The Vaccine Thread

[Matryoshka]

16 minutes ago, Penelope said:

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!). 
 

You can't take a national chart (the one you linked) and say that is in any way representative of the situation in Michigan, which was the subject at hand. Did you eyeball the chart Mel sent along with the other stuff you quoted.  You say things are at the same level as last summer,  but a quick glance at this chart shows that they were running around .5 K cases and now they're at over 3.5, which is about the same as the peak surge last winter, and we don't know yet if this is a new peak or if it could keep going up.

 

Okay, that's just cases, you say, what about hospitalizations?  Here ya go: 

Nope, not at all like last summer.  Like last WINTER, getting close to that surge's peak.  

Edited April 10, 2021 by Matryoshka

[frogger]

9 minutes ago, Penelope said:

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. 

It sounds like the problem is no longer supply but demand, unless I misread something. Diverting more supply to people who won't take it doesn't help. 

 

Edited to say, that is just what I have read here and in the links and articles.

Edited April 10, 2021 by frogger

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

You can't take a national chart (the one you linked) and say that is in any way representative of the situation in Michigan, which was the subject at hand. Did you eyeball the chart Mel sent along with the other stuff you quoted.  You say things are at the same level as last summer,  but a quick glance at this chart shows that they were running around .5 K cases and now they're at over 3.5, which is about the same as the peak surge last winter, and we don't know yet if this is a new peak or if it could keep going up.

 

Okay, that's just cases, you say, what about hospitalizations?  Here ya go: 

Nope, not at all like last summer.  Like last WINTER, getting close to that surge's peak.  

 

Thanks. I didn't have the energy to post links, but the national chart has literally nothing to do with what's being talked about. As you say, the Michigan situation doesn't look good. 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, frogger said:

It sounds like the problem is no longer supply but demand, unless I misread something. Diverting more supply to people who won't take it doesn't help. 

And I assume demand is split up along political lines, which of course are currently also the rural/urban lines. Which sucks, since it means there will be geographically contiguous pockets where the virus can proliferate 😞 . 

[melmichigan]

I included the state hospitalization graph above, which looks very different.  My local hospitals were never at 43% covid cases before.  

This was the state demographics over 1,000 hospitalization ago (less than a week ago in time), it has since worsened for the younger age groups because they tend to wait longer to seek medical care and arrive much sicker than the older population, and isn't representative to my county, which is even more disproportionately younger.

 

 

 

I don't want to seem like I'm singling you out @Penelopebut the constant disregard for the differences in the B.1.1.7 is playing out in my community in very tragic ways.

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by melmichigan

[kokotg]

3 minutes ago, frogger said:

It sounds like the problem is no longer supply but demand, unless I misread something. Diverting more supply to people who won't take it doesn't help. 

Yes, and....then what? I see a certain contingent on Twitter (Nate Silver, et. al.) who think the vaccines are being seriously undersold, and we need to tell people get vaccinated, and you can do whatever you want. And along with that there's an attitude that your personal responsibility is to get yourself vaccinated, and then, once everyone who wants a vaccine has had a chance to get one, they're on their own if they choose not to. But there are some big problems with that--kids can't get vaccinated yet, for one thing. And maybe the bigger issue is that the more covid keeps circulating, the bigger chance for mutations that evade our current vaccines. So, yeah, I personally will behave differently because I'm vaccinated, and I'm super grateful that the vaccines are as good as they are, but even if I want to write off the vaccine hesitant as not my problem (which I don't, especially)....I don't think it's that simple. And I don't think we've done much yet to deal with the problem of vaccine resistance (which makes sense; the focus has been on getting the vaccine to everyone who DOES want it...but we're going to have to do it soon)

[melmichigan]

13 minutes ago, frogger said:

It sounds like the problem is no longer supply but demand, unless I misread something. Diverting more supply to people who won't take it doesn't help. 

 

Edited to say, that is just what I have read here and in the links and articles.

The state as a whole is still very much in need of more vaccines.  My area of the state is an exception when it comes to vaccines.

[Not_a_Number]

14 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Yes, and....then what? I see a certain contingent on Twitter (Nate Silver, et. al.) who think the vaccines are being seriously undersold, and we need to tell people get vaccinated, and you can do whatever you want.

