The Vaccine Thread

[Ausmumof3]

46 minutes ago, kand said:

Yay! This is totally off topic, but I was thinking this shortly ago when I read a post from you in the wedding planning thread, and I just wanted to say that I love your posts 😊. You are one of the most sincere posters here, and I love it. 

That was a good explainer. As an aside, I have been really impressed with a lot of the graphical explainers that have come out of various news organizations over the course of the pandemic. Really helpful in illustrating some complicated things in clear ways for the general public. 

I don’t know whether to like this or not. I’m glad you will be getting so much Pfizer, but I’m sorry you have to wait and that your borders will likely stay closed. 

Long term I am happier about the Pfizer.  Astra Zeneca doesn’t seem very effective against the variants and I was worried that we’d be in the same position in a few months if the South African or similar variant took off.  Hopefully in the long run this is a plus.  

[BeachGal]

There are so many misconceptions about the vaccines and Covid, even in MSM. The best thing to do is to seek out the individuals, such as virologists, who are able to accurately assess and comment.

Lo and behold, here is a Reddit AMA with Vincent Racaniello, the host of This Week in Virology (TWiV) and also professor at Columbia as well as author of a virology textbook. The link to the full Q&A is here.

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by BeachGal

[mommyoffive]

Pfizer (PFE), BioNTech (BNTX) Confirm Request to Regulatory Agencies to Expand Emergency Use of COVID-19 Vaccine to Adolescents (streetinsider.com)

US coronavirus: Pfizer asks FDA to allow Covid-19 vaccine for children 12 to 15 years old - CNN

[Penelope]

3 hours ago, BeachGal said:

Lo and behold, here is a Reddit AMA with Vincent Racaniello, the host of This Week in Virology (TWiV) and also professor at Columbia as well as author of a virology textbook. 

I love this podcast. I’ve listened to almost every episode since last January, as well as some episodes of the sister podcasts, especially Immune. Dr. R. also does some informative Q and A sessions that are only on YouTube, and Dr. Barker, a frequent TwiV host, has her immunology lectures posted on YouTube as well.
The podcasters are not infallible, but the shows are always interesting, and also good for rabbit-trailing off of for more info. 

[Melissa Louise]

15 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Long term I am happier about the Pfizer.  Astra Zeneca doesn’t seem very effective against the variants and I was worried that we’d be in the same position in a few months if the South African or similar variant took off.  Hopefully in the long run this is a plus.  

I would have waited for Pfizer. I'm really p***ed off about the whole thing. 

What we should do is ship everything AZ off to PNG, where the risk-benefit ratio is wildly in favour of vaccinating as many people as possible with any vaccine available now. 

[Not_a_Number]

The interesting thing with AstraZeneca is that it was clear they were messing with their data. I think I said something like "I don't really trust them" before this blood clot stuff came out. And that's because they were clearly not honest with their numbers!! Remember we had this conversation, @Corraleno? 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Ausmumof3]

36 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I would have waited for Pfizer. I'm really p***ed off about the whole thing. 

What we should do is ship everything AZ off to PNG, where the risk-benefit ratio is wildly in favour of vaccinating as many people as possible with any vaccine available now. 

Yes.  Pretty frustrating to have done the right thing and got vaccinated and then have this happen.  I guess the same issue applies to PNG but could at least vaccinate the over 40s there.  
 

I really wish the gov had not banked so hard on Astra Zeneca.  

Edited April 9, 2021 by Ausmumof3

[Ausmumof3]

35 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

The interesting thing with AstraZeneca is that it was clear they were messing with their data. I think I said something like "I don't really trust them" before this blood clot stuff came out. And that's because they were clearly not honest with their numbers!! Remember we had this conversation, @Corraleno? 

I remember 😂

I was the one like - oh well at least it seems like Astra Zeneca are being more transparent with their data 

[Penelope]

Quote

1. You have 20 minutes alone with the top few CDC or FDA people. What do you tell them?

Please stop saying the variants are more contagious/virulent. What is going on with antiviral development? Why didn't we have a rapid cheap antigen test earlier? What are you doing to respond to the next pandemic?

1. For Non-experts, how do we evaluate the veracity of a SARS-CoV-2 paper?

Very difficult. You can't just look at the journal anymore, even the 'best' ones publish garbage, especially in a pandemic. If you don't have training in the field it will be difficult. Send it to us on TWiV and ask us.

1. What studies have you not seen enough of for SARS-CoV-2?

Understanding how the virus causes disease, especially the inflammatory phase, and how to control it.

What studies make you say “why do they keep repeating this study?”

Studies of the ability of the virus to replicate in different 'organdies' which have little relevance to what happens in people. Studies of antibodies every month after infection.

