Cont: The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine Thread Part 5

[Planigale]

I'm not at all sure it would have been worse given when vaccines came out. I wasn't making that argument. Rather, had vaccines not came out as quickly as they did and GBD adopted, I don't think the GBD would have done any good because immunity was so short lived. This wasn't known at the time.

At the time of the GBD, it wasn't known vaccines would get approval in a few months and it wasn't known that mucosal immunity was so short lived. Lasting immunity was critical to the GBT working. For that matter, the vaccines were too. They were initially believed to provide herd immunity when 70% (Fauci's number IIRC) of folks were vaccinated. The presumption was that it would stop infections by reducing R0 below 1. Didn't happen.

We now have a kind of herd immunity due to prior infection and/or vaccination. But not in the sense Fauci used 3 years ago. Rather, general reduction in severe disease. Most people infected in the recent wave were either vaccinated and/or previously infected. And there were a lot more infected than the case numbers indicated since it's harder to get PCR tested and home positive antigen tests aren't reported. But there are proxies like waste water and hospital positivity test rates one can compare with earlier waves.

 

[dann]

I'm not at all sure it would have been worse given when vaccines came out. I wasn't making that argument. Rather, had vaccines not came out as quickly as they did and GBD adopted, I don't think the GBD would have done any good because immunity was so short lived. This wasn't known at the time.

So the GBD from Oct 4, 2020, was based on ignorance about a brand new virus and ignorance about when the new mRNA vaccines could be expected to appear - five weeks (maybe less) before production of the vaccines had already begun:

Manufacturing is already under way.
Hopes rise for end of pandemic as Pfizer says vaccine has 90% efficacy (The Guardian, Nov 10, 2020)

And it was pretty obvious from the beginning what the GBD was trying to accomplish:
The Great Barrington Declaration: COVID-19 deniers follow the path laid down by creationists, HIV/AIDS denialists, and climate science deniers (Science-Based Medicine, Oct 12, 2020)

At the time of the GBD, it wasn't known vaccines would get approval in a few months and it wasn't known that mucosal immunity was so short lived. Lasting immunity was critical to the GBT working. For that matter, the vaccines were too. They were initially believed to provide herd immunity when 70% (Fauci's number IIRC) of folks were vaccinated. The presumption was that it would stop infections by reducing R0 below 1. Didn't happen.

As mentioned above, manufacturing had already started in early November!
Lasting immunity was one of GBD's many optimistic assumptions based on ignorance.
Herd immunity at 70% might have been realistic if the virus hadn't mutated, becoming ever more transmissible.

We now have a kind of herd immunity due to prior infection and/or vaccination. But not in the sense Fauci used 3 years ago. Rather, general reduction in severe disease. Most people infected in the recent wave were either vaccinated and/or previously infected. And there were a lot more infected than the case numbers indicated since it's harder to get PCR tested and home positive antigen tests aren't reported. But there are proxies like waste water and hospital positivity test rates one can compare with earlier waves.

"A kind of herd immunity" is one of the reinterpretations of the meaning of the term herd immunity.
No, it's pretty obvious that we don't have any kind of herd immunity.
The concept is supposed to mean that weak members of the 'herd' are protected from infection when enough members have become immune. Anything resembling that state of things hasn't happened with SARS-CoV-2. This is made obvious by fans of herd immunity by vaccination + infection declaring that the virus only kills the old and weak.

I think it's likely that most people infected in the recent wave were both vaccinated and previously infected, but it's impossible to know for sure. It's not something that the analysis of waste water samples will tell us.
Hybrid immunity also wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I haven't seen it called super immunity since the spring of 2022.

 

[jt512]

I'm not at all sure it would have been worse given when vaccines came out. I wasn't making that argument. Rather, had vaccines not came out as quickly as they did and GBD adopted, I don't think the GBD would have done any good because immunity was so short lived. This wasn't known at the time.

OK. I get it now. I agree.

 

[marting]

I can't wrap my head around this from the Pfizer vaccine paper in the NEJM:

Between July 27, 2020, and November 14, 2020, a total of 44,820 persons were screened, and 43,548 persons 16 years of age or older underwent randomization at 152 sites worldwide (United States, 130 sites; Argentina, 1; Brazil, 2; South Africa, 4; Germany, 6; and Turkey, 9) in the phase 2/3 portion of the trial. A total of 43,448 participants received injections: 21,720 received BNT162b2 and 21,728 received placebo (Figure 1). At the data cut-off date of October 9, a total of 37,706 participants had a median of at least 2 months of safety data available after the second dose and contributed to the main safety data set.

