Coronavirus COVID-19

[JohnStOnge]

Science is putting out all the data so it can be analyzed by everybody and the results either confirmed or reputed. Hiding or fudging the data to get the results one wants (or is paid to get) is not "Science".

Let the results, and the following debate, speak for themselves.

This is what I have been pointing out about the Public Health England data. Back when it was primarily the unvaccinated going to the hospital and dying, the data was just fine. No disclaimers, just statements that it's the pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Then, about October, when the total cases of COVID, hospitalization and deaths among the vaccinated surpassed the unvaccinated, they started throwing out disclaimers of how you can't compare data anymore. Anyone with half a clue knew what was going on.

Same thing here. You know damn good and well the numbers don't support their narrative, so they won't release them. Premier epidemiological my ass.

The reason public health England had to start issuing disclaimers is because people like you were running around the internet misinterpreting what they produced. The numbers do support the narrative if what you are talking about as the narrative is the data support trying to get as high a vaccination rate as possible.

[JohnStOnge]

SG's medical industry experience > JSO's junior high science fair prize.

SG has been mopping the floor with JSO on this topic.

I try to avoid being too precise in describing what I do and my background and probably should not do what I am about to do. But I will say that I think it very unlikely that SG's experience stacks up well against mine in this area. That is because I have spent decades working in the public health field in general and in the control of infectious disease in particular. I also started my career as a professional statistician. That was a long time ago and I tend to use older techniques. But I am regarded within my area of responsibility as an expert on data analysis and, in fact, design and present content on that to others including State and Foreign Government officials. I do not make epidemiological calls. We leave final calls on whether or not a particular exposure is associated with disease to people classified as epidemiologists. But I do apply standard epidemiological statistical tests as situations develop to make judgements about whether or not it looks like given exposure is "significantly" associated with illness.

If I'm still coming here after I retire, which shouldn't be TOO long from now, I'll be more detailed. For now I'll just tell you that, during these discussions, I am probably more in my own element than SG is.

But if you want to believe SG when he is telling you one thing and CDC, Johns Hopkins, Harvard Health, the UK Health agency he's constantly referring to, and the overwhelming consensus of people planet-wide who are experts at controlling the spread of respiratory diseases are telling you something else, I guessing knowing I'm more in my element than he is isn't going to change your mind.

[SeattleGriz]

This is what I have been pointing out about the Public Health England data. Back when it was primarily the unvaccinated going to the hospital and dying, the data was just fine. No disclaimers, just statements that it's the pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Then, about October, when the total cases of COVID, hospitalization and deaths among the vaccinated surpassed the unvaccinated, they started throwing out disclaimers of how you can't compare data anymore. Anyone with half a clue knew what was going on.

Same thing here. You know damn good and well the numbers don't support their narrative, so they won't release them. Premier epidemiological my ass.

The reason public health England had to start issuing disclaimers is because people like you were running around the internet misinterpreting what they produced. The numbers do support the narrative if what you are talking about as the narrative is the data support trying to get as high a vaccination rate as possible.

Read my posts dude. They were all comparing sheer total numbers, not vaccine effectiveness. I was pointing out the shift from the unvaccinated to the vaccinated.

You do realize you've been StWrong on every prediction don't you? When will you stop being told what to think and actually think for yourself?

Vaccine prevent you from getting Covid
Vaccines prevent spread.
You'll catch Covid, but it won't be bad.
It may be bad, but you won't die.

[UNI88]

SG has been mopping the floor with JSO on this topic.

I try to avoid being too precise in describing what I do and my background and probably should not do what I am about to do. But I will say that I think it very unlikely that SG's experience stacks up well against mine in this area. That is because I have spent decades working in the public health field in general and in the control of infectious disease in particular. I also started my career as a professional statistician. That was a long time ago and I tend to use older techniques. But I am regarded within my area of responsibility as an expert on data analysis and, in fact, design and present content on that to others including State and Foreign Government officials. I do not make epidemiological calls. We leave final calls on whether or not a particular exposure is associated with disease to people classified as epidemiologists. But I do apply standard epidemiological statistical tests as situations develop to make judgements about whether or not it looks like given exposure is "significantly" associated with illness.

If I'm still coming here after I retire, which shouldn't be TOO long from now, I'll be more detailed. For now I'll just tell you that, during these discussions, I am probably more in my own element than SG is.

But if you want to believe SG when he is telling you one thing and CDC, Johns Hopkins, Harvard Health, the UK Health agency he's constantly referring to, and the overwhelming consensus of people planet-wide who are experts at controlling the spread of respiratory diseases are telling you something else, I guessing knowing I'm more in my element than he is isn't going to change your mind.

So you want me, AZ and others to respect your experience in public health after you've continuously disregarded ours in economics and business?

