- Vaccinated and unvaccinated people infected with Delta may have similar viral loads.
Ok but vaccinated people still not getting very sick. The percentage of vaccinated people in the hospital with Covid super super low. I get that itās complicated for families with the under 12 crowd or family that is compromised but we canāt expect vaccinated people not in that position to continue to mask so as not to spread to unvaccinated when the vast majority of people who can get the vaccine have no good reason to skip it.
Hopefully we are gearing up for the end of this or at least the worst part. Once the vaccines are fully approved and the under-12 crowd can get it and schools mandate it, it seems we could be on our way out of this mess
1 Like
This contradicts an earlier assertion by quite a few experts (perhaps CDC itself). It shows the prior recommendation that the vaccinated donāt need to wear masks isnāt based on science. Thereās no new science on the virus. The science doesnāt change all of sudden. We just never understood the science, even though we claimed it was science. A few patchy data werenāt science.
2 Likes
I canāt find the wording exactly but what I heard reported on NPR was more like āvaccinated people might spread Covid as much as the unvaccinatedā. Did not seem like that was a sure thing.
Read the story. That headline is misleading.
1 Like
My guess is that we still donāt know whether the vaccinated and the unvaccinated carry similar amount of viral loads. I think CDC should tell people exactly what they know, and more importantly, what they donāt know. The CDC needs to be more transparent. If it is also guessing, we need to know.
1 Like
I donāt disagree, but doesnāt seem those who are choosing to not get vaccinated are interested in what the CDC says about much of anything.
5 Likes
I donāt see this as sending them off to infect others. If an unvaccinated student gets infected and stays in their dorm, especially if they have roommate(s), they are in a tight living situation and definitely risk infecting others. If, on the other hand, they are required to leave campus, they can don an N95 mask during their move-out and be careful to socially distance. If their home is within driving distance, they can expose no one except perhaps their own family members, which I personally consider preferable to exposing non-family-fellow-students. And if they do not live within driving distance, certainly they should/would be advised not to hop on public transport and fly across the countryāit looks like theyād be expected to pay up for a local hotel room. Hotels have contactless check-in, and hotel employees do not need to come into contact (no in-room cleaning or turndown service while the infected person is there; room service left outside door with a knock on the door, hotels are adept at now at dealing with this and may require the room stays vacant for 48 hours after, etc). To me, this is a very practical requirement, and even more so as I believe the policy is primarily intended as motivation to get vaccinated.
3 Likes
Practical until you have to shell out $150- night times seven nights plus food for your 18 year old who has to miss class and is maybe scared and unable to get food. I donāt think places like Fairfield Inns have room service so Iām not even sure what kinds of hotel one could set their young person up in. If they are willfully not getting vaccinated thatās one thing but making vaccinated kids do that is kind of nuts.
2 Likes
Unfortunately I donāt foresee many unvaccinated students adhering to masking and social distancing guidelines even if infected.
Plusā¦.There are several states (Arizona, Arkansas, Texas, Iowa, Utah, Oklahoma) that have laws prohibiting any mask mandates in schoolsā¦. pretty sure that includes public and private colleges.
Now that breakthrough cases seem to be rising, I think schools are going to have to rethink their Q&I policies, unfortunately. Especially if there is data showing infected vaccinated people can spread Deltaā¦we are all waiting CDC!!
4 Likes
It is not like college students do not know how to order pizza or whatever else is offered for delivery.
But yes, being forced to isolate or quarantine on your own can be pretty unpleasant, in addition to being sick with COVID-19.
My kids would freak out if they had to live on fast food for a week. Really, putting 18-20 year old kids in a hotel to quarantine all alone isnāt right and I doubt many would even do it. Maybe they would get an airbnb and still go out grocery shopping or maybe they would actually get on a plane and go home. We know kids who did both of those things. None of the options are good.
2 Likes
No good options and many students canāt afford to book a flight on short notice, or go to a hotel either.
4 Likes
If anything, vaccinated people (in general, not necessarily college students) appear to be the quickest to put masks back on.
Basically we are now in the situation where:
- Medically vulnerable people (cannot get vaccinated for genuine medical reasons, or have a weak or no immune response to vaccine) are probably as unsafe as at any time in the pre-vaccine period, since there are plenty of potential spreaders who are also those least likely to take precautions.
- Vaccinated people are much less likely to get COVID-19 or get seriously sick if they do get it. They are also likely to be less contagious, but the B.1.617.2 / Delta variant is contagious enough that those who live with or regularly contact medically vulnerable people need to be cautious to avoid passing it along.
- Voluntarily unvaccinated people are playing COVID-19 lottery, but with worse odds due to the increased contagiousness and viral loads of B.1.617.2 / Delta.
Medically vulnerable people and their family members may want to do their grocery shopping at stores like 99 Ranch Market which are populated with demographics that are highly vaccinated and likely to keep their masks on in the store.
CDC is one agency that we were all used to rely on in time of a national health emergency. Itās really unfortunate that it hasnāt been able to perform that role. Iām sure thereāre multiple causes, but I think inconsistent messaging and lack of clarity contributed.
5 Likes
Wouldnāt it be complicated to determine if vaccinated but Covid positive people shed virus? Iām thinking maybe some do and some donāt. Plus, no one is even tracking breakthrough cases.
On the last installment of In The Bubble (Andy Slavittās podcast), they were saying that you might find Covid in a lot of vaccinated peopleās swabs but they are not shedding virus to other people. Iām not sure if the CDC could even make a blanket statement that vaccinated individuals spread Covid or not. They also talked about how the efficacy rate changed with Delta - maybe down seven percent or so, so of course we are hearing about more breakthrough cases but they are still very very rare and those people are not dying.
This is going to be a bit like last school year. Colleges have to decide on their goals. No Covid at all? Well then maybe theyād have to go back to most of the restrictions if they are going to be testing everyone. Just keep students and staff from getting really sick? Thatās a different goal entirely.
just saw some new data from Illinois and it really makes me think that changing up anything at colleges in states that are doing well with the virus would be insanity.
97.7% of the Covid deaths in IL since Jan 1 were not fully vaccinated. 150 Covid deaths among the vaccinated. Thatās .0023%
593 of the 6.4 million fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized with Covid related illness. Thatās .009%.
Iām glad the CDCās masking rules are taking local info into account.
1 Like
You would need to set up a clinical trial where vaccinated people get regularly tested to detect asymptomatic and very mild (feels like a cold or seasonal allergies or whatever) infections. Prior to vaccination, some people may have assumed that any coughy sickness could be COVID-19 and get tested, but vaccinated people may no longer assume that, so detection of breakthrough infections becomes less reliable.
However, there was a study where both vaccinated and unvaccinated first responders were tested weekly for COVID-19, so breakthrough infections (as well as unvaccinated infections) were more reliably counted.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107058
Vaccine effectiveness was found to be 81% for one dose and 91% for two doses (mRNA vaccines).
For partially or fully vaccinated breakthrough infections versus unvaccinated infections:
Viral RNA load log(base10)/ml: -40% (but remember this is the log(base10) of the count)
Duration of viral RNA detection: -6.2 days (2.7 days versus 8.9 days)
Febrile symptoms: -58% (25% versus 63%, percent of percentages)
Days of symptoms: -6.4 days (10.3 days versus 16.7 days)
Days spent sick in bed: -2.3 days (1.5 days versus 3.8 days)
3 Likes
100%