Since the second dose was given 21 days after the first dose and the earliest the first dose could be given was July 27, 2020, even if everyone got their first dose on July 27, Oct. 9 comes out to under 2 months since the second dose. What am I missing?

I'm guessing that they don't mean data cutoff but rather than, as of the date of publication they had accumulated a median of two months. But then what's the significance of Oct. 9? Does that mean the numbers don't reflect vaccinations post Oct 9 hence providing for the two month median? Only thing that makes any sense.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577

 

[jt512]

I can't wrap my head around this from the Pfizer vaccine paper in the NEJM:



Since the second dose was given 21 days after the first dose and the earliest the first dose could be given was July 27, 2020, even if everyone got their first dose on July 27, Oct. 9 comes out to under 2 months since the second dose. What am I missing?

I'm guessing that they don't mean data cutoff but rather than, as of the date of publication they had accumulated a median of two months. But then what's the significance of Oct. 9? Does that mean the numbers don't reflect vaccinations post Oct 9 hence providing for the two month median? Only thing that makes any sense.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577

It looks to me like it was incorrectly described in the article. See the FDA's EUA memorandum. The data cut-off date was November 14 (page 6). For the main safety analysis, patients had to have been enrolled by October 9 (bottom of page 16 and elsewhere). As of the data cut-off date, these patients had a median of 2 months of follow-up following the second dose.

 

[icerat]

I'm not at all sure it would have been worse given when vaccines came out. I wasn't making that argument. Rather, had vaccines not came out as quickly as they did and GBD adopted, I don't think the GBD would have done any good because immunity was so short lived. This wasn't known at the time.

Long-term immunity from a coronavirus infection is somewhere from rare to non-existent. This was known prior to the pandemic and re-confirmed both for other coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 *before* the GBD was even published. Just two of many examples -

Rapid Decay of Anti–SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in Persons with Mild Covid-19

Seasonal coronavirus protective immunity is short-lasting

I was infected in March 2020 and again at Christmas 2020. In early 2021 a Swedish scientist publicly called me a liar for claiming a reinfection, stating they were extremely rare to impossible. Ironically for the past 2.5 years they've led a team measuring the recurring waves of SARS2 in wastewater. No apology has been forthcoming.

 

[dann]

That's what happened with the lockdowns anyway. I'm not sure why focused protection would have been worse.

Focussed protection was the ideology that accompanied Sweden's herd-immunity-by-infection strategy. It just might have worked if only old people's homes, the elderly in general and other vulnerable people were living on isolated islands - along with their carers, obviously - and if COViD-19 had been a once-in-a-lifetime infection like measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.
As it was, C19 became a once-in-a-lifetime infection for many of those who were supposed to have been protected from it. And for some of those who were supposed to contribute to Swedish herd immunity by getting and transmitting the infection from and to each other more or less asymptomatically, youth and health turned out be no guarantee for a mild infection, as the cases of icerat and his son show.

 

[marting]

Focussed protection was the ideology that accompanied Sweden's herd-immunity-by-infection strategy. It just might have worked if only old people's homes, the elderly in general and other vulnerable people were living on isolated islands - along with their carers, obviously - and if COViD-19 had been a once-in-a-lifetime infection like measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.
As it was, C19 became a once-in-a-lifetime infection for many of those who were supposed to have been protected from it. And for some of those who were supposed to contribute to Swedish herd immunity by getting and transmitting the infection from and to each other more or less asymptomatically, youth and health turned out be no guarantee for a mild infection, as the cases of icerat and his son show.

"Focused Protection" for the elderly and most vulnerable was very much what was recommended early in the epidemic. But it isn't binary. You can't absolutely protect such a large segment of the population.

Here's Fauchi discussing it in May 2020
WATCH: Dr. Anthony Fauci: leaders should protect vulnerable communities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlHX2LPN8vU

The GBD failure was the notion if enough younger people were infected herd immunity would kick in and C19 would self extinguish. The elderly would then be ok. That wasn't likely due to immunity waning.

That said, there was significant protection of the elderly before vaccines. Infection rates among those under 50 were about 3x higher than those over 65 before vaccines became available. That saved lives.