What's worse, you're criticizing SG for cherry-picking data to support his conclusions after you've done exactly that many times.

Hypocrite much?

[SDHornet]

CDC withholding data. No. Been saying all the data guys have been bitching about this. NYT is even calling them out.

They don't want you to see the data, because you might misinterpret the data Ya bunch of idiots.

Science is putting out all the data so it can be analyzed by everybody and the results either confirmed or reputed. Hiding or fudging the data to get the results one wants (or is paid to get) is not "Science".

Let the results, and the following debate, speak for themselves.

BuT iTs A cOnSiRaCy ThEoRy

[SDHornet]

Oh.

[SeattleGriz]

SG has been mopping the floor with JSO on this topic.

I try to avoid being too precise in describing what I do and my background and probably should not do what I am about to do. But I will say that I think it very unlikely that SG's experience stacks up well against mine in this area. That is because I have spent decades working in the public health field in general and in the control of infectious disease in particular. I also started my career as a professional statistician. That was a long time ago and I tend to use older techniques. But I am regarded within my area of responsibility as an expert on data analysis and, in fact, design and present content on that to others including State and Foreign Government officials. I do not make epidemiological calls. We leave final calls on whether or not a particular exposure is associated with disease to people classified as epidemiologists. But I do apply standard epidemiological statistical tests as situations develop to make judgements about whether or not it looks like given exposure is "significantly" associated with illness.

If I'm still coming here after I retire, which shouldn't be TOO long from now, I'll be more detailed. For now I'll just tell you that, during these discussions, I am probably more in my own element than SG is.

But if you want to believe SG when he is telling you one thing and CDC, Johns Hopkins, Harvard Health, the UK Health agency he's constantly referring to, and the overwhelming consensus of people planet-wide who are experts at controlling the spread of respiratory diseases are telling you something else, I guessing knowing I'm more in my element than he is isn't going to change your mind.

If you want to talk about understanding what a study says, then yes, you are much more capable than I am. Where you fall down is placing that information correctly into what is happening. Your lack of understanding viruses and/or immunology is hilarious.

I have done nothing more than point out false narratives and that the vaccines lost their effectiveness.

[JohnStOnge]

I try to avoid being too precise in describing what I do and my background and probably should not do what I am about to do. But I will say that I think it very unlikely that SG's experience stacks up well against mine in this area. That is because I have spent decades working in the public health field in general and in the control of infectious disease in particular. I also started my career as a professional statistician. That was a long time ago and I tend to use older techniques. But I am regarded within my area of responsibility as an expert on data analysis and, in fact, design and present content on that to others including State and Foreign Government officials. I do not make epidemiological calls. We leave final calls on whether or not a particular exposure is associated with disease to people classified as epidemiologists. But I do apply standard epidemiological statistical tests as situations develop to make judgements about whether or not it looks like given exposure is "significantly" associated with illness.

If I'm still coming here after I retire, which shouldn't be TOO long from now, I'll be more detailed. For now I'll just tell you that, during these discussions, I am probably more in my own element than SG is.

But if you want to believe SG when he is telling you one thing and CDC, Johns Hopkins, Harvard Health, the UK Health agency he's constantly referring to, and the overwhelming consensus of people planet-wide who are experts at controlling the spread of respiratory diseases are telling you something else, I guessing knowing I'm more in my element than he is isn't going to change your mind.

So you want me, AZ and others to respect your experience in public health after you've continuously disregarded ours in economics and business?

What's worse, you're criticizing SG for cherry-picking data to support his conclusions after you've done exactly that many times.

Hypocrite much?

I'm just responding to the idea that SG's experience is more relevant than mine when it comes to discussing this particular matter. Can you provide an example of me cherry picking data?

What I criticized him for is interpreting tables in reports in a certain way when the authors of the reports explicitly said not to interpret the tables in that way. Do you have an example of me doing that?

I don't recall ever disagreeing with you about economics. I do recall disagreeing with AZ about his conclusion that Trump caused certain economic trends. But that's because the readily available data so obviously contradicted the idea that Donald Trump taking office was associated with a significant change in the economy. For instance: The economy created 215,000 jobs per month, on average, during 2013 through 2016. It created an average of 177,000 per month during Trump's first three years before COVID-19 hit. If you want to count January 2017 as Obama instead of Trump it's 215,000 on average during Obama's second term and 176,000 per month during Trump's second term prior to COVID-19.

Am I supposed to think there is an association between Trump taking office and higher job production?

It's fine if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt based on his experience in macro economics though.

