A 1.5 hour wait could mean 1.5 hours in the presence of others who are more likely than average to be spreading the virus (in line or in a waiting area – much more risky if the line or waiting area is indoors or otherwise poorly ventilated).
A few days for results means that, unless the person tested is quarantining or equivalent for those days, then any positive result would mean having to go back in time to contact trace anyone in contact, and any negative result may no longer be valid because the person may have gotten the virus after the test.
This article regarding Johns Hopkins research gives me the most hope I’ve had that we can conquer Covid. It may still be around, but if they can block what’s harmful, that would be terrific.
“Blocking Immune System Pathway May Stop COVID-19 Infection, Prevent Severe Organ Damage”
“Making the discovery even more exciting is that there may already be drugs in development and testing for other diseases that can do the required blocking.”
I’m going to repeat this, just to remind people what the Pfizer vaccine, and the other vaccines, are trying to do:
Prevent covid disease in some cases. Not prevent infections. Not prevent contagiousness. Just prevent covid disease. They won’t know whether being vaccinated does a single thing to stop you from giving covid to your grandmother.
Let me make it clear that I believe a vaccine that prevented disease in some cases would be valuable. However we need to understand what these vaccines are doing, and it isn’t preventing the spread of disease. Or at least, we aren’t going to have any evidence that any vaccine prevents disease spread, because they’re not testing for it.
@“Cardinal Fang” but, if I get the vaccine and Grandma gets the vaccine, then we will both be protected against the disease. Correct? If we get “infected” because the vaccine doesn’t protect us against that, what does it mean to a vaccinated person exactly?
What will be unknown from the vaccine trials is whether the vaccine will significantly reduce contagiousness if someone who had the vaccine gets infected with the virus. It may or may not, but the vaccine trials are not checking for that. The best case is that the vaccine stimulates the immune system enough to stamp out the virus before an infection become contagious; the worst case (with the assumption that it is effective at preventing sickness) is that it converts what would have been a symptomatic case into an asymptomatic case that could still be contagious.
You and Grandma may be much less likely to get sick, but if the vaccine does not prevent contagiousness, you and Grandma could still give the virus to someone else.
Of course, individual response to vaccines vary. Even with vaccines that are generally considered highly effective, a small portion of vaccinated people do not become immune.
So, asymptomatic people are having effects of the disease later? Or are we just assuming that’s a possibility? I’m still not getting it. Isn’t the whole point to not get sick? Is there some info out there that says, if you have the virus in your body but don’t feel sick, there’s some future health problem that could happen later?
I’m not understanding why posters on a college website would know more than all of these scientists working on a vaccine. They must understand that the vaccines they are working on prevent illness and not infection. They are all saying that, once a vaccine is widely available and distributed, we can get back to normal life. I haven’t read anything that says we all would need to continue to worry about getting infected.
The benefits of vaccination are confusing. I think generally people think it will end the pandemic. It is true that the early vaccines are only testing on preventing disease not the virus infection. So the question is do these vaccines help reduce or eliminate transmission of the virus.
This article was helpful. I think what it says is if the vaccine or natural immunity response stops the virus from replicating early enough then the likelihood for transmission will be reduced. Hopefully this will be ongoing study of the approved vaccines. https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/25/four-scenarios-on-how-we-might-develop-immunity-to-covid-19/
Currently, asymptomatic people infected with the virus can be contagious. That is the whole reason why COVID-19 is such a public health problem, and why there are social distancing and masking mitigations that assume that anyone can be an asymptomatic spreader. Previous coronaviruses that could cause severe sickness (SARS and MERS) were much less contagious from infected people with no symptoms.
I posted this before but I think it’s worth a read now in its explanations about vaccines:
A Dose of Optimism, as the Pandemic Rages On
The months ahead will be difficult. But the medical cavalry is coming, and the rest of us know what we need to do.
Exactly. I’m done with the doom and gloom on this page. Posters here don’t think that vaccines that only prevent disease and not infection are not enough to end the pandemic but I have not heard or read anything that says that…including this article.