 

[The Atheist]

Scientists have found a link between severe covid and the gut microbioeme. Now looking into if it's also behind long covid.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/04/the-fungi-in-our-guts-can-make-cases-of-covid-worse/

 

[icerat]

Scientists have found a link between severe covid and the gut microbioeme. Now looking into if it's also behind long covid.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/04/the-fungi-in-our-guts-can-make-cases-of-covid-worse/

Long Covid almost certainly isn't any one thing, but all the Long Covid research is throwing up lots of new avenues for research that may impact many diseases. So much to learn about the microbiome.

Related, I recently read that chronic sinus inflammation may be a mouth microbiome issue.

 

[novaphile]

Long Covid almost certainly isn't any one thing, but all the Long Covid research is throwing up lots of new avenues for research that may impact many diseases. So much to learn about the microbiome.

Related, I recently read that chronic sinus inflammation may be a mouth microbiome issue.

Periodontal disease appears to be linked to heart disease, but speculation is still ongoing as to the direction of cause and effect.

(i.e. heart disease causes gum disease or vice versa or both caused by something else.)

Clean your teeth people, just in case.

 

[rjh01]

Periodontal disease appears to be linked to heart disease, but speculation is still ongoing as to the direction of cause and effect.

(i.e. heart disease causes gum disease or vice versa or both caused by something else.)

Clean your teeth people, just in case.

My dentist tells me that there are heaps of things caused by bad teeth. Heart disease is one of them.

Heart disease is number 2 on this list https://west85thdental.com/10-health-issues-caused-by-bad-oral-health/

 

[icerat]

My dentist tells me that there are heaps of things caused by bad teeth. Heart disease is one of them.

Heart disease is number 2 on this list https://west85thdental.com/10-health-issues-caused-by-bad-oral-health/

Yup, the mouth and sinuses also have easier access to the brain, so there's also links with dementia. Loss of teeth and/or chronic gum inflammation make this more likely, that's been known for a long time.

Right now we're seeing SARS2 apparently access the brain via the olfactory nerve.

 

[dann]

The C19 vaccination of young children in Cuba

The effectiveness against severe symptomatic disease was 100.0% (95% CI not estimated) and 94.6% (95% CI, 82.0–98.6%) in the respective age groups. No child death from COVID-19 was observed.
(...)
The real-world effectiveness of the heterologous SOBERANA-02-Plus vaccine scheme during the Omicron wave in Cuba was 75.3% and 83.5% among children 2 and 3–11 years-old, respectively. Effectiveness did not decrease during the six months post-vaccination follow-up but, on the contrary, somewhat increased during the second half of the wave, when sub-variant Omicron BA.1 had been replaced by Omicron BA.2. Vaccination reduced the risk of severe disease in younger and older children with 100.0% and 94.6%, respectively. The scheme had a favorable safety profile.
Real-world effectiveness of the heterologous SOBERANA-02 and SOBERANA-Plus vaccine scheme in 2–11 years-old children during the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron wave in Cuba: a longitudinal case-population study (The Lancet, April 23, 2024)

A short thread on X:

𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟-𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗 𝗘𝗙𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗦𝗦 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗔 𝘃𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻 2–11 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀-𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗖𝗛𝗜𝗟𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗡 𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝘂𝗯𝗮
https://thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(24)00077-2/fulltext
Amazing results !!!
2) Cuba conducted a nationwide pediatric vaccination campaign in September 2021 using the heterologous SOBERANA-02-Plus vaccine scheme (2 doses of SOBERANA-02 followed by 1 dose of SOBERANA-Plus). Over 95% of children aged 2-18 were fully vaccinated by December 2021.
3) The study evaluated the real-world effectiveness of this vaccine scheme against symptomatic COVID-19 infection and severe disease in children aged 2-11 during Cuba's Omicron wave from December 2021 to June 2022.
4) The vaccine effectiveness was estimated to be 75.3% in children aged 2 years and 83.5% in children aged 3-11 years against symptomatic infection. Effectiveness remained stable and did not decrease over the 6-month follow-up period.
5) Effectiveness against severe symptomatic disease was 100% in children aged 2 years and 94.6% in children aged 3-11 years. No child deaths from COVID-19 were reported.
6) The vaccine scheme had a good safety profile, with a low rate of adverse events. Protection conferred by the vaccine appeared to be better sustained than that reported for other vaccines during Omicron.
7) The authors hypothesize that the strong and enduring immune response induced by the conjugated SOBERANA-02 vaccine can explain its protection against Omicron variants in children.
Thanks for reading
Emmanuel (X, May 3, 2024)

I really wish my own country had vaccinated young children - and hadn't stopped boosting 'kids' younger than 65. But vaccinating young children would = acknowledging that the COVID-19 harms them. We don't want to do that!