[JohnStOnge]

I try to avoid being too precise in describing what I do and my background and probably should not do what I am about to do. But I will say that I think it very unlikely that SG's experience stacks up well against mine in this area. That is because I have spent decades working in the public health field in general and in the control of infectious disease in particular. I also started my career as a professional statistician. That was a long time ago and I tend to use older techniques. But I am regarded within my area of responsibility as an expert on data analysis and, in fact, design and present content on that to others including State and Foreign Government officials. I do not make epidemiological calls. We leave final calls on whether or not a particular exposure is associated with disease to people classified as epidemiologists. But I do apply standard epidemiological statistical tests as situations develop to make judgements about whether or not it looks like given exposure is "significantly" associated with illness.

If I'm still coming here after I retire, which shouldn't be TOO long from now, I'll be more detailed. For now I'll just tell you that, during these discussions, I am probably more in my own element than SG is.

But if you want to believe SG when he is telling you one thing and CDC, Johns Hopkins, Harvard Health, the UK Health agency he's constantly referring to, and the overwhelming consensus of people planet-wide who are experts at controlling the spread of respiratory diseases are telling you something else, I guessing knowing I'm more in my element than he is isn't going to change your mind.

If you want to talk about understanding what a study says, then yes, you are much more capable than I am. Where you fall down is placing that information correctly into what is happening. Your lack of understanding viruses and/or immunology is hilarious.

I have done nothing more than point out false narratives and that the vaccines lost their effectiveness.

There is no false narrative about vaccine effectiveness waning. The CDC says their effectiveness wanes. Everybody says they wane.

[SeattleGriz]

If you want to talk about understanding what a study says, then yes, you are much more capable than I am. Where you fall down is placing that information correctly into what is happening. Your lack of understanding viruses and/or immunology is hilarious.

I have done nothing more than point out false narratives and that the vaccines lost their effectiveness.

There is no false narrative about vaccine effectiveness waning. The CDC says their effectiveness wanes. Everybody says they wane.

No shit they wane. That's what I've been showing and when it started. Why do you think I started using UK data? Because our CDC has been withholding that same data.

Of course you took a much different stance on the waning and multiple other topics like:

Pandemic of the unvaccinated
Unvaccinated are variant factories
Asymptomatic spread.
Vaccines prevent spread.

Everything big picture you have argued has been on the wrong side of history. You even had the gall to say a professional epidemiologist who designs studies wasn't as good as you.

[JohnStOnge]

The reason public health England had to start issuing disclaimers is because people like you were running around the internet misinterpreting what they produced. The numbers do support the narrative if what you are talking about as the narrative is the data support trying to get as high a vaccination rate as possible.

Read my posts dude. They were all comparing sheer total numbers, not vaccine effectiveness. I was pointing out the shift from the unvaccinated to the vaccinated.

You do realize you've been StWrong on every prediction don't you? When will you stop being told what to think and actually think for yourself?

Vaccine prevent you from getting Covid
Vaccines prevent spread.
You'll catch Covid, but it won't be bad.
It may be bad, but you won't die.

Vaccines do prevent people from getting COVID. They don't prevent it in every instance. But they reduce the risk.

Same thing with the spread. They do not totally eliminate it on a case by case basis. But they reduce the risk.

Yes, vaccinations reduce the risk of severe cases.

I have never said, and nobody has ever said, that vaccines are 100% effective in preventing COVID. What I HAVE said is that, for vaccination to have any chance of success in controlling the pandemic/epidemic, we would need to achieve a very high vaccination rate. I once heard somebody saying 70%. More recently, with the evolution of more highly contagious variants, I think it would be above 90%. The idea of vaccination as a control in the United States has not been tested. If we get to a scenario where >90% of the US population is "up to date" on vaccination...whatever the recommendation for what that means is...and we are still having significant problems, THEN we can see that vaccination doesn't "work." But we are nowhere close to that because we have a bunch of people fighting against achieving that level. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. People do everything they can to fight vaccination then, when only 65% of the population is "fully vaccinated" and some smaller but unknown percentage is "up to date,"* they say, "SEE, vaccination doesn't work."

*Up to date means a person has received all recommended COVID-19 vaccines, including any booster dose(s) when eligible (from CDC). I have not been able to find a percentage on that. I've been able to determine that only about 28% of people in the US have been boosted. So the percentage up to date is somewhere in the 28% to 65% range.

[SeattleGriz]

Read my posts dude. They were all comparing sheer total numbers, not vaccine effectiveness. I was pointing out the shift from the unvaccinated to the vaccinated.

You do realize you've been StWrong on every prediction don't you? When will you stop being told what to think and actually think for yourself?

Vaccine prevent you from getting Covid
Vaccines prevent spread.
You'll catch Covid, but it won't be bad.
It may be bad, but you won't die.

Vaccines do prevent people from getting COVID. They don't prevent it in every instance. But they reduce the risk.

