@“Cardinal Fang” I’m pretty sure I’ve seen similar rates in other publications, but I can’t find them now. Anyway, you might be right that it’s just the age factor and I wonder what this tells us about the total number of people who’ve had it.
A friend of mine had anaplasmosis from a tick bite, but was first diagnosed with COVID and put in a COVID ward. Lyme, anaplasmosis and other tick-borne illnesses may actually resemble COVID and there are testing issues with those as well. I was very sick in March and insisted on a Lyme test, which was negative, but it takes weeks for a Lyme test to be accurate because it takes weeks to produce antibodies. There are apparently timing issues with COVID testing as well.
The Telegraph explores new research suggesting that face masks may inadvertently give people immunity to COVID. Mask-wearing has been proven to reduce the severity of cases and make individuals more likely to be asymptomatic by minimizing wearers’ exposure to the virus. Masks can induce an immune response by exposing the wearer to only a low level of COVID, suggesting that universal mask-wearing could increase population-wide immunity.
This has not been proven. It may be true, but it hasn’t been proven. The theory is (1) masks reduce viral load if the person does get sick, and (2) a lower viral load means the person gets a less severe case of covid, but still gets immunity. Neither part of the theory has been proven.
It could be that masks prevent low doses from getting through, while not stopping higher doses, so that masks prevent infection but if the person does get infected they’ve gotten a big dose of virus and are more likely to get a severe case. We don’t know.
We shouldn’t elevate theory to fact, even if the theory is intuitive.
Can someone help me understand the discussion about how things won’t change (for a while) even after the vaccine starts being distributed? On a personal level, if I get the vaccine (say both doses), then X weeks after I should have reduced my chances of getting Covid substantially (depending upon efficacy). So why would I need to social distance? Especially if it’s 75%+ effective. Chances are I won’t get it and therefore won’t spread it.
The vaccine trials are comparing all symptomatic cases between the vaccine and placebo groups. Potential unknowns, at least upon initial approval of the vaccine under fast track conditions:
A. How much does the vaccine affect asymptomatic but contagious infections?
B. How much does the vaccine affect severe symptomatic infections or infections which result in long term effects?
Well, that is bcos there is a still a 25% chance of you becoming seriously ill. Nearly 40% of the US population has co-morbidities, so that still means a lot of deaths. Not to mention it may take months for the vaccine to rollout to 75% of the population. (Health care workers, first responders and the elderly should get first dibs.)
And of course, 75% effectiveness is a big IF. I believe anything above 50% will be able to apply for a EUA.
Finally, that 75% effectiveness (or whatever %) may decline over time. Will it last 5 years or only 5 months (requiring a booster 2x per year)?
If I’m reading it correctly, the vaccine isn’t stopping you from becoming asymptomatic even when it works. You can still spread it to others, thinking you’re not contagious.
This virus is contagious in the beginning - before people know they’re sick, and of course, asymptomatic people never know without a test.
The vaccine is stopping the later stages of the disease via the type of immunity it is building up.
Someone can feel free to correct my thoughts if I’m reading things incorrectly. I don’t even pretend to be a medical professional on TV (or the internet).
No, it wouldn’t be a 25% chance - not even close. If I walk around all day without a mask nor socially distance even NOW I have a tiny chance of getting infected. Even with a positivity rate above 5% (where I live its under 2%), I personally already have a tiny chance of being infected, and that’s before the vaccine. And even if I get infected now, the chance of me getting “very sick” is small based on my health and my age. Having the vaccine brings those chances down substantially for myself.
There is a stat - I don’t remember what its call - IFR? Infection Fatality Ratio? Its small right now and would be smaller if I had the vaccine.
What may be valid is the potential for me to pass on the disease even if I don’t have it (which sounds odd). If I get exposed after vaccination, its possible that I can still pass it on, even though my immune system fought it off - since I’m still shedding virus in the beginning before my body fights it off? This seems unlikely, but we shall see.
You would have the virus when you passed it on. There are two types of immunity involved and if I had a better memory I could give you the letters for each. The vaccines are going for one and not the other - the one preventing bad reactions in your body. I wish I could find the article(s) I read about it. Did anyone save them or know if they were posted on here a few pages back? I get info on here, from the NYT, NBC, and BBC, and from my med school lad so one of those should have been my source.