 

[dann]

Reality Check

... Someone who is less vaccinated may have had more infections, and gets the protection from that. ...

Some people are going to lose their **** over that.

It's a good reason to not get booster shots, because we know the protection against severe disease does last, so you're better to let the disease take its course and build up personal and herd immunity.

I'm quite amused by it.

I'm not at all amused by attempts to promote the natural-herd-immunity-by-infection lie while pretending that the delusional idea is based on knowledge and not on wishful thinking.

This study investigated the effectiveness of natural infection in preventing reinfection with the JN.1 variant during a large JN.1 wave in Qatar, using a test-negative case-control study design. The overall effectiveness of previous infection in preventing reinfection with JN.1 was estimated at only 1.8% (95% CI: −9.3-12.6%). This effectiveness demonstrated a rapid decline over time since the previous infection, decreasing from 82.4% (95% CI: 40.9-94.7%) within 3 to less than 6 months after the previous infection to 50.9% (95% CI: −11.8-78.7%) in the subsequent 3 months, and further dropping to 18.3% (95% CI: −34.6-56.3%) in the subsequent 3 months. Ultimately, it reached a negligible level after one year. The findings show that the protection of natural infection against reinfection with JN.1 is strong only among those who were infected within the last 6 months, with variants such as XBB*. However, this protection wanes rapidly and is entirely lost one year after the previous infection. The findings support considerable immune evasion by JN.1.
Preprint: Protection of natural infection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 JN.1 variant (medRxiv, Feb 23, 2024)

The only thing that seems to be everlasting is the moronic antivaxxer sentiment.

In the How do we know a pandemic's over? thread, I recently posted about the new "FLiRT variant KP.2, which has demonstrated increased transmissibility and immune resistance." However, factual posts like this with actual quotations from and links to studies tend to be drowned out by panicked minimizer screeching.

By the way, notice the conspicuous contradiction in terms of the very first quotation in this post:

Someone who is less vaccinated may have had more infections, and gets the protection from that.

If someone gets the alleged protection from having had more (!) infections, more infections don't seem to give you much protection, do they?! On the contrary, it seems to indicate that someone who is less vaccinated tends to get infected more often.
So much for the idea that natural infection builds up "personal and herd immunity." So much for the antivaxxer lie.


ETA: The beginning of a short thread about the study:

The overall effectiveness of previous infection in preventing reinfection with JN.1 was estimated at only 1.8% !
H/t @RadCentrism
https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.22.24303193v1
Emmanuel (X, May 5, 2024)

 

[The Atheist]

I'm not at all amused by attempts to promote the natural-herd-immunity-by-infection lie while pretending that the delusional idea is based on knowledge and not on wishful thinking.

No lie, just more complete dishonest posting by you.

You quote:

The overall effectiveness of previous infection in preventing reinfection with JN.1 was estimated at only 1.8

When in fact, the study you quoted states:

This effectiveness demonstrated a rapid decline over time since the previous infection, decreasing from 82.4% (95% CI: 40.9-94.7%) within 3 to less than 6 months after the previous infection to 50.9% (95% CI: −11.8-78.7%) in the subsequent 3 months

50% after 9 months is pretty good, especially when the vaccine efficacy study states that the peak protection is 50% and:

Link-Gelles says additional data will show how long the protection lasts, especially against symptoms of the disease.

As usual, you're so dishonest it's laughable. They have no idea how fast the immunity drops, and it's likely to be as fast as acquired immunity. You clearly don't even read your own links.

Have you booked the phone box for the covid panickers meeting yet?