1. Who have been your favorite voices during the pandemic?

Daniel Griffin, the TWiV team, Ralph Baric, Susan Weiss, Peter Daszak, Andrew Rambaut. No one from mainstream media.

1. Your least favorite?

Michael Osterholm, Peter Hotez, all the people on mainstream media and especially The NY Times which has made a mess of the pandemic.

1. Which do you think has better information regarding the virus and pandemic, Twitter or Reddit?

Reddit. Twitter is crap. A sewage pit.

1. Which variant or mutation is most worrying?

None so far. T cells will save us all.

1. Any idea how much virus it takes for an infectious dose?

I would bet 1000 infectious virus particles. But no one really knows.

1. “Keep hearing things about the new variants hitting younger people harder, and seeing it in the news. Are there any actual studies/evidence that younger people are being hospitalized/intubated/dying more, apart from just hearsay and anecdotes? How do they affect the IFR for younger people?”

The variants have no different behavior than do the ancestral viruses. They are simply in the right place at the right time.

Some notable responses from the Reddit, above.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Penelope

[Melissa Louise]

43 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

The interesting thing with AstraZeneca is that it was clear they were messing with their data. I think I said something like "I don't really trust them" before this blood clot stuff came out. And that's because they were clearly not honest with their numbers!! Remember we had this conversation, @Corraleno? 

Well, it wasn't clear to me. The onus shouldn't be on each individual to stay on top of the data, not least because plenty of people don't have the skills to do so. 

 

[Not_a_Number]

6 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Please stop saying the variants are more contagious/virulent. 

But he isn't saying that they aren't CURRENTLY more contagious. He's saying that the reason they are more contagious is because lots of people have immunity to the other strains. Which is probably true, but observationally, right now the variants are more contagious... it's just they may not be if the population had no exposure to any of them. 

 

8 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Michael Osterholm, Peter Hotez, all the people on mainstream media and especially The NY Times which has made a mess of the pandemic.

Yowza. That makes me wonder what kind of person he is. It is VERY combative to say stuff like that. People who are willing to say stuff like this out loud are not usually the easiest... 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Melissa Louise said:

Well, it wasn't clear to me. The onus shouldn't be on each individual to stay on top of the data, not least because plenty of people don't have the skills to do so. 

Oh, I wasn't saying that! And I would also imagine that overall, you should be happy to be vaccinated if you didn't have a side effect? I mean, it does make you immune to COVID, and the time for the side effect has passed, right? 

[Melissa Louise]

9 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Oh, I wasn't saying that! And I would also imagine that overall, you should be happy to be vaccinated if you didn't have a side effect? I mean, it does make you immune to COVID, and the time for the side effect has passed, right? 

No, not yet. Another week to go. 

In general, my trust in the approvals process has weakened, and I have less trust in efficacy against variants. 

[Ausmumof3]

10 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Oh, I wasn't saying that! And I would also imagine that overall, you should be happy to be vaccinated if you didn't have a side effect? I mean, it does make you immune to COVID, and the time for the side effect has passed, right? 

The side effect shows up between 4 and 20 days so I imagine Melissa will be feeling a little stressed during the waiting period.

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

No, not yet. Another week to go. 

In general, my trust in the approvals process has weakened, and I have less trust in efficacy against variants. 

Fingers crossed it doesn't show up. At least you'll know what to look for? 😞 

[Melissa Louise]

5 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Fingers crossed it doesn't show up. At least you'll know what to look for? 😞 

Yes, which was info NOT included on the post-vaccine fact sheet given out. I'm not worried for myself; I just don't like government incompetence.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Melissa Louise said:

Yes, which was info NOT included on the post-vaccine fact sheet given out. I'm not worried for myself; I just don't like government incompetence.

This is a rare side-effect and a new vaccine... I've had a lot of issues with government incompetence in the past year, but I'm not sure I think this one is that egregious -- just deeply unfortunate.

[Corraleno]

41 minutes ago, kand said:

What does he give as the reason that the vaccines have been less effective against some of the newer variants? If T cells are going to save us, why didn’t they? Or is he only looking at death as an outcome? 

That is my impression — basically he feels like as long as the vaccines result in t-cell response, they will still prevent most deaths. 

However "qualified" he may be, I'm seriously suspicious of any scientist claiming that everyone else is wrong, the research in scientific journals is "garbage," and people should ignore all those scientific papers and believe what he tells them in a reddit thread.

I will relink here four major studies, in Science, Nature, and the British Medical Journal, showing that B117 is both more contagious and more deadly. I don't understand how someone can dismiss these peer-reviewed studies, by scientists who are just as qualified as he is, as garbage and insist that it's totally coincidental that India and much of Europe are seeing big spikes as B117 takes hold. 