Same thing with the spread. They do not totally eliminate it on a case by case basis. But they reduce the risk.

Yes, vaccinations reduce the risk of severe cases.

I have never said, and nobody has ever said, that vaccines are 100% effective in preventing COVID. What I HAVE said is that, for vaccination to have any chance of success in controlling the pandemic/epidemic, we would need to achieve a very high vaccination rate. I once heard somebody saying 70%. More recently, with the evolution of more highly contagious variants, I think it would be above 90%. The idea of vaccination as a control in the United States has not been tested. If we get to a scenario where >90% of the US population is "up to date" on vaccination...whatever the recommendation for what that means is...and we are still having significant problems, THEN we can see that vaccination doesn't "work." But we are nowhere close to that because we have a bunch of people fighting against achieving that level. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. People do everything they can to fight vaccination then, when only 65% of the population is "fully vaccinated" and some smaller but unknown percentage is "up to date,"* they say, "SEE, vaccination doesn't work."

*Up to date means a person has received all recommended COVID-19 vaccines, including any booster dose(s) when eligible (from CDC). I have not been able to find a percentage on that. I've been able to determine that only about 28% of people in the US have been boosted. So the percentage up to date is somewhere in the 28% to 65% range.

So let's get it on record here. Is it your belief that through vaccination, a respiratory RNA virus pandemic can be defeated?

[JohnStOnge]

Vaccines do prevent people from getting COVID. They don't prevent it in every instance. But they reduce the risk.

Same thing with the spread. They do not totally eliminate it on a case by case basis. But they reduce the risk.

Yes, vaccinations reduce the risk of severe cases.

I have never said, and nobody has ever said, that vaccines are 100% effective in preventing COVID. What I HAVE said is that, for vaccination to have any chance of success in controlling the pandemic/epidemic, we would need to achieve a very high vaccination rate. I once heard somebody saying 70%. More recently, with the evolution of more highly contagious variants, I think it would be above 90%. The idea of vaccination as a control in the United States has not been tested. If we get to a scenario where >90% of the US population is "up to date" on vaccination...whatever the recommendation for what that means is...and we are still having significant problems, THEN we can see that vaccination doesn't "work." But we are nowhere close to that because we have a bunch of people fighting against achieving that level. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. People do everything they can to fight vaccination then, when only 65% of the population is "fully vaccinated" and some smaller but unknown percentage is "up to date,"* they say, "SEE, vaccination doesn't work."

*Up to date means a person has received all recommended COVID-19 vaccines, including any booster dose(s) when eligible (from CDC). I have not been able to find a percentage on that. I've been able to determine that only about 28% of people in the US have been boosted. So the percentage up to date is somewhere in the 28% to 65% range.

So let's get it on record here. Is it your belief that through vaccination, a respiratory RNA virus pandemic can be defeated?

What do you mean by "defeated?" Only one disease has ever been entirely eliminated through vaccination.

But I would say there is potential for eliminating COVID-19 as an "epidemic" or "pandemic" problem through vaccination. The problem is that we can't test that proposition unless we can get something like 90% or more of the population everywhere vaccinated.

Also, it's not just a question of whether vaccination alone can accomplish it. There is the question of whether vaccination can be one factor among a number of mitigation measures. And we have a problem now such that we have a high percentage of the people fighting vaccination as well as other mitigation measures.

Just stop. Do what the people who know what they are talking about tell you do do. Get vaccinated. Wear masks. Social distance. If you do that the problem will be minimized.

[SDHornet]

I love how JSO keeps digging the hole he is in deeper and deeper.

Just goes to show home much of a cult Covidians truly are.

[kalm]

So let's get it on record here. Is it your belief that through vaccination, a respiratory RNA virus pandemic can be defeated?

What do you mean by "defeated?" Only one disease has ever been entirely eliminated through vaccination.

But I would say there is potential for eliminating COVID-19 as an "epidemic" or "pandemic" problem through vaccination. The problem is that we can't test that proposition unless we can get something like 90% or more of the population everywhere vaccinated.

Also, it's not just a question of whether vaccination alone can accomplish it. There is the question of whether vaccination can be one factor among a number of mitigation measures. And we have a problem now such that we have a high percentage of the people fighting vaccination as well as other mitigation measures.

Just stop. Do what the people who know what they are talking about tell you do do. Get vaccinated. Wear masks. Social distance. If you do that the problem will be minimized.

Mitigating factors? Eventually they’re going to tell us to wash our hands and stay home when we might be contagious and shit.

At that point, the gulags are right around the corner.

[SeattleGriz]

CDC withholding data. No. Been saying all the data guys have been bitching about this. NYT is even calling them out.

They don't want you to see the data, because you might misinterpret the data Ya bunch of idiots.