Yeah, I dunno about that. It's possible we're underselling, but the people who are hesitant are also largely the people who've decided COVID is a hoax, anyway... 

[frogger]

3 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Yes, and....then what? I see a certain contingent on Twitter (Nate Silver, et. al.) who think the vaccines are being seriously undersold, and we need to tell people get vaccinated, and you can do whatever you want. And along with that there's an attitude that your personal responsibility is to get yourself vaccinated, and then, once everyone who wants a vaccine has had a chance to get one, they're on their own if they choose not to. But there are some big problems with that--kids can't get vaccinated yet, for one thing. And maybe the bigger issue is that the more covid keeps circulating, the bigger chance for mutations that evade our current vaccines. So, yeah, I personally will behave differently because I'm vaccinated, and I'm super grateful that the vaccines are as good as they are, but even if I want to write off the vaccine hesitant as not my problem (which I don't, especially)....I don't think it's that simple. And I don't think we've done much yet to deal with the problem of vaccine resistance (which makes sense; the focus has been on getting the vaccine to everyone who DOES want it...but we're going to have to do it soon)

I'm not sure if this is rhetorical or not. I don't know. I think I managed to get one other person to vaccinate but you don't do it by arguing but rather influencing. Arguing just makes people dig in. 

Michigan was a little slow to just open it up to everyone 16+ but I see they have no so that should help them vaccinate to overall herd faster leaving the skeptics time to wait and see or be influenced. Even if they never change their mind overall spread should be reduced if more people get vaccinated. 

Controlling people is impossible whether it's illegal drugs or vaccines or whatever. The question is how do we encourage a society that actually cares about community, evaluates arguments, and over all just wants to be helpful. This applies to so many problems we have in our society.

[kokotg]

1 minute ago, frogger said:

I'm not sure if this is rhetorical or not. I don't know. I think I managed to get one other person to vaccinate but you don't do it by arguing but rather influencing. Arguing just makes people dig in. 

 

It wasn't rhetorical, but it wasn't something I expected you in particular to answer 🙂 More like, "yes, I agree that this thing you've identified is a problem. Now what do we collectively as a society do about it?" And....I don't know either.

[wathe]

1 hour ago, melmichigan said:

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.

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...

Here too.

Covid ICU numbers are already hundreds higher than they were at the height of the last peak (572 today, vs 410 at peak of last wave), case numbers are higher, and the slope of our curve us ugly-steep.  We are in a stay-at-home order that just started 3 days a go.  Hospitals were all ordered to cancel elective procedures as of yesterday to make capacity, and the province just issued orders allowing for hospital transfers without consent, and allowing community HCW to be deployed to hospitals.

The Toronto pediatric tertiary care centre (Hospital for Sick Children) has opened its ICU to adults.  ICU patients are being transfered further and further away as each region in the province goes over-capacity. My local  hospital  is expanding its ICU by taking over CCU and cath lab beds.  Our parking lot field hospital is in use.

This is all due to variants, primarily B117 in my area (greater than two thirds of cases).

And our premier has this to say:  "Look around the world, Ontario is doing pretty well right now," Ford said, despite both case counts and ICU admissions surging in the province."Let's stay positive," he said. "We're going to get through it. I understand everyone gets frustrated throughout this pandemic, but we are well ahead of a lot of places around the world, because of the people here in Ontario."  

He is clearly not my favourite person this week.

Nationally, its the same story, "The rapid spread of more contagious coronavirus variants across Canada is driving a devastating third wave in much of the country and increasing the level of risk in situations previously thought to be relatively safe from COVID-19.".

 

[kokotg]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, I dunno about that. It's possible we're underselling, but the people who are hesitant are also largely the people who've decided COVID is a hoax, anyway... 

I'm generally a Nate Silver apologist, but I haven't been a fan of some of his covid takes. 

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, wathe said:

And our premier has this to say:  "Look around the world, Ontario is doing pretty well right now," Ford said, despite both case counts and ICU admissions surging in the province."Let's stay positive," he said. "We're going to get through it. I understand everyone gets frustrated throughout this pandemic, but we are well ahead of a lot of places around the world, because of the people here in Ontario."  

He is clearly not my favourite person this week.