Large, matched cohort study published last month in BMJ found 64% higher death rate in those infected with B117:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n579.short

Separate study published in Nature showing 61% higher risk of death with B117:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03426-1

Study published in Science last month showing B117 is 43-90% more transmissible:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/03/science.abg3055

Study published in Nature showing B117 is 50-100% more transmissible:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03470-x

[TCB]

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

The interesting thing with AstraZeneca is that it was clear they were messing with their data. I think I said something like "I don't really trust them" before this blood clot stuff came out. And that's because they were clearly not honest with their numbers!! Remember we had this conversation, @Corraleno? 

Just be careful though. It kind of bothers me to hear this kind of stuff when some of us have family etc that have had that vaccine and some have had it themselves. You are really just speculating.

[Not_a_Number]

19 minutes ago, TCB said:

Just be careful though. It kind of bothers me to hear this kind of stuff when some of us have family etc that have had that vaccine and some have had it themselves. You are really just speculating.

Speculating about what? I'm not sure what you mean. There seems to be a very rare side effect of AstraZeneca that it's possible they weren't transparent about. It is so rare that I expect no one I know to be hurt by it, but I stand by my assessment that they were irresponsible with their data. 

[Not_a_Number]

29 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

However "qualified" he may be, I'm seriously suspicious of any scientist claiming that everyone else is wrong, the research in scientific journals is "garbage," and people should ignore all those scientific papers and believe what he tells them in a reddit thread.

Right, that makes me suspicious. If you're going to tell people that everyone else is an idiot, you're going to have to give some kind of reasoned argument, not just claim it. 

He sounds like he certainly knows what he's talking about when it comes to viruses, but being an expert in virology doesn't necessarily make him better at statistics. So I'd really need to hear more. 

[TCB]

4 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Speculating about what? I'm not sure what you mean. There seems to be a very rare side effect of AstraZeneca that it's possible they weren't transparent about. It is so rare that I expect no one I know to be hurt by it, but I stand by my assessment that they were irresponsible with their data. 

I think it is a leap to think they weren’t transparent about this possible side effect. It is so rare, if it is caused by it, that it was probably only apparent once millions of vaccines were given.

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, TCB said:

I think it is a leap to think they weren’t transparent about this possible side effect. It is so rare, if it is caused by it, that it was probably only apparent once millions of vaccines were given.

You're right that it's a leap. But I really prefer people to be honest with me about their data if I'm going to trust them with a new kind of vaccine. And they really did shade their data a surprising amount. It wouldn't surprise me if that also meant they weren't as careful as possible exploring possible adverse effects. 

It's possible it's just bad luck, of course. 

[Penelope]

3 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

But he isn't saying that they aren't CURRENTLY more contagious. He's saying that the reason they are more contagious is because lots of people have immunity to the other strains. Which is probably true, but observationally, right now the variants are more contagious... it's just they may not be if the population had no exposure to any of them. 

 

Yowza. That makes me wonder what kind of person he is. It is VERY combative to say stuff like that. People who are willing to say stuff like this out loud are not usually the easiest... 

Only quoting you here, but responding to all the posts on the Reddit quotes.

You all can go up and read the whole thing; someone else kindly linked it. I did pull out the more inflammatory remarks because I was surprised at the level of candor. 😅 I have to think the Peter Hotez mention was in the wrong category. They had him on as a guest, I thought they were friends. 
 

He is openly cranky. I think that context is needed. I share his disdain for a lot of the mainstream reporting, because I can see how much they get wrong or overstate just from the little I know. I imagine the people who have expertise and are trying to communicate more carefully about the science in their area of expertise are frustrated when people who are the “expert” in some other domain say all sorts of things that aren’t quite correct. Public health people complain about this, immunologists do, and doctors, etc., when people in the media spout off about things they do not really understand, or when reporters don’t understand and get things wrong. And there’s been a lot of it. I mean, when someone who is a non-clinician epidemiologist is going on about long Covid and the effects on the organs, for example, lacking any medical knowledge, that isn’t the best source. And when an epidemiologist who is not a virologist talks about the transmissibility of a variant, they are working outside of their wheelhouse. 

I’m sure some of you have different areas where you know a little or a lot more than average (not because you can Google a paper or read about something,  but some non-Covid thing, from pre-pandemic schooling or life) and you’ll read or hear something and think, well... kind of... or that it’s partly right, but not really. I think it’s like that, but a more curmudgeonly response. 😅

I think the thing with B117 and transmissibility is being a stickler for correct terminology, and being a stickler for science to be able to use certain terminology, because what he’s saying is that the experiments to prove that property that is meant by transmissibility, have NOT been done. He’s not the only one, so there’s that. I think the difference in science is the use of the word “likely”, or however they would characterize the likelihood, gets translated to the public as, its a 100% established fact.

