All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (2 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

But it’s just the flu, so nothing to go to war over, am I right?

Good point, if its not much different than the flu, what the issue? lol

 

[coldseat]

Imagine disguising yourself and being scared of your family and friends finding out that you took a life saving vaccine because you didn't want to get the backlash of "giving in to everything". The sad reality for some.

The Covid-19 vaccine has become so polarizing that some people in Missouri are getting inoculated in secret for fear of backlash from their friends and family who oppose vaccination, a doctor told CNN on Wednesday.

"They've had some experience that's sort of changed their mind from the viewpoint of those in their family, those in their friendship circles or their work circles. And they came to their own decision that they wanted to get a vaccine," said Dr. Priscilla Frase, a hospitalist and chief medical information officer at Ozarks Healthcare in West Plains, Missouri

"They did their own research on it, and they talked to people and made the decisions themselves," Frase told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "But even though they were able to make that decision themselves, they didn't want to have to deal with the peer pressure or the outbursts from other people about them ... 'giving in to everything.'"

In a hospital produced video, Frase said one pharmacist at her hospital told her "they've had several people come in to get vaccinated who have tried to sort of disguise their appearance and even went so far as to say, 'please, please, please don't let anybody know that I got this vaccine.'"

Some people in Missouri are getting vaccinated in secret to avoid backlash from loved ones, doctor says | CNN

The Covid-19 vaccine has become so polarizing that some people in Missouri are getting inoculated in secret for fear of backlash from their friends and family who oppose vaccination, a doctor told CNN on Wednesday.

www.cnn.com

 

[nolaspe]

I haven't heard the audio of this, but it's been tweeted about by several accounts, if this is indeed true, isn't this legally a call to violence and could she be charged for inciting it? (Legal question for Sir @superchuck500 Esq.)

 

[nolaspe]

The gqp troglodytes in the House tried taking their clown show to the Senate...

 

[coldseat]

The gqp troglodytes in the House tried taking their clown show to the Senate...

Only one or two of them need to be carrying the virus for karma to have a field day. #thestupid

 

[Optimus Prime]

from Alabama governor Kay Ivey
===================

Washington, D.C., is so hyper-politically polarized these days, it’s no wonder Americans have tuned out the earnest pleas of the nation’s top doctors, their elected leaders, superstar athletes and other celebrities who have been urging, for months, those who are unvaccinated to take the shot.


Here is the truth: Closing businesses will not defeat covid-19. Wearing masks will not defeat covid-19. And keeping our students from in-classroom learning will not defeat covid-19.


The good news is we have something that has proved helpful — safe and effective vaccines, which were developed in record time, and we can thank former president Donald Trump and all of those involved in Operation Warp Speed for making this medical miracle happen.


This time last year, people were praying that a vaccine would come to market in time to help slow the surge of deaths and people getting sick. With a lot of hard work, our prayers were answered.

In fact, President Trump, who got the shot in January, later called it a “true miracle.”
In Alabama, my advice has been simple and consistent. If you can take the shot, roll up your sleeve and get one.


There are those who believe that government should mandate the vaccine or that we should bribe people to take it. That’s not going to happen in my state, no matter how many times the media ask me.


But there are also those who remain hesitant and skeptical of the vaccine, because there is so much misinformation out there.

I believe those who are pushing fake news and conspiracy theories about this vaccine are reckless and causing great harm to people. The unvaccinated folks are being lied to, and that is just plum sad.

It is no secret that I expressed some frustration when talking to reporters last week, but the data does not lie, and I simply do not want to see Alabamians, or anyone else for that matter, suffer.

This vaccine works, and we need to start acting like it. This is not political: It’s just common sense…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/27/kay-ivey-alabama-covid-vaccines-trump-administration/

 

[coldseat]

Not that we didn't already know this, but I like the way this doctor put it. The level of ignorance in this country combined with the delta variant is toxic, deadly mix.

Many of my patients exhibit stunning levels of ignorance when it comes to this disease and the vaccine, which, it's worth noting, has so far saved an estimated 275,000 lives and prevented over a million hospitalizations in the US alone, according to research from Yale University and the Commonwealth Fund.

The list of debunked myths and misinformation I hear -- presented to me as fact -- grows longer by the day. No wonder the US Surgeon General has called Covid-19 misinformation an "urgent threat" to public health.

I hear often from patients that the vaccine development was "rushed" or that it hasn't been "studied enough" despite the fact that the Covid-19 vaccine was assessed for safety in tens of thousands of patients -- far more than widely-used drugs like Viagra were. More than 3.8 billion doses have been administered worldwide, over 340 million of them right here in the US.