He's not my favorite person any week 😛 . 

[wathe]

Just now, Not_a_Number said:

He's not my favorite person any week 😛 . 

Truth.

[wathe]

Provincially, we are at about 2% fully vaccinated and about 18% have had their first shot.  We desperately need supply.  The forecast is that all adults who want to be vaccinated will have the opportunity by July.  (Were now booking 60+ year-olds, with all appointments filled to April 18th.)

Edited April 10, 2021 by wathe

[1234]

Nm, saw it already  asked and answered.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Joker2

[melmichigan]

22 minutes ago, wathe said:

Here too.

Covid ICU numbers are already hundreds higher than they were at the height of the last peak (572 today, vs 410 at peak of last wave), case numbers are higher, and the slope of our curve us ugly-steep.  We are in a stay-at-home order that just started 3 days a go.  Hospitals were all ordered to cancel elective procedures as of yesterday to make capacity, and the province just issued orders allowing for hospital transfers without consent, and allowing community HCW to be deployed to hospitals.

The Toronto pediatric tertiary care centre (Hospital for Sick Children) has opened its ICU to adults.  ICU patients are being transfered further and further away as each region in the province goes over-capacity. My local  hospital  is expanding its ICU by taking over CCU and cath lab beds.  Our parking lot field hospital is in use.

This is all due to variants, primarily B117 in my area (greater than two thirds of cases).

And our premier has this to say:  "Look around the world, Ontario is doing pretty well right now," Ford said, despite both case counts and ICU admissions surging in the province."Let's stay positive," he said. "We're going to get through it. I understand everyone gets frustrated throughout this pandemic, but we are well ahead of a lot of places around the world, because of the people here in Ontario."  

He is clearly not my favourite person this week.

Nationally, its the same story, "The rapid spread of more contagious coronavirus variants across Canada is driving a devastating third wave in much of the country and increasing the level of risk in situations previously thought to be relatively safe from COVID-19.".

 

Your graphs look very similar to ours. It’s hard to ignore the trend we are seeing with B.1.1.7.  I’m glad you have stay at home orders. The local health department was able to convince school boards to close our schools, and the governor has asked for voluntary action.

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by melmichigan

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, Matryoshka said:

You can't take a national chart (the one you linked) and say that is in any way representative of the situation in Michigan, which was the subject at hand. Did you eyeball the chart Mel sent along with the other stuff you quoted.  You say things are at the same level as last summer,  but a quick glance at this chart shows that they were running around .5 K cases and now they're at over 3.5, which is about the same as the peak surge last winter, and we don't know yet if this is a new peak or if it could keep going up.

 

Okay, that's just cases, you say, what about hospitalizations?  Here ya go: 

Nope, not at all like last summer.  Like last WINTER, getting close to that surge's peak.  

I tried to link Michigan but no matter what I link, the link goes right back to US as a whole. 
You’re right that I then also looked at the US chart when I said about last summer. My bad.

(I really don’t need a pile-on though. 🙄)

What I said about pediatric hospitalization still seems right, from what I am looking at.

The hospitalization graph I am looking at from the link I gave, yes only from Michigan, doesn’t at all look like your screenshots, though, where the peak is almost as high as the last surge, and it’s up to date through one week. 🤔 Either something is very different with the two scales, or the state data is just more complete (and I’m assuming what you posted from the state is more up to dare than the CDC/HHS). Take a look if you like. I don’t know how to post screenshots and I can’t see the scale on yours. 

—Edit- sorry, @melmichigan, I posted looking at CDC but I now see the data from Michigan has caveats “The rates provided are likely to be underestimated as COVID-19 hospitalizations might be missed” and is from surveillance sites so maybe that’s why it doesn’t look right. I should just stick to the NYTimes graphs, they seem the clearest since Covid Tracking Project is no more.———

And yes, I was only looking at hospitalizations because I don’t know how well cases will be linked to hospitalizations anymore, with vaccination+prior infection. Hospitalizations per case have decreased, is my understanding.

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

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. 

https://www.virology.ws/2021/01/28/sars-cov-2-variants-of-concern/
 

I doubt the current popular use will change, but I think it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Penelope

[SKL]

So in my county, there have been free mass vax sites in the middle of the low-income, minority communities for weeks now.  The stats so far indicate that despite the high awareness and ease of physical access, the % of minority users is very small.