 

[Not_a_Number]

10 minutes ago, Penelope said:

He is openly cranky. I think that context is needed. I share his disdain for a lot of the mainstream reporting, because I can see how much they get wrong or overstate just from the little I know. I imagine the people who have expertise and are trying to communicate more carefully about the science in their area of expertise are frustrated when people who are the “expert” in some other domain say all sorts of things that aren’t quite correct. Public health people complain about this, immunologists do, and doctors, etc., when people in the media spout off about things they do not really understand, or when reporters don’t understand and get things wrong.

I mean, in my experience, journalists don't know much science or math, and the reporting I've seen on math is a work of art in terms of how much it gets wrong. But he just dissed all of Twitter, and lots of perfectly respectable epidemiologists are on Twitter. Michael Osterholm is certainly a respected person, as far as I can tell, and not some random crank who works in a totally different area. 

 

10 minutes ago, Penelope said:

And when an epidemiologist who is not a virologist talks about the transmissibility of a variant, they are working outside of their wheelhouse. 

Are they? Why? There is lots of biology I don't understand and I don't try to pretend to be an authority on, but transmissibility seems much more like something that public health people would think about than virologists would. I'd expect virologists to work at the level of the cell and not at the level of the population. Why would they be better at figuring out statistics? 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, TCB said:

I think it is a leap to think they weren’t transparent about this possible side effect. It is so rare, if it is caused by it, that it was probably only apparent once millions of vaccines were given.

Yes, it’s only been the last two weeks that it’s been clear something was possibly wrong and only the last week they’ve been saying it’s definitely linked.   Which also makes me wonder something else?  How sure are they about the 20 day window?  Or is it just that so far it’s only been seen inside that window because the vaccine hasn’t been used for long.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Ausmumof3

[Penelope]

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

That is my impression — basically he feels like as long as the vaccines result in t-cell response, they will still prevent most deaths. 

However "qualified" he may be, I'm seriously suspicious of any scientist claiming that everyone else is wrong, the research in scientific journals is "garbage," and people should ignore all those scientific papers and believe what he tells them in a reddit thread.

I will relink here four major studies, in Science, Nature, and the British Medical Journal, showing that B117 is both more contagious and more deadly. I don't understand how someone can dismiss these peer-reviewed studies, by scientists who are just as qualified as he is, as garbage and insist that it's totally coincidental that India and much of Europe are seeing big spikes as B117 takes hold. 

 

Large, matched cohort study published last month in BMJ found 64% higher death rate in those infected with B117:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n579.short

Separate study published in Nature showing 61% higher risk of death with B117:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03426-1

Study published in Science last month showing B117 is 43-90% more transmissible:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/03/science.abg3055

Study published in Nature showing B117 is 50-100% more transmissible:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03470-x

Everyone who says our hope is in T cells might be wrong, but apparently that would fly against basic immunology, so I’m gonna go with the immunologists and virologists on this one. 

It’s not that no one cares about variants, but the answer is to get vaccinated. Not get vaccinated and stay away from people forever because you might still get infected with Covid. We don’t know about vaccination and long Covid. We don’t even know what long Covid is, because it is very vague and anything published on it so far pretty much stinks. Yeah, I sure hope that my vaccine will protect me from infection, too, or at least a bad or lingering one, but there are no guarantees for that, even with the wild-type variant. 

So what good does it do to worry about them and follow every up and down in the news, as though as consumers we can really get what’s going on? 

These news reports about B117 causing more terrible disease mainly in younger people, and P1, too, are unsubstantiated and serve to scare people. The virus is bad, but the news has been nothing but constantly scare everyone to keep them paying attention. We should pay attention, but a lot of the scary predictions just don’t come to pass. We forget about those, though. 

The four papers don’t add up to established fact; in fact, no one who knows what they are talking about has said that increased lethality is established fact. Of course, the opinion of a few virologists are not fact, either. But it’s not so clear-cut.

—

edit: I don’t read it as all of the literature is garbage, though it certainly was expressed in a curmudgeonly way. I understood it to mean there is a lot of poorly done research out there, and sometimes published very quickly which is unusual. I don’t like implications that people shouldn’t read things for themselves- clearly I like to do that, too. However, I get his point. I mean, anti vaxxers post real research, too. 
 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Penelope

[Ausmumof3]

Is this claim true?  This guy is local to me and was working on a vaccine himself so presumably he knows what he’s talking about but I also don’t think he’s scared of saying controversial stuff, rightly or wrongly. Is J&J only 60 pc effective?  