Many of these same patients, unwilling to be what they term as vaccine "guinea pigs," end up hospitalized, deeply regretting their decision. Ironically, pretty much every therapy that hospitals have used to treat Covid-19 -- like dexamethasone, remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, and monoclonal antibodies like tocilizumab, sotrovimab, bamlanivimab -- has far less data behind it than the vaccine does.

Opinion: ER Doctor: ‘What a senseless, self-inflicted wound’ | CNN

Alex Busko, sharing what he’s seen as unvaccinated patients get admitted into the hospital with Covid-19 complications, writes that he lost count of how many young healthy Covid-19 patients he cared for in the emergency room who just never imagined that they – of all people – could become...

www.cnn.com

 

[Lapaz]

I studied the data on the Virginia Department of Health website, which has a very useful tool that allows you to select date ranges, and I think it indicates something that I believe contradicts a lot of the reports I have been hearing.

COVID-19 Cases by Vaccination Status - Coronavirus

Note: On March 10, 2022, VDH made changes to simplify and streamline some of the COVID-19 dashboards. More information about the changes are in the News Release and on the Website Change Log. COVID-19 Cases & Testing Dashboards COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboards As a reminder: All data are preliminary...

www.vdh.virginia.gov

That data clearly validates the reports that the vaccine does a phenomenal job of preventing people from getting Covid, BUT it appears to show that if a vaccinated person does happen to get Covid, then they are actually MORE likely to die than unvaccinated people. I hypothesize that it's because the majority of people that catch Covid after being fully vaccinated are much more vulnerable, and thus probably would die at an even higher rate had they not been vaccinated, however I'm not aware of this being explored.

For example, if we randomly pick the date range 1 MAY through 30 July in Virginia, 31,179 unvaccinated people got Covid while only 882 vaccinated people were confirmed positive with Covid. During that same span, 243 unvaccinated people died, while only 17 vaccinated people died. If you just compare the 243 to the 17, the vaccine looks great, but if you compare the number of unvaccinated and vaccinated people that died as a ratio to the number that were confirmed positive, then the vaccine doesn't look great.

unvaccinated: 243 deaths/31,179 infected=0.0078=0.78%
vs
vaccinated: 17 deaths/882 infected=0.0193=1.93%

This indicates that if you happen to get Covid, you're almost 3 times more likely to die if you were vaccinated. I'm fairly sure that the reason is that the majority of people that are unvaccinated and that catch Covid are otherwise much healthier than the vaccinated people that catch Covid, therefore the unvaccinated infected population is less likely to die, but I keep hearing people saying that if you are vaccinated, and happen to catch Covid, then you are also less to die. That is probably only true if you control for other morbidities. This mattered to me, because my 84 year old vaccinated mom came down with Covid, and I thought she was pretty safe, and she has recovered, but in reality, she was probably more at risk than I realized.

 

[coldseat]

I studied the data on the Virginia Department of Health website, which has a very useful tool that allows you to select date ranges, and I think it indicates something that I believe contradicts a lot of the reports I have been hearing.

COVID-19 Cases by Vaccination Status - Coronavirus

Note: On March 10, 2022, VDH made changes to simplify and streamline some of the COVID-19 dashboards. More information about the changes are in the News Release and on the Website Change Log. COVID-19 Cases & Testing Dashboards COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboards As a reminder: All data are preliminary...

www.vdh.virginia.gov

That data clearly validates the reports that the vaccine does a phenomenal job of preventing people from getting Covid, BUT it appears to show that if a vaccinated person does happen to get Covid, then they are actually MORE likely to die than unvaccinated people. I hypothesize that it's because the majority of people that catch Covid after being fully vaccinated are much more vulnerable, and thus probably would die at an even higher rate had they not been vaccinated, however I'm not aware of this being explored.

For example, if we randomly pick the date range 1 MAY through 30 July in Virginia, 31,179 unvaccinated people got Covid while only 882 vaccinated people were confirmed positive with Covid. During that same span, 243 unvaccinated people died, while only 17 vaccinated people died. If you just compare the 243 to the 17, the vaccine looks great, but if you compare the number of unvaccinated and vaccinated people that died as a ratio to the number that were confirmed positive, then the vaccine doesn't look great.

unvaccinated: 243 deaths/31,179 infected=0.0078=0.78%
vs
vaccinated: 17 deaths/882 infected=0.0193=1.93%

This indicates that if you happen to get Covid, you're almost 3 times more likely to die if you were vaccinated. I'm fairly sure that the reason is that the majority of people that are unvaccinated and catching Covid these days are otherwise much healthier, therefore much less likely to die, but I keep hearing people saying that if you are vaccinated, and happen to catch Covid, then you are also less to die. That is probably only true if you control for other morbidities. This mattered to me, because my 84 year old vaccinated mom came down with Covid, and I thought she was pretty safe, and she has recovered, but in reality, she was probably more at risk than I realized.