I asked about the biggest one, whether it required pre-registration or you could walk in, and I was told you had to register online.  I suspect that may be a barrier for some.  They should probably allow walk-ins; maybe they will start doing that.  (They do allow walk-ins in some of the locations.)

What other thoughts do you all have about why minorities, who are statistically at more risk from Covid, would not be flocking for these free, easy to access vax locations?

(In case you think it is political, I doubt that, as these are very blue zip codes.)

[Tanaqui]

SKL, the online registration probably is a problem.

Is there a wait or a risk of one?

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Penelope said:

https://www.virology.ws/2021/01/28/sars-cov-2-variants-of-concern/
 

I doubt the current popular use will change, but I think it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.

I don't see a definition. Could you please just tell me what definition you're using, if any? I'm not seeing anything here that's different than common usage, but maybe I'm missing it. 

[SKL]

1 minute ago, Tanaqui said:

SKL, the online registration probably is a problem.

Is there a wait or a risk of one?

Based on what I've been told, these are very efficient and quick.

[Penelope]

8 minutes ago, SKL said:

So in my county, there have been free mass vax sites in the middle of the low-income, minority communities for weeks now.  The stats so far indicate that despite the high awareness and ease of physical access, the % of minority users is very small.

I asked about the biggest one, whether it required pre-registration or you could walk in, and I was told you had to register online.  I suspect that may be a barrier for some.  They should probably allow walk-ins; maybe they will start doing that.  (They do allow walk-ins in some of the locations.)

What other thoughts do you all have about why minorities, who are statistically at more risk from Covid, would not be flocking for these free, easy to access vax locations?

(In case you think it is political, I doubt that, as these are very blue zip codes.)

Me, too. All of this. Blue as well. 
 

I hope someone with some power and know-how is asking people and getting a sense of why this is, to figure out how to address it.

One thing I wonder about is with 30% or so infected overall, and many more than that in some minority communities, that they figure they already had it or were exposed and did not catch it, and don’t need a vaccine. But someone surely has delved into it. Could be so many reasons, some having to do with racism and distrust. 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Penelope

[Penelope]

4 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I don't see a definition. Could you please just tell me what definition you're using, if any? I'm not seeing anything here that's different than common usage, but maybe I'm missing it. 

Paragraph 3? It’s not my argument. I’m not a virologist. 😉

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, SKL said:

What other thoughts do you all have about why minorities, who are statistically at more risk from Covid, would not be flocking for these free, easy to access vax locations?

I assume generic mistrust of government combined with a lack of education and good sources? It's not super surprising. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

Paragraph 3? It’s not my argument. I’m not a virologist. 😉

This??? 

"The virological definition of transmission is the movement of viruses from one host to another. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, such transmission occurs when infectious virus particles are exhaled within respiratory droplets and arrive in another host, where they initiate infection." 

Well, that's singularly uninformative. And it's a definition of transmission, not transmissibility. 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[wathe]

12 minutes ago, melmichigan said:

Your graphs look very similar to ours. It’s hard to ignore the trend we are seeing with B.1.1.7.  I’m glad you have stay at home orders. The local health department was able to convince school boards to close our schools, and the governor has asked for voluntary action.

 

We've kept schools open, for the most part (they are closed in Toronto and a few other hotspot health units).  It's actually the best thought-out and sensible shut-down order we've had so far.

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, melmichigan said:

 

I don't want to seem like I'm singling you out @Penelopebut the constant disregard for the differences in the B.1.1.7 is playing out in my community in very tragic ways.

 

Thank you for sharing more. I missed this before, and appreciate it. 🙂

[Penelope]

10 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

This??? 

"The virological definition of transmission is the movement of viruses from one host to another. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, such transmission occurs when infectious virus particles are exhaled within respiratory droplets and arrive in another host, where they initiate infection." 

Well, that's singularly uninformative. And it's a definition of transmission, not transmissibility. 

Just a grammatical change.

Quote

increased ability of the virus to be transmitted form one host to another

because of some intrinsic (biological) characteristic of the virus (my words).