 

[dann]

Overall effectiveness of previous infection in preventing reinfection with JN.1: 1.8%

The Atheist's post is just so absurd it's hard to see the point in responding.
Nevertheless:
"You quote:" + "When in fact, the study you quoted states:"
The Atheist pretends that what I quote (yes, quote!) confronted with a quotation from the same quotation that I posted somehow makes my posting dishonest!
He seems to think that one part of my quotation contradicts another part of my quotation, so let's compare them:

The Atheists quotation:

This effectiveness demonstrated a rapid decline over time since the previous infection, decreasing from 82.4% (95% CI: 40.9-94.7%) within 3 to less than 6 months after the previous infection to 50.9% (95% CI: −11.8-78.7%) in the subsequent 3 months

My quotation, most of which he left out:

This study investigated the effectiveness of natural infection in preventing reinfection with the JN.1 variant during a large JN.1 wave in Qatar, using a test-negative case-control study design. The overall effectiveness of previous infection in preventing reinfection with JN.1 was estimated at only 1.8% (95% CI: −9.3-12.6%). This effectiveness demonstrated a rapid decline over time since the previous infection, decreasing from 82.4% (95% CI: 40.9-94.7%) within 3 to less than 6 months after the previous infection to 50.9% (95% CI: −11.8-78.7%) in the subsequent 3 months, and further dropping to 18.3% (95% CI: −34.6-56.3%) in the subsequent 3 months. Ultimately, it reached a negligible level after one year. The findings show that the protection of natural infection against reinfection with JN.1 is strong only among those who were infected within the last 6 months, with variants such as XBB*. However, this protection wanes rapidly and is entirely lost one year after the previous infection. The findings support considerable immune evasion by JN.1.

Can't he read? Didn't he see it? Is it because he doesn't understand English? Is it because he only read the part of the quotation that I highlighted in my post?
I don't know, but his attempt to make me look laughably dishonest is actually "so dishonest it's laughable."
Panicking apparently doesn't improve people's comprehension of what they're reading.

As for The Atheist's idea that "they have no idea how fast the immunity drops, and it's likely to be as fast as acquired immunity," he probably didn't notice what the study was about:
Protection of natural infection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 JN.1 varianthttps://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.22.24303193v1.

And no, I haven't "booked the phone box for the covid panickers meeting yet."
It is fairly obvious that I don't go to the kind of meeting The Atheist goes to, isn't it?!

 

[dann]

"Focused Protection" for the elderly and most vulnerable was very much what was recommended early in the epidemic. But it isn't binary. You can't absolutely protect such a large segment of the population.

Here's Fauchi discussing it in May 2020
WATCH: Dr. Anthony Fauci: leaders should protect vulnerable communities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlHX2LPN8vU

The GBD failure was the notion if enough younger people were infected herd immunity would kick in and C19 would self extinguish. The elderly would then be ok. That wasn't likely due to immunity waning.

That said, there was significant protection of the elderly before vaccines. Infection rates among those under 50 were about 3x higher than those over 65 before vaccines became available. That saved lives.

That is why (alleged) focussed protection of the elderly didn't work. And in Sweden, which was what I wrote about, it was particularly obvious that letting young people get infected in order to achieve herd immunity didn't work. The GBD's failure was Sweden's failure. As for the elderly, they were mainly protected by the general suppression of the level of transmission of the virus thanks to WFH and short, not at all 'draconian', lockdowns in the other Nordics.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people, 2020.

The difference was conspicuous, which was the reason why Anders Tegnell and Martin Kulldorff (of GBD and Brownstone Institute notoriety) preferred to compare Sweden to other countries than its neighbors. They still do!

65+ mainly protected themselves by avoiding social contacts - and for the most part no longer having to work.

 

[The Atheist]

The Atheist pretends that what I quote (yes, quote!) confronted with a quotation from the same quotation that I posted somehow makes my posting dishonest!

No pretending - the words you typed only mentioned the 1.8%, and that's what people see.

The reality of 80% for up to 6 months is better than a 'flu vaccine and totally adequate.

All the bluster and projection in the world isn't going to reverse your clear attempt at dishonesty.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

TA, you are missing an important fact. If one tries for 'natural' protection by avoiding the vaccine and instead getting infected, even an otherwise healthy person under age 65 risks getting a fatal case of COVID, long COVID, or passing the infection on to any number of persons who do have risk factors. And as to that last one, vaccinated persons who still get infected shed less virus and are less contagious.

United States: COVID-19 weekly death rate by vaccination
status, All ages

You can poke around in the gazillion reports to find one you think supports your premise that low risk persons not being vaccinated is somehow an advantage. The following works because it uses data from 4 countries and you can toggle the age ranges.

2021: How do death rates from COVID-19 differ between people who are vaccinated and those who are not?