I'm pretty sure you hypothesis is spot on, I've even heard them talking about this on the news. It's likely that the people who are vaccinated and end up getting sick enough to require hospitalization are either immunocompromised or have other serious comorbidies. The vaccines aren't making them more likely to die or making them sicker, these people surely would have died had they been unvaccinated as well.

Did your mom require hospitalization?

 

[RobF]

I studied the data on the Virginia Department of Health website, which has a very useful tool that allows you to select date ranges, and I think it indicates something that I believe contradicts a lot of the reports I have been hearing.

COVID-19 Cases by Vaccination Status - Coronavirus

Note: On March 10, 2022, VDH made changes to simplify and streamline some of the COVID-19 dashboards. More information about the changes are in the News Release and on the Website Change Log. COVID-19 Cases & Testing Dashboards COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboards As a reminder: All data are preliminary...

www.vdh.virginia.gov

That data clearly validates the reports that the vaccine does a phenomenal job of preventing people from getting Covid, BUT it appears to show that if a vaccinated person does happen to get Covid, then they are actually MORE likely to die than unvaccinated people. I hypothesize that it's because the majority of people that catch Covid after being fully vaccinated are much more vulnerable, and thus probably would die at an even higher rate had they not been vaccinated, however I'm not aware of this being explored.

For example, if we randomly pick the date range 1 MAY through 30 July in Virginia, 31,179 unvaccinated people got Covid while only 882 vaccinated people were confirmed positive with Covid. During that same span, 243 unvaccinated people died, while only 17 vaccinated people died. If you just compare the 243 to the 17, the vaccine looks great, but if you compare the number of unvaccinated and vaccinated people that died as a ratio to the number that were confirmed positive, then the vaccine doesn't look great.

unvaccinated: 243 deaths/31,179 infected=0.0078=0.78%
vs
vaccinated: 17 deaths/882 infected=0.0193=1.93%

This indicates that if you happen to get Covid, you're almost 3 times more likely to die if you were vaccinated. I'm fairly sure that the reason is that the majority of people that are unvaccinated and that catch Covid are otherwise much healthier than the vaccinated people that catch Covid, therefore the unvaccinated infected population is less likely to die, but I keep hearing people saying that if you are vaccinated, and happen to catch Covid, then you are also less to die. That is probably only true if you control for other morbidities. This mattered to me, because my 84 year old vaccinated mom came down with Covid, and I thought she was pretty safe, and she has recovered, but in reality, she was probably more at risk than I realized.

It is true that if you are vaccinated and catch Covid you're less likely to die. The thing is, that's "less likely to die than you would have been if you were unvaccinated", because it's relative.

Because as you correctly say, you have the vaccine effectiveness, but you also have existing risk profiles (age, etc.).

So a fully vaccinated 90 year old will have a greatly reduced risk, but that's relative to their existing risk. They'll still be at higher risk than a fully vaccinated 40 year old.

The Financial Times did an analysis along those lines (ignore the top bit, that's twitter not just showing the one tweet):



I don't know the case in Virginia, but certainly in the UK (albeit less so as the vaccination rollout continues), the vaccinated population tends to be older, because the elderly were vaccinated first. So you have a situation where the cases in the unvaccinated population tend to be younger, and the cases in the vaccinated population tend to be older. So the risk profiles aren't the same. But you can see the effectiveness of the vaccines by comparing deaths in earlier waves in the same demographics with deaths now, and that does show how phenomenal the vaccines are in preventing death as well.

Edit to add: this is the plot I was thinking of that illustrates that:

 

[Lapaz]

I'm pretty sure you hypothesis is spot on, I've even heard them talking about this on the news. It's likely that the people who are vaccinated and end up getting sick enough to require hospitalization are either immunocompromised or have other serious comorbidies. The vaccines aren't making them more likely to die or making them sicker, these people surely would have died had they been unvaccinated as well.

Did your mom require hospitalization?