Not due to the many other factors which could influence the numbers we see, the statistics. He is saying the bar is much higher for saying x is more or less transmissible. That’s it. I thought the whole post explained the stance well and better than I could; he does edit one of the primary virology textbooks, and I... don’t. 🙂

 

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Just a grammatical change.

because of some intrinsic (biological) characteristic of the virus (my words).

Not due to the many other factors which could influence the numbers we see, the statistics. He is saying the bar is much higher for saying x is more or less transmissible. That’s it. I thought the whole post explained the stance well and better than I could; he does edit one of the primary virology textbooks, and I... don’t. 🙂

OK, so he's saying that to state that something is more transmissible, we ought to be sure that there's some intrinsic characteristic of the virus making it so. That's certainly one possible definition. Fine by me. 

Now, how would one test whether something is more transmissible, exactly? And how does the fact that it's possible that human behavior/built up immunity to previous variants is currently increasing rates of transmission for one variant change anything? 

This seems like pedantic quibbling to me, to be honest. What we care about is how fast things are currently spreading. If the new variants are spreading quickly, that's bad. End of story. 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Penelope]

18 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Now, how would one test whether something is more transmissible, exactly? And how does the fact that it's possible that human behavior/built up immunity to previous variants is currently increasing rates of transmission for one variant change anything? 

This seems like pedantic quibbling to me, to be honest. What we care about is how fast things are currently spreading. If the new variants are spreading quickly, that's bad. End of story. 

I don’t think anyone has show that the bolded has anything to do with it. There doesn’t seem to be any indication it has anything to do with the spread of B117. When over half of the population, in many places much much more than half, still hasn’t encountered the virus, we will continue to have surges or “bumps” no matter if we had any new variants or not, until enough people get vaccinated and/or it infects enough people to have it largely burn out.

That’s why you can’t look at a graph of Michigan and say they are  primarily having a surge due to that variant, when if you look at other states where the variant is present in large numbers, it doesn’t necessarily correlate so nicely.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

I don’t think anyone has show that the bolded has anything to do with it.

No one has shown that human behavior and immunity to previous variants has anything to do with transmission? I mean, I suppose not, but I have no clue what that means -- obviously, human behavior and immunity to previous variants would favor the current variant. 

Could you please tell me what your point is? Is your point that we shouldn't care about the variants and we should all just get vaccinated? What is it that you're trying to say and why? 

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Penelope said:

https://www.virology.ws/2021/01/28/sars-cov-2-variants-of-concern/
 

That blog post was from January — and a big part of his argument that B117's rapid spread in the UK was due to factors others than greater transmissibility was his claim that the same thing had not happened in other countries. He cites the fact that B117 only comprised "0.3% of cases nationally" in the US as evidence that the spike in the UK was caused by other factors. Well, now B117 is the predominant strain the US, particularly in certain areas like MI and MN, and B117 is also causing huge spikes in other countries, just like it did in the UK.

The idea that this ONE virologist is right and all the other scientists, including public heath experts at the CDC, are completely wrong, AND that what we are seeing in so many countries where B117 is spreading like wildfire is just totally coincidental, is really not very compelling.

 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Corraleno said:

That blog post was from January — and a big part of his argument that B117's rapid spread in the UK was due to factors others than greater transmissibility was his claim that the same thing had not happened in other countries. He cites the fact that B117 only comprised "0.3% of cases nationally" in the US as evidence that the spike in the UK was caused by other factors. Well, now B117 is the predominant strain the US, particularly in certain areas like MI and MN, and B117 is also causing huge spikes in other countries, just like it did in the UK.

The idea that this ONE virologist is right and all the other scientists, including public heath experts at the CDC, are completely wrong, AND that what we are seeing in so many countries where B117 is spreading like wildfire is just totally coincidental, is really not very compelling.

Good spotting about the date, lol. 

So it sounds like he decided it probably wasn't more transmissible a while ago and is now digging his heels in because he doesn't like to be proven wrong. It's understandable. It happens. Everyone does it. But there's no reason to assume he's the one true prophet and everyone else is wrong, as you say. 

[Penelope]

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-covid-19-variants-and-children#Kids-dont-seem-to-be-getting-sicker
 

Quote

Recent data shows that B.1.1.7 hasn’t changed the pediatric hospitalization rate and that severe COVID-19 remains rare in kids.