Ok. I was able to find an accessible copy of the article at https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trend ... 43741.html. It is no big deal.

I think it would have been smarter for the CDC spokesman not to say that a reason for not sharing data is fear of the data being misinterpreted. That's if that's what she said as they did not quote her on that. They did quote her on the primary reason for holding data, which is "“because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.”

And the concern over data being misinterpreted or even intentionally manipulated to create false impressions is legitimate. I've seen that kind of thing happen a number of times during this pandemic. Very common to see it done in conservative media in particular.

I also don't get the concern associated with this paragraph:

Much of the withheld information could help state and local health officials better target their efforts to bring the virus under control. Detailed, timely data on hospitalizations by age and race would help health officials identify and help the populations at highest risk. Information on hospitalizations and death by age and vaccination status would have helped inform whether healthy adults needed booster shots. And wastewater surveillance across the nation would spot outbreaks and emerging variants early.

The CDC gets the data from the States. Each State has that information with respect to its jurisdiction. I can look at the Louisiana Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard at any time and see detailed, timely data on hospitalizations by age and race. Also cases, deaths, vaccinations rates, etc., by age and race. I also see periodic reports on wastewater sampling. Each State already has all that information.

It's no big deal? How much longer do we need to give them before they have that data tuned up for prime time? Isn't this thing almost over? Nice turnaround time on the need for data and actually producing it.

[JohnStOnge]

I love how JSO keeps digging the hole he is in deeper and deeper.

Just goes to show home much of a cult Covidians truly are.

I'm doing fine. You just don't realize it because you don't want to.

[JohnStOnge]

Let's talk about something you might find interesting regardless. It's a simplistic but useful model for thinking about how much good we can do with vaccination and also other mitigations. You can read some about the concepts at https://plus.maths.org/content/maths-mi ... d-immunity. If you look at that you can see descriptions of the terminology I'll be using.

The idea is to do things to get the basic reproduction number, R0, down to an effective reproduction number, R, <1. A formula for doing that through vaccination is:

R = R0 x (1-(vaccine efficacy x vaccine rate)_. So let's apply that to what the situation was when vaccines were first approved and we were dealing with the original strain. I'll use R0 = 2.8 for the original strain based on the article at https://vitals.sutterhealth.org/omicron ... o-reasons/. Original efficacy for the MRNA vaccines were above 90% for symptomatic disease. Let's just assume 80% efficacy at reducing infection.

Then you can say that you'd need an 81 percent vaccination rate. The equation would become R = 2.8 x (1 - (0.8 x 0.81) = 0.99. If we assume efficacy in stopping infection at first was pretty close to efficacy at stopping symptomatic illness, say 0.9, we could get by with a 0.72 vaccination rate as 2.8 x (1 - (0.9 x 0.72) = 0.99.

Lately we encountered the Delta variant with a R0 thought to be around 5 and the Omicron variant with a R0 thought to be 7 or more. That does make it difficult to achieve "herd immunity" through vaccination alone. Even if the vaccines were still 90% (0.9) effective, we would have to have an 88% vaccination rate to overcome R0=5 and a 96% vaccination rate to overcome R0 = 7. And we know the current vaccines are not close to 90% effective against Delta (which is largely gone) or Omicron.

But that doesn't mean it's not wise to try to maximize the vaccination rate while also continuing vaccine development in the arms race against the virus. There are suggestions that another generation of vaccines may be effective against all coronaviruses so that evolution of new variants is not as much of a problem.

Meanwhile other measures can be applied in addition to vaccination to further reduce R. My own opinion is that one reason we had as much of a problem with the Omicron variant as we did is that people lost patience and largely acted like we were not still in the midst of a pandemic when we were.

As far as what I've said in the past goes: You guys might not remember but I posted on this board months ago that, based on the study report at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7017e2.htm, I was going to continue to wear a mask even though I was fully vaccinated. The reason is that the study suggests that, though fully vaccinated people had a lower rate of infection, those that WERE infected were more likely to be asymptomatic. Of those fully vaccinated that were infected during the study, 64% were asymptomatic. Among the unvaccinated that got infected, only 9 percent were asymptomatic. So I said...and posted here while citing that study...that I would continue to wear a mask in order to protect other people. And I still think that study is a very good one because they were regularly testing everybody associated with the facility.

That's an illustration of the fact that I have never looked at vaccination alone as the ultimate solution. But, at the same time, I really shake my head at people who act like vaccination is of no use and even dangerous. People who work to contribute to us having an unacceptably low vaccination rate then say "SEE, vaccination doesn't help" in the context of a situation in which we have never had a vaccination rate sufficient to have vaccination be the factor it could be on a population level.