No, my mom did not require hospitalization, but we almost took her, since she had some shortness of breath. The only other significant symptom has been a cough. She did get an infusion of mono-clonal antibodies, so that probably helped a lot. My unvaccinated sister and brother-in-law also got it simultaneously, and my brother-in-law almost went to the hospital. He’s an extremely fit competitive mountain biker, but he does have co-morbidities, although they aren’t the type that compounded Covid. He had it much worse than my mom. My sister got diagnosed later than them, so she is still sick, and has it worse than my mom had it as well. She’s similar to her husband in morbidities. I believe almost half of my family in New Orleans has had Covid. Only one, my 12 year old, otherwise healthy, nephew has had to be hospitalized. Less than half are vaccinated, but most of the others now think they have immunity.

 

[Lapaz]

I'm pretty sure you hypothesis is spot on, I've even heard them talking about this on the news. It's likely that the people who are vaccinated and end up getting sick enough to require hospitalization are either immunocompromised or have other serious comorbidies. The vaccines aren't making them more likely to die or making them sicker, these people surely would have died had they been unvaccinated as well.

Did your mom require hospitalization?

I think the truth may be that once you catch Covid, the chances of dying are equal, whether you’re vaccinated or not. I think this needs to be studied more. We could be getting told that we are less likely to die once infected, with all other things being equal, if you’re vaccinated, because it encourages people to get vaccinated. Perhaps scientists are being discouraged from investigating that since it would be counterproductive to the aim of increasing vaccination rates.

 

[coldseat]

I think the truth may be that once you catch Covid, the chances of dying are equal, whether you’re vaccinated or not. I think this needs to be studied more. We could be getting told that we are less likely to die once infected, with all other things being equal, if you’re vaccinated, because it encourages people to get vaccinated. Perhaps scientists are being discouraged from investigating that since it would be counterproductive to the aim of increasing vaccination rates.

I don't think the numbers will bear that out. From everything that I've seen and read, you are much less likely to die if you're vaccinated when controling for age and health conditions. Much less! The vaccines are very effective a preventing you from dying if you catch Covid.

What I think is apparent with this Delta variant is that you may catch it regardless if your vaccinated or not when exposed. I think vaccines offer some protection against catching it, but not like with the other variants. It it looks like you can spread it as well, even if your vaccinated.

 

[Lapaz]

I don't think the numbers will bear that out. From everything that I've seen and read, you are much less likely to die if you're vaccinated when controling for age and health conditions. Much less! The vaccines are very effective a preventing you from dying if you catch Covid.

What I think is apparent with this Delta variant is that you may catch it regardless if your vaccinated or not when exposed. I think vaccines offer some protection against catching it, but not like with the other variants. It it looks like you can spread it as well, even if your vaccinated.

I don't think you understood what I believe could be true. I know the data overwhelmingly supports that a vaccinated person is MUCH less likely to die than an unvaccinated person. I also believe the data shows that the vaccines still provide a lot of protection against getting sick. What I'm not sure the data clearly shows is that once you do get Covid, you're less likely to die, regardless of your vaccination status. I understand that age and other factors would need to be controlled to prove that, and the data that I have seen don't show the mortality with factors controlled once infected. The data Rob F posted indicating that the 3rd wave of infections in the UK have resulted in far fewer deaths doesn't refute that, because it is known that typically, as viruses become more infectious, they also become less deadly. It could be that while the Delta variant is much more infectious, it is also less deadly, which may explain the death rates in the UK of the Delta variant. Judging by the 10 fold decrease in mortality in the UK's 3rd wave, it actually seems like the Delta variant may have a similar mortality rate to the flu, although it may still result in Long Covid just as often. Lordy, Trumpians may now be right that it is similar to the flu! That wasn't true for previous variants, but it may be true for the Delta variant.

 

[RobF]

I think the truth may be that once you catch Covid, the chances of dying are equal, whether you’re vaccinated or not. I think this needs to be studied more. We could be getting told that we are less likely to die once infected, with all other things being equal, if you’re vaccinated, because it encourages people to get vaccinated. Perhaps scientists are being discouraged from investigating that since it would be counterproductive to the aim of increasing vaccination rates.

It is being continually studied, and the data shows that the infection fatality rate - which measures the proportion of people who've caught Covid who die - is also greatly reduced by vaccines.

E.g. https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/nowcasting-and-forecasting-15th-july-2021/

"Plots of the IFR over time show that from the end of January we estimate a decreasing IFR in all adult age groups, but most steeply in the older ages. This drop indicates the benefits of immunisation against death over and above the benefits against infection. Specifically, there is an estimated fall to a still-high 2.2% (1.9%–2.6%) in the over-75s and 0.10% (0.09%–0.11%) overall."

To put that 2.2% in context, for the over 75s, that's down from around 18%.