The pediatric hospitalizations rate was 1.9 per 100,000 of hospitalizations on January 1, 2021 and 1.4 per 100,000 of hospitalizations on April 1, 2021, per data sourced from the HHS Protect Public Data Hub.

“There is no evidence in those under 18 that you’re seeing increased severity of disease,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

A variant that’s easier to contract would naturally lead to more cases and ultimately more deaths — but the clinical courseTrusted Source in illness caused by B.1.1.7 doesn’t appear to be different. 

“I don’t see it being more virulent,” said Levy, noting that it’s unknown how many kids who get COVID-19 get really sick.

(Levy is “a virologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco”)

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, Penelope said:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-covid-19-variants-and-children#Kids-dont-seem-to-be-getting-sicker
 

(Levy is “a virologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco”)

 

You're again linking to national data. Is the variant equally prevalent everywhere in the US? 

[TexasProud]

40 percent of Marines decline to take vaccine

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/09/politics/marines-coronavirus-vaccines/index.html

[Penelope]

47 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

, now B117 is the predominant strain the US, particularly in certain areas like MI and MN, and B117 is also causing huge spikes in other countries, just like it did in the UK.

 

 

I think it might still be 30% or so overall in the US most recent I could find. Yes higher in some regions.

20 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

 

You're again linking to national data. Is the variant equally prevalent everywhere in the US? 

Pediatric virulence in the articles and quote was addressed specifically regarding this particular variant. If it was the variant itself that was supposedly causing worse disease, the the area matters not. You are negating your own argument.

Here’s how it went. Someone else posted a Reddit link and part of an article. I pulled out some quotes. You and some other people, mainly you, asked questions and implied this virologist was wrong. I tried to answer the questions based on listenings and readings of what that particular scientist said, but his conversations with other virologists, and other discussions I’ve seen over the months from people in genetics and other fields, because I found it interesting. 

That’s it. (Shrug). I do not feel it was my job to convince anyone, not my wheelhouse just as it is none of yours, I’m guessing, but it is not true that this is just one person who thinks this way or that people who actually do the science don’t disagree and debate and aren’t more careful with their words than how the rest of us might talk about these things.

In the end it is not helpful IMO to blame things on variants or try to convince people to vaccinate because, variants, when the virus has been trucking along all this time wreaking havoc without any need for special scarier variants. Not referring to anything on this board specifically now, but just how I see it generally.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Penelope

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

That’s it. (Shrug). I never felt it was my job to convince anyone, but it is not true that this is just one person who thinks this way or that people who actually do the science don’t disagree and debate and aren’t more careful with their words than how the rest of us might talk about these things.

OK, so let me try to dig in here a bit. Are you saying that because some scientists disagree, no one else ought to have an opinion on what's true or false? Are we supposed to wait for everyone to agree before we can look at the data ourselves? 

All of the scientists you've linked have opinions. People on this thread also have opinions. Those two things aren't in any way in tension. People can probe the data themselves and come up with their own conclusions. 

[Penelope]

57 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

No one has shown that human behavior and immunity to previous variants has anything to do with transmission? I mean, I suppose not, but I have no clue what that means -- obviously, human behavior and immunity to previous variants would favor the current variant. 

Oh, not the behavior part. The immunity part. You said “possible that human behavior/built up immunity to previous variants is currently increasing rates of transmission for one variant ”

I think I misunderstood what you said, though. I thought you were trying to say that the reason it was spreading was because of something to do with immunity or lack thereof from prior dominant variants. 

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

OK, so let me try to dig in here a bit. Are you saying that because some scientists disagree, no one else ought to have an opinion on what's true or false? Are we supposed to wait for everyone to agree before we can look at the data ourselves? 

All of the scientists you've linked have opinions. People on this thread also have opinions. Those two things aren't in any way in tension. People can probe the data themselves and come up with their own conclusions. 

What? 
I wouldn’t call what is happening in any posts I have seen here “probing the data”, if that’s what you mean, but sure, we all can do that on our own. 
 

I think considering other valid viewpoints is interesting, even if you end up at the same conclusion. 
 