Edited April 10, 2021 by Ausmumof3

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

It’s not that no one cares about variants, but the answer is to get vaccinated. Not get vaccinated and stay away from people forever because you might still get infected with Covid. We don’t know about vaccination and long Covid. We don’t even know what long Covid is, because it is very vague and anything published on it so far pretty much stinks. 

Was someone suggesting getting vaccinated and staying away from people forever here?? 

The problem with long COVID seems to be that it's very widely varied and it doesn't show up on lots of tests. This is where I'm pretty happy to go with anecdotal data, frankly. There are boardies who report having issues since having COVID. More than one, in fact. I also know people who are still struggling in real life. 

I guess I could ignore that because the data isn't perfect, but what's the point? I gotta evaluate the evidence I've gathered as best as I can. 

 

4 minutes ago, Penelope said:

The four papers don’t add up to established fact; in fact, no one who knows what they are talking about has said that increased lethality is established fact.

I don't think there are "established facts" in this kind of situation. However, people who are claiming increased lethality at least have some data on their side. What do the people who say that there isn't increased lethality have? 

[Ausmumof3]

https://covariants.org/per-country
 

This site is good if people are interested in what’s happening with variants.  It doesn’t format perfectly in the phone and some of the data isn’t super accurate because it’s based on reports in the countries where it’s happening - some countries are doing very focused genomic testing where they suspect certain variants.  

[Ausmumof3]

Speaking of variants - pre print only so possibly flawed but possible evidence from Israel that Pfizer is a little less effective against the South African variant. 
 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.21254882v1

Here, we performed a case-control study that examined whether BNT162b2 vaccinees with documented SARS-CoV-2 infection were more likely to become infected with B.1.1.7 or B.1.351 compared with unvaccinated individuals. Vaccinees infected at least a week after the second dose were disproportionally infected with B.1.351 (odds ratio of 8:1). Those infected between two weeks after the first dose and one week after the second dose, were disproportionally infected by B.1.1.7 (odds ratio of 26:10), suggesting reduced vaccine effectiveness against both VOCs under different dosage/timing conditions. Nevertheless, the B.1.351 incidence in Israel to-date remains low and vaccine effectiveness remains high against B.1.1.7, among those fully vaccinated. These results overall suggest that vaccine breakthrough infection is more frequent with both VOCs, yet a combination of mass-vaccination with two doses coupled with non-pharmaceutical interventions control and contain their spread.

 

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Was someone suggesting getting vaccinated and staying away from people forever here?? 

The problem with long COVID seems to be that it's very widely varied and it doesn't show up on lots of tests. This is where I'm pretty happy to go with anecdotal data, frankly. There are boardies who report having issues since having COVID. More than one, in fact. I also know people who are still struggling in real life. 

I guess I could ignore that because the data isn't perfect, but what's the point? I gotta evaluate the evidence I've gathered as best as I can. 

 

I don't think there are "established facts" in this kind of situation. However, people who are claiming increased lethality at least have some data on their side. What do the people who say that there isn't increased lethality have? 

Literally forever? Likely not. 😄 
 

I wasn’t saying there’s no long Covid, just that we don’t understand it.  I’m just not sure that we know that most of us still won’t encounter the virus eventually, even with vaccination, though it is hopeful to think so. And I know some people are worried about a very mild asymptomatic infection developing into long Covid, which I think is a premature concern, and probably not something one can ultimately control. 
 

You’re right about lethality. I have no idea. If I had to guess I think they’d say, hard to separate lethality from how overwhelmed hospitals get in rising surge. I believe all but one of the mortality studies I saw were done in the U.K. Then they might say other things about methodology. I don’t know if there is contradictory data from other countries. 
So, it looks pretty convincing to me that the chance of death with this variant in the UK higher was higher during their surge. Hey, the director of the NIH says so, not going to sit here with the grumpy virologist and argue with him. 🙂 (though I think his gripe was more to do with the transmissible word)

But, you might be on shakier ground to say it’s some characteristic of the virus itself that makes it more lethal. Or that the outcome is likely to be worse if you get it, whoever and wherever you are. But thank God the vaccine is effective for that one. 

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Penelope

[Penelope]

54 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Speaking of variants - pre print only so possibly flawed but possible evidence from Israel that Pfizer is a little less effective against the South African variant. 
 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.21254882v1

 

 

Well that’s not great.

It was of samples from both asymptomatic and symptomatic, and nothing about how the people with the breakthrough infections fared. 
 