BTW I do think vaccination also cuts the risk that a person will end up transmitting the disease. Here's an article on that for Omicron: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new ... finds.html, I don't see a convenient link to the paper in the article so I'll try to find it later.

Here is a paper on that for Delta: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... al%20loads.

That effect isn't taken into account by the formula described above.

[JohnStOnge]

There is no false narrative about vaccine effectiveness waning. The CDC says their effectiveness wanes. Everybody says they wane.

No shit they wane. That's what I've been showing and when it started. Why do you think I started using UK data? Because our CDC has been withholding that same data.

Of course you took a much different stance on the waning and multiple other topics like:

Pandemic of the unvaccinated
Unvaccinated are variant factories
Asymptomatic spread.
Vaccines prevent spread.

Everything big picture you have argued has been on the wrong side of history. You even had the gall to say a professional epidemiologist who designs studies wasn't as good as you.

It is largely a pandemic of the unvaccinated in terms of serious consequences. It is still, as far as I can tell, that achieving a high vaccination rate would reduce the generation of new variants. Note that both the the variants that recently caused problems for us, originated in low-vaccination rate environments. There is Asymptomatic spread and vaccines do reduce the spread rate. They do so by both reducing the rate of infection among those vaccinated and by reducing the risk that a vaccinated person will transmit the disease to others on a per contact basis if they do become infected.

I don't think I said a professional epidemiologist who designs studies is not as good as me. If it's the situation I'm thinking of I just wrote that the credentials of the people who did the study he was criticizing compare favorably to his. I think it was basically a guy with credentials at Cal San Fransisco or something vs. a number of people with credentials at Cal Berkley. I'm also thinking maybe he isn't an epidemiologist per se. But I could be mis-remembering that and I don't want to go through the effort of trying to find the posts on that again.

I also said you can always find plenty of problems with case control studies. I don't think I disagreed with anything he said about some of the weaknesses. I did wonder if the authors included somebody with expertise in adjusting for low response rates.

I always thought the vaccine waning was a good possibility. I was wondering if I'd be able to get a booster as soon as I got my second shot because I was worried about that. To my recollection it was always recognized as a possibility.

On the "Vaccines prevent spread" thing: Vaccination does prevent spread in that it reduces spread below what it would be without vaccination. Whether it reduces spread enough to get the reproductive number below 1 depends on a lot of things. But it does reduce spread. See https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... al%20loads and https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new ... finds.html. And those two are just talking about people who are vaccinated and who DO get infected spreading it to others. Vaccination also reduces the risk of being infected to begin with. Not by as much as we'd like with Omicron and Delta. But it does reduce it.

[BDKJMU]

No shit they wane. That's what I've been showing and when it started. Why do you think I started using UK data? Because our CDC has been withholding that same data.

Of course you took a much different stance on the waning and multiple other topics like:

Pandemic of the unvaccinated
Unvaccinated are variant factories
Asymptomatic spread.
Vaccines prevent spread.

Everything big picture you have argued has been on the wrong side of history. You even had the gall to say a professional epidemiologist who designs studies wasn't as good as you.

It is largely a pandemic of the unvaccinated in terms of serious consequences. It is still, as far as I can tell, that achieving a high vaccination rate would reduce the generation of new variants. Note that both the the variants that recently caused problems for us, originated in low-vaccination rate environments. There is Asymptomatic spread and vaccines do reduce the spread rate. They do so by both reducing the rate of infection among those vaccinated and by reducing the risk that a vaccinated person will transmit the disease to others on a per contact basis if they do become infected.

I don't think I said a professional epidemiologist who designs studies is not as good as me. If it's the situation I'm thinking of I just wrote that the credentials of the people who did the study he was criticizing compare favorably to his. I think it was basically a guy with credentials at Cal San Fransisco or something vs. a number of people with credentials at Cal Berkley. I'm also thinking maybe he isn't an epidemiologist per se. But I could be mis-remembering that and I don't want to go through the effort of trying to find the posts on that again.

I also said you can always find plenty of problems with case control studies. I don't think I disagreed with anything he said about some of the weaknesses. I did wonder if the authors included somebody with expertise in adjusting for low response rates.

I always thought the vaccine waning was a good possibility. I was wondering if I'd be able to get a booster as soon as I got my second shot because I was worried about that. To my recollection it was always recognized as a possibility.

On the "Vaccines prevent spread" thing: Vaccination does prevent spread in that it reduces spread below what it would be without vaccination. Whether it reduces spread enough to get the reproductive number below 1 depends on a lot of things. But it does reduce spread. See https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... al%20loads and https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new ... finds.html. And those two are just talking about people who are vaccinated and who DO get infected spreading it to others. Vaccination also reduces the risk of being infected to begin with. Not by as much as we'd like with Omicron and Delta. But it does reduce it.