Med school lad tells me they are feeling a lot more confident now about treating it than they were, but there are still some cases where things go wrong and they can’t figure out why.
If you are obese, have diabetes, or high blood pressure, be extra careful (according to him).
Right, its 25% of your current “tiny chance.” (Sorry I assumed that was understood).
I saw Fauci say he thinks people will be able to play pick up basketball in the third quarter of next year without masks. He seems to think that, once a vaccine has been distributed, we won’t be wearing masks or social distancing. I’m hoping that, once we get to that point, those of us who get a vaccine and aren’t immune compromised should be able to go back to normal, no? Maybe that still means that some people still choose to wear masks but it seems like it shouldn’t be required anymore.
From what I have read, it is a possibility with some of the vaccines that some vaccinated people may still become asymptomatically contagious if infected, because the vaccine lowers the severity from symptomatic to asymptomatic for them (but does not cause them to destroy the virus quickly enough that any infection is non-contagious). It is something that probably will not be known if the vaccine is approved in a short time, since the protocols appear to be measuring only symptomatic infections between the vaccine and placebo groups.
In the absence of lick-the-strip tests, it may be logistically difficult to test the vaccine trial volunteers every day for asymptomatic contagious infections.
@ucbalumnus has it right (as usual). @suzyQ7, you cannot assume that if you get the vaccine you have reduced your chances of being infected by 75%. You might not have reduced your chances of being infected at all.
The vaccines we know about are being evaluated on how well they prevent against sickness. They are not being evaluated at all on how well they prevent infection. You could potentially get the vaccine, be protected against being sick, catch the virus and unknowingly pass it on to fifteen other people who were unvaccinated or who were the ones whom the vaccine doesn’t protect.
Sounds strange if a vaccinated person can still test positive for Covid and pass it on. Doesn’t seem very effective in that case. Hopefully not. Just like it’s possible for you to get Covid from surfaces, the viral load is so small that it’s highly unlikely. Hopefully that’s how the vaccine will work. If we can’t get 50% of the population to wear masks now, I doubt we’re going to get vaccinated people to wear them in the future.
Well then everyone should get vaccinated. And does it matter if one has the virus if they don’t get sick? I don’t read every post here so I’m sure my questions are sometimes naive but it seems this thread is sometimes pretty extreme in its pessimistic outlook. To me, we are waiting on a vaccine. Period. Looks like we might have many different vaccines, some might be available sooner than others and might not be as good but I’ve also heard they will be good enough for next fall and we are likely to get better ones as time goes on. That’s it. That’s the story that at least Fauci wants us to believe. It’s the story my doctor is telling me.
The vaccine could have different levels of effectiveness for each of these cases:
A. Severe infection, resulting in death, hospitalization, or long term effects and disabilities.
B. Any symptomatic infection.
C. Asymptomatic but contagious (for a non-trivial amount of time) infection. May be subdivided into length of time one is contagious.
The vaccine trials are testing only for effectiveness in case B.
The best case is, of course, the case where the vaccine substantially reduces all of case A, B, and C. But since a vaccine will be approved based on substantial reduction of case B, that is the only case where it will initially be known to be effective. Whether and how much it is effective in cases A and C may require more study.
In practice, they may be tracking case A (severe cases) among case B (total symptomatic cases) even though effectiveness in case B is the criterion for approval. But it does not look like they are tracking case C, since it would probably be too logistically difficult without lick-the-strip tests that can be done by participants every day.
Yes, if the vaccine is safe and effective and reducing sickness, people should get it. Supply constraints may require allocating it first to those in higher risk situations, such as health care workers in contact with patients.
Getting the virus without getting sick is the reason COVID-19 is such a public health problem – people can be unknowing silent carriers giving the virus to others who may get sick. If the vaccine still allows you to be an asymptomatic carrier, you still have to be careful around people who may be more vulnerable (e.g. people with weak immune systems who may not get much of an immune reaction to the vaccine, or people who are medically unable to get the vaccine).
Masks have always been about protecting others, not ourselves. They may give us some benefit too, but that’s not their chief purpose.
We can be the asymptomatic carrier with or without the vaccine.
Or maybe we can’t with the vaccine. We don’t know.