 

[coldseat]

I don't think you understood what I believe could be true. I know the data overwhelmingly supports that a vaccinated person is MUCH less likely to die than an unvaccinated person. I also believe the data shows that the vaccines still provide a lot of protection against getting sick. What I'm not sure the data clearly shows is that once you do get Covid, you're less likely to die, regardless of your vaccination status. I understand that age and other factors would need to be controlled to prove that, and the data that I have seen don't show the mortality with factors controlled once infected. The data Rob F posted indicating that the 3rd wave of infections in the UK have resulted in far fewer deaths doesn't refute that, because it is known that typically, as viruses become more infectious, they also become less deadly. It could be that while the Delta variant is much more infectious, it is also less deadly, which may explain the death rates in the UK of the Delta variant. Judging by the 10 fold decrease in mortality in the UK's 3rd wave, it actually seems like the Delta variant may have a similar mortality rate to the flu, although it may still result in Long Covid just as often. Lordy, Trumpians may now be right that it is similar to the flu! That wasn't true for previous variants, but it may be true for the Delta variant.

Idk. Everything I've seen is that it looks like the Delta variant is more deadly than previous variants and is causing more sever illness here in the US, especially for younger age groups.

I think the mortality rate overall has been dropping and that's because we're at a very different point with this virus than when we started in January of 2020. We have developed treatments that are very effective if caught early enough. The problem is people are too stubborn and waiting to long to go to the hospital. And the Delta variant is getting people to that point in there illness a lot quicker because of how quickly it's reproducing inside the body of the infected.

 

[RobF]

I don't think you understood what I believe could be true. I know the data overwhelmingly supports that a vaccinated person is MUCH less likely to die than an unvaccinated person. I also believe the data shows that the vaccines still provide a lot of protection against getting sick. What I'm not sure the data clearly shows is that once you do get Covid, you're less likely to die, regardless of your vaccination status. I understand that age and other factors would need to be controlled to prove that, and the data that I have seen don't show the mortality with factors controlled once infected. The data Rob F posted indicating that the 3rd wave of infections in the UK have resulted in far fewer deaths doesn't refute that, because it is known that typically, as viruses become more infectious, they also become less deadly. It could be that while the Delta variant is much more infectious, it is also less deadly, which may explain the death rates in the UK of the Delta variant. Judging by the 10 fold decrease in mortality in the UK's 3rd wave, it actually seems like the Delta variant may have a similar mortality rate to the flu, although it may still result in Long Covid just as often. Lordy, Trumpians may now be right that it is similar to the flu! That wasn't true for previous variants, but it may be true for the Delta variant.

I think you're really underestimating just how deeply researched this is. Researchers are very much aware that the variant itself is a factor in fatality rates, and they do account for that.

We can get an idea of this through, for example, comparing the impact on vaccinated people infected by Alpha and vaccinated people infected by Delta, and the impact on unvaccinated people infected by Alpha and by Delta, for example.

The data here in the UK suggests that Delta carries an increased risk of hospitalisation and at least an equivalent case fatality rate to Alpha. The only caveat to that is that we have greater certainty of the exact relative severity with more deaths, and fortunately, as described, the vaccines are proving highly effective so we've had relatively far fewer deaths, which reduces just how precise we can be with the data we have. But if Delta was significantly less deadly, then we'd expect to have seen even fewer deaths, particularly in the unvaccinated infected, so we can be reasonably confident that, unfortunately, it isn't significantly less deadly.

Just as well we have vaccines.

 

[insidejob]

I think you're really underestimating just how deeply researched this is. Researchers are very much aware that the variant itself is a factor in fatality rates, and they do account for that.

We can get an idea of this through, for example, comparing the impact on vaccinated people infected by Alpha and vaccinated people infected by Delta, and the impact on unvaccinated people infected by Alpha and by Delta, for example.

The data here in the UK suggests that Delta carries an increased risk of hospitalisation and at least an equivalent case fatality rate to Alpha. The only caveat to that is that we have greater certainty of the exact relative severity with more deaths, and fortunately, as described, the vaccines are proving highly effective so we've had relatively far fewer deaths, which reduces just how precise we can be with the data we have. But if Delta was significantly less deadly, then we'd expect to have seen even fewer deaths, particularly in the unvaccinated infected, so we can be reasonably confident that, unfortunately, it isn't significantly less deadly.

Just as well we have vaccines.

Seeing alpha and delta typed so many times in one post has me singing that old Cake song..."Standing in the Alpha Beta parking lot, watching the sun set. I'll never forget..."

Totally listening to that tonight.