Let's talk about something you might find interesting regardless. It's a simplistic but useful model for thinking about how much good we can do with vaccination and also other mitigations. You can read some about the concepts at https://plus.maths.org/content/maths-mi ... d-immunity. If you look at that you can see descriptions of the terminology I'll be using.

The idea is to do things to get the basic reproduction number, R0, down to an effective reproduction number, R, <1. A formula for doing that through vaccination is:

R = R0 x (1-(vaccine efficacy x vaccine rate)_. So let's apply that to what the situation was when vaccines were first approved and we were dealing with the original strain. I'll use R0 = 2.8 for the original strain based on the article at https://vitals.sutterhealth.org/omicron ... o-reasons/. Original efficacy for the MRNA vaccines were above 90% for symptomatic disease. Let's just assume 80% efficacy at reducing infection.

Then you can say that you'd need an 81 percent vaccination rate. The equation would become R = 2.8 x (1 - (0.8 x 0.81) = 0.99. If we assume efficacy in stopping infection at first was pretty close to efficacy at stopping symptomatic illness, say 0.9, we could get by with a 0.72 vaccination rate as 2.8 x (1 - (0.9 x 0.72) = 0.99.

Lately we encountered the Delta variant with a R0 thought to be around 5 and the Omicron variant with a R0 thought to be 7 or more. That does make it difficult to achieve "herd immunity" through vaccination alone. Even if the vaccines were still 90% (0.9) effective, we would have to have an 88% vaccination rate to overcome R0=5 and a 96% vaccination rate to overcome R0 = 7. And we know the current vaccines are not close to 90% effective against Delta (which is largely gone) or Omicron.

But that doesn't mean it's not wise to try to maximize the vaccination rate while also continuing vaccine development in the arms race against the virus. There are suggestions that another generation of vaccines may be effective against all coronaviruses so that evolution of new variants is not as much of a problem.

Meanwhile other measures can be applied in addition to vaccination to further reduce R. My own opinion is that one reason we had as much of a problem with the Omicron variant as we did is that people lost patience and largely acted like we were not still in the midst of a pandemic when we were.

As far as what I've said in the past goes: You guys might not remember but I posted on this board months ago that, based on the study report at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7017e2.htm, I was going to continue to wear a mask even though I was fully vaccinated. The reason is that the study suggests that, though fully vaccinated people had a lower rate of infection, those that WERE infected were more likely to be asymptomatic. Of those fully vaccinated that were infected during the study, 64% were asymptomatic. Among the unvaccinated that got infected, only 9 percent were asymptomatic. So I said...and posted here while citing that study...that I would continue to wear a mask in order to protect other people. And I still think that study is a very good one because they were regularly testing everybody associated with the facility.

That's an illustration of the fact that I have never looked at vaccination alone as the ultimate solution. But, at the same time, I really shake my head at people who act like vaccination is of no use and even dangerous. People who work to contribute to us having an unacceptably low vaccination rate then say "SEE, vaccination doesn't help" in the context of a situation in which we have never had a vaccination rate sufficient to have vaccination be the factor it could be on a population level.

BTW I do think vaccination also cuts the risk that a person will end up transmitting the disease. Here's an article on that for Omicron: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new ... finds.html, I don't see a convenient link to the paper in the article so I'll try to find it later.

Here is a paper on that for Delta: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... al%20loads.

That effect isn't taken into account by the formula described above.

Is anyone actually reading all of JSO’s drivel? If so, can someone please give me the cliff notes version?

[Ibanez]

blah blah blah pandemic blah blah blah vaccine blah blah blah TRUMP IS BAD blah blah blah Louisiana crabs

Is anyone actually reading all of JSO’s drivel? If so, can someone please give me the cliff notes version?

No and fuck you for quoting that shit.

[BDKJMU]

Is anyone actually reading all of JSO’s drivel? If so, can someone please give me the cliff notes version?

No and fuck you for quoting that shit.

If your thumbs work that’s like a 2 second scroll..

[houndawg]

The reason public health England had to start issuing disclaimers is because people like you were running around the internet misinterpreting what they produced. The numbers do support the narrative if what you are talking about as the narrative is the data support trying to get as high a vaccination rate as possible.

Read my posts dude. They were all comparing sheer total numbers, not vaccine effectiveness. I was pointing out the shift from the unvaccinated to the vaccinated.

You do realize you've been StWrong on every prediction don't you? When will you stop being told what to think and actually think for yourself?

Vaccine prevent you from getting Covid
Vaccines prevent spread.
You'll catch Covid, but it won't be bad.
It may be bad, but you won't die.