I wonder if there is a lot of testing of asymptomatic people in Israel. It won’t be too long before most of us in the US won’t ever know if we have an asymptomatic infection, because once vaccinated we don’t have to test when exposed. 

[SKL]

Question about scheduling.  How does the 2nd dose get scheduled if a person was a "walk in" for the first dose, i.e., came unscheduled to use up excess doses on a mass vax day?

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Is this claim true?  This guy is local to me and was working on a vaccine himself so presumably he knows what he’s talking about but I also don’t think he’s scared of saying controversial stuff, rightly or wrongly. Is J&J only 60 pc effective?  

66% with regional variation for symptomatic PCR+.
Much better than that for hospitalization, death, and even all-cause mortality.

Quote

Efficacy varied geographically and was highest in the United States (74.4%; 95% CI = 65.0%–81.6%), followed by Latin America (64.7%; 95% CI = 54.1%–73.0%) and South Africa (52.0%; 95% CI = 30.3%–67.4%). Regional differences in SARS-CoV-2 variants were noted; in South Africa, 94.5% of virus sequences from trial participants were from the B.1.351 lineage, whereas in Brazil, the P.2 lineage accounted for 69.4% of virus sequences.

Quote

overall, 31 COVID-19–associated hospitalizations were documented ≥14 days after vaccination, including 29 in the placebo group and two in the vaccine group (estimated efficacy = 93.1%; 95% CI = 71.1%–98.4%). No COVID-19–associated hospitalizations occurred ≥28 days after vaccination in the vaccine group, and 16 occurred in the placebo group (vaccine efficacy = 100%; 95% CI = 74.3%–100.0%). Vaccine efficacy against all-cause death was 75.0% (95% CI = 33.4%–90.6%). Seven COVID-19–associated deaths occurred, all in placebo recipients.

 

[Not_a_Number]

36 minutes ago, Penelope said:

 

I wasn’t saying there’s no long Covid, just that we don’t understand it.  I’m just not sure that we know that most of us still won’t encounter the virus eventually, even with vaccination, though it is hopeful to think so. And I know some people are worried about a very mild asymptomatic infection developing into long Covid, which I think is a premature concern, and probably not something one can ultimately control. 

I do tend to believe that T-cells post-vaccine ought to help there. Plus it might mutate into something that doesn’t cause long COVID... I really don’t know. At this point, I just want my family vaccinated and take things as they come.

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Penelope said:

Well that’s not great.

It was of samples from both asymptomatic and symptomatic, and nothing about how the people with the breakthrough infections fared. 
 

I wonder if there is a lot of testing of asymptomatic people in Israel. It won’t be too long before most of us in the US won’t ever know if we have an asymptomatic infection, because once vaccinated we don’t have to test when exposed. 

Yes it would be interesting to know if the people became as ill or if the vaccine reduce severity.  It seems like a pretty unformed paper - like they’re observing that there is a massive drop off of b1 but more of the South African variant and they are just putting it out there to draw attention to the fact that it needs monitoring.  
 

I guess it could mean one of three things

- random anomaly that happened

- vaccine protects fully against b1 but only against disease for the SA variant so the variant is transmitting to vaccinated people but not causing severe illness (not great but not the end of the world because vaccinated people are still somewhat protected)

-vaccine doesn’t protect as well against transmission or illness with SA variant - worst case scenario.  
 

It also seems like it was a little bit rushed given they didn’t wait the full two weeks after the second vaccine to check if things changed 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Ausmumof3

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Penelope said:

Literally forever? Likely not. 😄 
 

I wasn’t saying there’s no long Covid, just that we don’t understand it.  I’m just not sure that we know that most of us still won’t encounter the virus eventually, even with vaccination, though it is hopeful to think so. And I know some people are worried about a very mild asymptomatic infection developing into long Covid, which I think is a premature concern, and probably not something one can ultimately control. 
 

You’re right about lethality. I have no idea. If I had to guess I think they’d say, hard to separate lethality from how overwhelmed hospitals get in rising surge. I believe all but one of the mortality studies I saw were done in the U.K. Then they might say other things about methodology. I don’t know if there is contradictory data from other countries. 
So, it looks pretty convincing to me that the chance of death with this variant in the UK higher was higher during their surge. Hey, the director of the NIH says so, not going to sit here with the grumpy virologist and argue with him. 🙂 (though I think his gripe was more to do with the transmissible word)

But, you might be on shakier ground to say it’s some characteristic of the virus itself that makes it more lethal. Or that the outcome is likely to be worse if you get it, whoever and wherever you are. But thank God the vaccine is effective for that one. 