As to tension, I don’t see the scientists vs. people on this board as the ones in tension, lol. The board is fun and all, but ultimately who cares what anyone on this board thinks about the science, right? 😉 I think the places where scientists might be in tension with each other, and trying to understand even a little of where both sides are coming from, is interesting. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

Oh, not the behavior part. The immunity part. You said “possible that human behavior/built up immunity to previous variants is currently increasing rates of transmission for one variant ”

I think I misunderstood what you said, though. I thought you were trying to say that the reason it was spreading was because of something to do with immunity or lack thereof from prior dominant variants. 

I think it's pretty commonly accepted that new variants get an advantage from increased immunity to older variants. 

 

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

What? 
I wouldn’t call what is happening in any posts I have seen here “probing the data”, if that’s what you mean, but sure, we all can do that on our own. 

And why wouldn't you call it that? People are linking papers and talking about details. 

 

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

As to tension, I don’t see the scientists vs. people on this board as the ones in tension, lol. The board is fun and all, but ultimately who cares what anyone on this board thinks about the science, right? 😉 

I think a decent number of people on here have scientific training, in fact. Not so much that we're virologists, but definitely much more than the average person. For instance, I feel relatively competent to comment on statistics. If it helps you take me more seriously, my husband agrees with me on basically all the stats, and he is ALSO a professor at Columbia, where one of his specialties is statistics as applied to medicine. (I'm a probabilist with a PhD myself, of course, even if I no longer do it professionally.) 

[Penelope]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

I think it's pretty commonly accepted that new variants get an advantage from increased immunity to older variants. 

 

And why wouldn't you call it that? People are linking papers and talking about details. 

 

I think a decent number of people on here have scientific training, in fact. Not so much that we're virologists, but definitely much more than the average person. For instance, I feel relatively competent to comment on statistics. If it helps you take me more seriously, my husband agrees with me on basically all the stats, and he is ALSO a professor at Columbia, where one of his specialties is statistics as applied to medicine. (I'm a probabilist with a PhD myself, of course, even if I no longer do it professionally.) 

Bolded: Sure! We learn things from link-sharing and discussion. But it’s the Internet, and there are many different branches of study represented in Covid-related papers. Even if someone has training in how to evaluate certain kinds of research, that is just not the same thing as being able to evaluate papers across specialist areas accurately, and is going to be a fairly shallow analysis, no? 
 

I’m hoping I didn’t offend you, but JIC I want to say it was unintentional. I’m aware that are a lot of smart parents, and a lot of both smart and highly educated parents here. That’s one of the things I’ve always appreciated about WTM boards, even though I kept to the homeschooling boards in the past. But, in discussing, we also can’t take ourselves too seriously when it comes to opinions posted on a chat board, eh? That’s all I was trying to say (apparently badly). Links and discussion useful, but opinions about what to think about all of it, not so much, as I see it. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Penelope said:

I’m hoping I didn’t offend you, but JIC I want to say it was unintentional. I’m aware that are a lot of smart parents, and a lot of both smart and highly educated parents here. That’s one of the things I’ve always appreciated about WTM boards, even though I kept to the homeschooling boards in the past. But, in discussing, we also can’t take ourselves too seriously when it comes to opinions posted on a chat board, eh? That’s all I was trying to say (apparently badly). Links and discussion useful, but opinions about what to think about all of it, not so much, as I see it. 

I'm not offended at all -- thanks for checking in! 

I'm not sure I know what you mean about not taking ourselves too seriously, though. I'm always very upfront about what I know and what I don't know. But in terms of taking myself seriously -- I do think people ought to take me seriously when we talk about probability, because I'm in fact highly trained in it. And I know there are many other highly trained posters with scientific backgrounds as well, and I see absolutely no reason not to take them seriously. And that includes their opinion, yes. Frankly, I see no reason to take the opinion of one virologist super seriously and ignore everyone else... even if some of those other people are on (gasp) a message board. (But of course, the virologist was on Reddit, which isn't the most serious place, either!) 

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Even if someone has training in how to evaluate certain kinds of research, that is just not the same thing as being able to evaluate papers across specialist areas accurately, and is going to be a fairly shallow analysis, no? 

