction, not sweeping reductive statements.
Vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads in communities with a high prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.31.21261387v...
No Significant Difference in Viral Load Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Groups Infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v...
No analogy is perfect, but I think that this one is instructive, as it breaks the binary logic.
The statement "vaccines don't prevent..." conflates two very different statements, i.e. "vaccines don't prevent all occurrence of $outcome" (which is often true but not the point) and "vaccines don't have any impact on $outcome, prevent any occurrences of $outcome" (which is false, but is often implied).
It's clear that COVID-19-Omicron is infectious to a crazy degree, but that's a different statement to "this defensive measure does nothing".
They are instead similar to seasonal flu shots. Flu shots do not prevent spreading, their main advantage is reduce hospitalization and death.
Sure, public health communication could use some improvement, but arguing over the definition “vaccine” I think is not productive
But my point is that it’s incorrect to call the current Covid vaccines “not vaccines” just because they don’t 100% prevent transmission or infection. That’s only muddying the waters at the expense of a real discussion of the evidence and trade offs for any given policy position.
See pre-pandemic wiki, for example: https://web.archive.org/web/20170403082447/https://en.m.wiki...
And yet, you insist on using "vaccine" to push mandates, knowing that most people think you're promising that that said "vaccine" will keep people from spreading covid, knowing full well that it doesn't.
You also haven’t offered any substantive counterpoint to my main point, which is that the widely accepted definition of vaccines is broadly consistent with the current coronavirus vaccines. The scare quotes aren’t necessary and detract from a reasonable discussion of their actual utility and tradeoffs
Most people think that "vaccine" has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people.
> Most people think that `vaccine` has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people.
I disagree that it’s dishonest, it’s the correct term.
I agree that if most people have a misunderstanding of what constitutes a vaccine, then failing to address that is going to lead to suboptimal public health communication.
It's dishonest because they think that you're promising something that they're not going to get AND you know it.
Like I said, maybe it’s not the optimal term to use in public health communications, and that could be because of dishonesty, but it could also be due to ineptitude or just failure to appreciate a widespread misunderstanding
It's hard to find a public health organization that doesn't say that communicating with the public is a key goal and core competency.
So, are they: [1] Incompetent [2] Using a different definition of "goal", "communicating", "core competency", etc? [3] ????
Note that communications isn't the only problem.
One of the arguments for [1] is that the public health folk have long said "hey, we're necessary to avoid a repeat of the Spanish Flu." yet they were largely unprepared. (Then again, flu kills 30-80k Americans every year and most of the good transmission research was done in the late 40s...)
"Flu shots", aka seasonal flu vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/keyfacts.htm
It seems that your personal belief of what a vaccine is does not match the real concept of what a vaccine is and always was.
Immunity: Protection from an infectious disease. If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected. Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease
I'm not sure you hit an eventual consistency thing while you read the source you cited, but the definition of a vaccine in it does not match your definition.
A vaccine, according to the CDC source you quoted, is:
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. (...)
Keep in mind that your personal definition of a vaccine does not match how most vaccines work, if any vaccine at all.
The current COVID vaccine is not effective at preventing the spread of Omicron, specifically.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine
https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
Wikipedia defines a super spreading event as an event where an infectious disease spreads much more than usual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superspreading_event
The study refers to a private social event attended by 33 participants comprised of triple-vaccinated healthcare workers, where 21 triple-vaccinated attendees contracted COVID.