 

I think but it’s a while since I read it that there was a theory as to why the variant was more contagious - something to do with a modification to the spike protein.  If I find it I’ll post it.  It is convenient for the government in general to be able to blame a new variant instead of incompetence/inadequate control measures of course.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/australia-s-home-grown-vaccine-making-a-comeback-20210407-p57h7v
 

University of Queensland are going to restart work on the vaccine that causes false positives for HIV

[RootAnn]

8 hours ago, kand said:

. If a place gives you your first dose, you go back there for your second, even if you first was a walk up “extra”. 

I think this varies by area. Certainly not been true in my state. It has been a scramble for first shots & a fend-for-yourself for 2nd shots as well. I was given a card to remind me to go online & schedule my 2nd shot. I'm still unable to schedule get past the first page of the signup they directed me to & judging from the many comments on Facebook, I am not alone. Those who are using Walmart/CVS, etc. can, in some cases, schedule 2nd shots at the tine of firsts, but you don't have to return to the same location.

With my state's issues, I am likely going to try a retail pharmacy for my 2nd shot unless things improve.

I agree that many places schedule you for #2 before you leave from #1. Just not all.

[Kassia]

41 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

 I was given a card to remind me to go online & schedule my 2nd shot. I'm still unable to schedule get past the first page of the signup they directed me to & judging from the many comments on Facebook, I am not alone.

That's terrible!

[RootAnn]

Nah, just inconvenient, @Kassia. Eventually, they'll get their tech together.

[melmichigan]

15 hours ago, Penelope said:

These news reports about B117 causing more terrible disease mainly in younger people, and P1, too, are unsubstantiated and serve to scare people. The virus is bad, but the news has been nothing but constantly scare everyone to keep them paying attention. We should pay attention, but a lot of the scary predictions just don’t come to pass. We forget about those, though. 

You hit a sore spot, I really don't need reports.  Our local school moved most students virtual three weeks ago, with an attempt to keep the elementary open, they are now all closed until May, and will open only if our positivity comes way down.  Our hospitals are full locally, and filling again statewide, with much younger people (I've posted the statistics in the last two weeks so I won't repeat that), to the point that U of M and other hospitals have been forced to stop elective surgical procedures. 

This is my county, which remains the highest cases per capita, with a positivity of over 30%. We have predominantly B.1.1.7. community spread.

 

This was my state as B.1.1.7 has took hold last month.

This is now.

  
hospitalizations:

 

This was released yesterday: 

The following statement is made on behalf of chief medical officers of Michigan’s community hospitals.

The safe and highly effective COVID-19 vaccines continue to bring us hope. However, the current surge of cases in Michigan is troubling. While our healthcare workers are now safer because of vaccines and more personal protective equipment – and our facilities are safe for all who need care – we are concerned for our communities, including children, who are being infected with COVID-19 at all-time high rates. The variants are more contagious and deadly, infecting more adults and children, and bringing more young people into hospitals than ever. Daily pediatric COVID-19 admissions have increased by 237% since Feb. 19...

Edited April 10, 2021 by melmichigan
To clarify graph of hospitalizations

[Tanaqui]

Just a quick link to a survey on menstruation and the vaccines: https://redcap.healthinstitute.illinois.edu/surveys/index.php?s=LL8TKKC8DP

I know that this is a typically understudied area of medicine, so hopefully most of us will share data. You do not need to currently menstruate to answer the survey, you just need to have had at least one menstrual period in your life.

[Soror]

 

12 hours ago, SKL said:

Question about scheduling.  How does the 2nd dose get scheduled if a person was a "walk in" for the first dose, i.e., came unscheduled to use up excess doses on a mass vax day?

My son and I got left over vax at a mass vax site. We received an email around a week prior to the event for the 2nd dose. At the mass sites here they have an event then 3 wks later (for Pfizer) they come back and it is just for boosters then (or first shots if they have no shows).

[melmichigan]

29 minutes ago, kand said:

@melmichiganhow is vaccination going in your county?

We have 17% of the county fully vaccinated.  We have 30% with the first of a two shot series.  We have 59% of the 65+ and up vaccinated (have a large number of retirement and nursing homes).  Sadly, they can't give shots away now.  They had opened large venues to try and quickly vaccinate, as they opened shots to anyone, and they can't fill the spots, so they will be switching to local providers soon in an attempt to vaccinate more people.  They are even going door to door for shut-ins.  We have a big problem with vaccine hesitancy in this area, even before covid, so I doubt we'll ever see enough vaccinations to protect us as a community.

Edited April 10, 2021 by melmichigan

[Penelope]

14 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Are they? Why? There is lots of biology I don't understand and I don't try to pretend to be an authority on, but transmissibility seems much more like something that public health people would think about than virologists would. I'd expect virologists to work at the level of the cell and not at the level of the population. Why would they be better at figuring out statistics? 