I don't know what you mean here. In fact, my experience is that people who publish medical papers are on average woefully undertrained in statistics and in how to design good experiments. I know much more than them about it, because it's not their area of expertise. This is a really common complaint from the mathier parts of the medical community, by the way. 

So, yes, I can evaluate papers on transmissibility and things like that (although I haven't been reading them carefully enough to really say much as of right now), in the same way that I could look at that highly suspicious calcifediol study, look at its numbers, decide it wasn't really randomized and ignore it. And I was right, not because I'm so much smarter than everyone else, but because this is stuff I know about. 

[Ausmumof3]

There was a lot of discussion as to whether increases were driven by something inherent to the virus or circumstances back in Jan/Feb, but the opinion of most of the experts I’ve listened to or read seems to have shifted toward something actually with the virus not just an artefact of human behaviour.  

[Terabith]

24 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

There was a lot of discussion as to whether increases were driven by something inherent to the virus or circumstances back in Jan/Feb, but the opinion of most of the experts I’ve listened to or read seems to have shifted toward something actually with the virus not just an artefact of human behaviour.  

I had read back in early January that there was concern the UK spike was due to increased Christmas shopping and then impending lockdowns, but it seems like the increased spread with the new variants is holding in multiple locations over long periods of time.  I guess theoretically the increased spikes could be because of human behavior, but that seems pretty unlikely to me?  Weren't there lab explanations for why this mutation might be more contagious, as well?  

I mean, I think it's too early to say FOR SURE, but it doesn't seem too early to change behavior based on supposition that new mutations require fewer viral particles to infect than older ones?  

[Ausmumof3]

This was an article that was shared by one of the virologists in Australia that I follow (Ian Mackay - actually the guy behind the Swiss Cheese graphic).  . 

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/03/has-everyone-in-kent-gone-to-illegal-rave-on-variant-trail-with-covid-detectives?__twitter_impression=true
 

[ktgrok]

4 hours ago, Penelope said:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-covid-19-variants-and-children#Kids-dont-seem-to-be-getting-sicker
 

(Levy is “a virologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco”)

well, all the stuff Ive read about younger people being more effected by the new variants was actually about people in their 20s and 30s, so kids not being hospitalized is good, but doesn't really have anything to do with what is being said about the variants. 

Also, whenever I hear people saying, "we don't know enough yet to worry" I want to scream "by the time we do know for sure, it will be too late! AGAIN!"

[Spy Car]

4 hours ago, ktgrok said:

well, all the stuff Ive read about younger people being more effected by the new variants was actually about people in their 20s and 30s, so kids not being hospitalized is good, but doesn't really have anything to do with what is being said about the variants. 

Also, whenever I hear people saying, "we don't know enough yet to worry" I want to scream "by the time we do know for sure, it will be too late! AGAIN!"

There isn't much statistical significance when N=1, but the one person I  know (and mentioned previously) who seems to be suffering from long Covid (one of my son's teachers) is probably 30 years old, tops. Young, fit, energetic, dynamic, you name it. The last sort of person--and that's what he thought--who one might suspect might not bounce back quickly. And he happens to be a gifted teacher who actively serves as a mentor to his students and a heck of a nice guy.

I doubt he had a variant due to when he first fell ill, but (as you know) death and hospitalization are not the only risks to getting Covid.

At this point we have no idea if Long Covid will get better with time or if (like ME/CFS) it will result in lifelong illness.

The ongoing health of young people who have a half-a-century of life in front of them (or more) is of particular concern.

News that variants seem to be hitting younger people more than the original strain is worrisome. My perhaps faulty understanding is that many people who are showing signs of Long Covid were seemingly not all that ill in the first place. That was the case with my N=1 example.

I very much hope this isn't a case where "by the time we do know for sure, it will be too late!," but these not a risks to take lightly in my estimation.

Bill 

 

 

[melmichigan]

19 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

There was a lot of discussion as to whether increases were driven by something inherent to the virus or circumstances back in Jan/Feb, but the opinion of most of the experts I’ve listened to or read seems to have shifted toward something actually with the virus not just an artefact of human behaviour.  

I believe I read that people with B.1.1.7 have a lot higher levels of the virus in the respiratory tract, but I can't seem to find the source.