What gloom and doom? I see realism - and I’ve heard plenty of times on TV that it will take a bit of time before we can return to normal even after a vaccine.
Personally, I think effective treatments will be as or more valuable than a vaccine.
There appears to be hope on that end as well as the fact that we already are doing better as the medical world has learned more.
FWIW, the few studies we have, esp the German one, have shown that some who are asymptomatic also can have heart damage. They said the proportion was similar to those who were hospitalized. I keep looking for more studies on these things. There’s not much out there. Hopefully there will be more soon.
“I don’t like this information can you post something happier?” This page has been a wealth of information, but it’s not going to sugarcoat–I want reality, because I can work with that.
Another avenue is inexpensive, convenient, quick testing for contagiousness, which people could do every day before going to where they may near others, so that a positive result will alert them cancel such plans (and contact their physician instead if concerned). If a large percentage of asymptomatic contagious people were alerted immediately before going to where they may be near others and cancelled such plans, that may make a big dent in R0.
With current testing that is typically inconvenient, expensive, and slow to get results, there are typically large windows of contagiousness that can be missed due to infrequency of testing and delay of getting results.
*For example, restaurants, bars, parties, many workplaces, classes, gyms, grocery stores, any potentially crowded place.
Honestly I think this would be of most value in allowing people to assemble in groups again in the short-to-medium term. There may never be a vaccine, but if people could take quick self-administered strip tests, then it would be possible to return to class meetings, worship services, large gatherings etc. If self-testing is made cheap and easy, then these things could be possible.
If cheap testing is the answer, why do parents who have tested positive - or even one where the kid was awaiting a test they expected would be positive - still send them to school? Why do some people who tested positive or expected they were positive still stop by the grocery store or post office? I doubt my area is alone with this.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who just don’t care.
In an ideal world that would be effective - as would be masks - but we live in the real world. In the real world Covid only needs a percentage who don’t give a hoot.
Convenient inexpensive quick testing gives the possibility of workplaces, schools, restaurants, etc. enforcing testing before entry, if voluntary use is not sufficient. Right now, the available tests are too expensive or inconvenient and/or they take too long to give results to be used at entry points.
The link from STAT that @oldmom4896 posted is a good article. However, it’s from August. Since then, unfortunately, we’ve gotten some bad news regarding this claim:
Recently we learned of a case where someone got a second case of COVID and was sicker than the first time. We also learned of another case where a person got a second case of COVID and died from it. We haven’t learned of a lot of second cases of COVID, but this idea that the second case won’t be so bad has not been panning out so far.
But we don’t have a lot of examples of second cases of covid, which in itself is good news. Perhaps there are a lot of second cases of covid, and one of them didn’t get diagnosed. Perhaps not. We don’t know.
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Is there some info out there that says, if you have the virus in your body but don’t feel sick, there’s some future health problem that could happen later?
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There’s tons of information on that. For example, asymptomatic people can show heart issues laters.
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Is there some info out there that says, if you have the virus in your body but don’t feel sick, there’s some future health problem that could happen later?
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But being asymptomatic still means you have Covid-19. So that means you have the disease and that’s what the vaccine is trying to prevent. Am I getting that right?
If someone gets the vaccine, they shouldn’t get Covid whether it’s symptomatic or asymptomatic if I’m understanding that correctly.
So my question really was - if someone is infected by the virus but doesn’t get Covid then they can still have some sort of negative health effects down the line?
Or are you all saying that the vaccine doesn’t keep people from catching the virus, it just keeps them from having symptoms?
I apologize that I’m not completely clear on this but I want to understand.
Good case: second infections are rare, like second infections of chicken pox, because most develop immunity, although a few do not (and make the news).
Bad case: immunity fades quickly, so that recovered patients are soon just as vulnerable as they were before (or more vulnerable if they have long term lung or other damage).
Ugly case: immune reaction allows second infections, but usually makes the asymptomatic (or very mild like a cold) and non-threatening to the infected person (but potentially contagious to others), although a few may end up with severe cases.