His entire point has been that transmissibility is not something you confirm with statistics. It has a particular biological meaning and is not something one can determine definitely from epidemiological data, because there are other reasons why a particular variant could preferentially spread: population characteristics, fitness, stochasticity.

So he is not arguing that it hasn’t rapidly increased over the UK (though when it got to a certain level in UK, it has decreased in proportion and doesn’t reach 100%). But that it hasn’t spread this way in every place where it has come into a population. 

It’s also been pointed out that what we call the wild type is not the same variant that was in Wuhan, it’s the D-something variant (D614 I think?) A lot of people kept saying last year it must be more transmissible, but that turned out not to be the case. 
 

12 hours ago, Penelope said:

You’re right about lethality. I have no idea. If I had to guess I think they’d say, hard to separate lethality from how overwhelmed hospitals get in rising surge. I believe all but one of the mortality studies I saw were done in the U.K. Then they might say other things about methodology. I don’t know if there is contradictory data from other countries. 


 

Correction, all those that showed increased mortality were from the UK. A Public Health England report from December had initially showed no increased mortality. So what happened in between that and those other reports, just a lag, or something else.

One preprint study from Texas showed it did not. 

11 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I think but it’s a while since I read it that there was a theory as to why the variant was more contagious - something to do with a modification to the spike protein.  If I find it I’ll post it.  It is convenient for the government in general to be able to blame a new variant instead of incompetence/inadequate control measures of course.

Yes, there is biological plausibility, thanks for the reminder. 👍 I suppose it’s just that they don’t know until they do the experiments. 

30 minutes ago, melmichigan said:

 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Penelope said:

His entire point has been that transmissibility is not something you confirm with statistics. It has a particular biological meaning and is not something one can determine definitely from epidemiological data, because there are other reasons why a particular variant could preferentially spread: population characteristics, fitness, stochasticity.

What's the biological meaning of "transmissibility," then? As a total layman, to me, it sounds like something that has to do with how many people one infects on average. But I'll be happy to be wrong if someone tells me what it is and also why this different definition is more important than the one I've been using. 

[Penelope]

55 minutes ago, kand said:

eta: I went looking for information on exactly what the hospital situation in Michigan is right now, and it’s heartbreaking.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/2021/04/10/covid-19-capacity-michigan-hospitals/7160162002/
 

For people who don’t see the importance to reducing spread as much as possible and not allowing surges like this and don’t support vaccination, I challenge you to read that entire article.

Easier to quote this then melmichigan’s post to talk about Michigan.

If you read a percentage that sounds horrible, like 237% (from the other post) or 600%, you have to ask, up from what number? And what were the previous numbers, and what is the trend.

I am sorry that Michigan is having a harder time. I don’t want anyone to be sick with this nasty disease. 
 

But you can look at hospitalization numbers for yourself, here. https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html
Overall, they are at the levels they we’re back in  the summer. It  doesn’t look to me that they greatly increasing week over week, so the situation does not look (to me) as dire as the fall surge was. (And I sure hope I am not horribly wrong, for their sakes 😐). You can also see that just eyeballing it, it looks like there are proportionally more cases in the under 65s, which is what we would expect (yay, vaccines!). 
 

But that doesn’t include the under 18’s. It doesn’t look proportionally like they make up a whole lot more cases or more higher percentages than they have at other times. 
As cases go up, more kids in hospital, yes, and it’s terrible. Every single one is terrible. I am just not sure the news should say that things are so much worse for children than they had been. We just need to get people vaccinated. 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Penelope

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, melmichigan said:

We have 17% of the county fully vaccinated.  We have 30% with the first of a two shot series.  We have 59% of the 65+ and up vaccinated (have a large number of retirement and nursing homes).  Sadly, they can't give shots away now.  They had opened large venues to try and quickly vaccinate, as they opened shots to anyone, and they can't fill the spots, so they will be switching to local providers soon in an attempt to vaccinate more people.  They are even going door to door for shut-ins.  We have a big problem with vaccine hesitancy in this area, even before covid, so I doubt we'll ever see enough vaccinations to protect us as a community.

That’s a shame.

Do you get the sense vaccine hesitancy is a problem throughout the state, or do they have a supply or distribution problem in other areas, or is the trouble that they are having trouble getting them to those who need and want them in the harder hit areas?

I was thinking about the back and forth where the governor says they need more, faster, and some say more vaccine should be diverted to Michigan, but the feds say they aren’t going to, some say it might not be fast enough to make a difference anyway. It seems like common sense to send more there, but maybe logistics don’t make sense do that. 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Penelope