What a total crock of bullshit. From the very beginning of this thing nobody from the gubmint has said this. They have said, time and time again, that no vaccine is 100% effective. You're trying to fuck a fly's ass over the difference between "none" and "a vanishingly small part of the population". Out of curiousity, what is it that you do in the medical industry? Do you work in a lab?

[houndawg]

It is largely a pandemic of the unvaccinated in terms of serious consequences. It is still, as far as I can tell, that achieving a high vaccination rate would reduce the generation of new variants. Note that both the the variants that recently caused problems for us, originated in low-vaccination rate environments. There is Asymptomatic spread and vaccines do reduce the spread rate. They do so by both reducing the rate of infection among those vaccinated and by reducing the risk that a vaccinated person will transmit the disease to others on a per contact basis if they do become infected.

I don't think I said a professional epidemiologist who designs studies is not as good as me. If it's the situation I'm thinking of I just wrote that the credentials of the people who did the study he was criticizing compare favorably to his. I think it was basically a guy with credentials at Cal San Fransisco or something vs. a number of people with credentials at Cal Berkley. I'm also thinking maybe he isn't an epidemiologist per se. But I could be mis-remembering that and I don't want to go through the effort of trying to find the posts on that again.

I also said you can always find plenty of problems with case control studies. I don't think I disagreed with anything he said about some of the weaknesses. I did wonder if the authors included somebody with expertise in adjusting for low response rates.

I always thought the vaccine waning was a good possibility. I was wondering if I'd be able to get a booster as soon as I got my second shot because I was worried about that. To my recollection it was always recognized as a possibility.

On the "Vaccines prevent spread" thing: Vaccination does prevent spread in that it reduces spread below what it would be without vaccination. Whether it reduces spread enough to get the reproductive number below 1 depends on a lot of things. But it does reduce spread. See https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... al%20loads and https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new ... finds.html. And those two are just talking about people who are vaccinated and who DO get infected spreading it to others. Vaccination also reduces the risk of being infected to begin with. Not by as much as we'd like with Omicron and Delta. But it does reduce it.

Let's talk about something you might find interesting regardless. It's a simplistic but useful model for thinking about how much good we can do with vaccination and also other mitigations. You can read some about the concepts at https://plus.maths.org/content/maths-mi ... d-immunity. If you look at that you can see descriptions of the terminology I'll be using.

The idea is to do things to get the basic reproduction number, R0, down to an effective reproduction number, R, <1. A formula for doing that through vaccination is:

R = R0 x (1-(vaccine efficacy x vaccine rate)_. So let's apply that to what the situation was when vaccines were first approved and we were dealing with the original strain. I'll use R0 = 2.8 for the original strain based on the article at https://vitals.sutterhealth.org/omicron ... o-reasons/. Original efficacy for the MRNA vaccines were above 90% for symptomatic disease. Let's just assume 80% efficacy at reducing infection.

Then you can say that you'd need an 81 percent vaccination rate. The equation would become R = 2.8 x (1 - (0.8 x 0.81) = 0.99. If we assume efficacy in stopping infection at first was pretty close to efficacy at stopping symptomatic illness, say 0.9, we could get by with a 0.72 vaccination rate as 2.8 x (1 - (0.9 x 0.72) = 0.99.

Lately we encountered the Delta variant with a R0 thought to be around 5 and the Omicron variant with a R0 thought to be 7 or more. That does make it difficult to achieve "herd immunity" through vaccination alone. Even if the vaccines were still 90% (0.9) effective, we would have to have an 88% vaccination rate to overcome R0=5 and a 96% vaccination rate to overcome R0 = 7. And we know the current vaccines are not close to 90% effective against Delta (which is largely gone) or Omicron.

But that doesn't mean it's not wise to try to maximize the vaccination rate while also continuing vaccine development in the arms race against the virus. There are suggestions that another generation of vaccines may be effective against all coronaviruses so that evolution of new variants is not as much of a problem.

Meanwhile other measures can be applied in addition to vaccination to further reduce R. My own opinion is that one reason we had as much of a problem with the Omicron variant as we did is that people lost patience and largely acted like we were not still in the midst of a pandemic when we were.

As far as what I've said in the past goes: You guys might not remember but I posted on this board months ago that, based on the study report at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7017e2.htm, I was going to continue to wear a mask even though I was fully vaccinated. The reason is that the study suggests that, though fully vaccinated people had a lower rate of infection, those that WERE infected were more likely to be asymptomatic. Of those fully vaccinated that were infected during the study, 64% were asymptomatic. Among the unvaccinated that got infected, only 9 percent were asymptomatic. So I said...and posted here while citing that study...that I would continue to wear a mask in order to protect other people. And I still think that study is a very good one because they were regularly testing everybody associated with the facility.

That's an illustration of the fact that I have never looked at vaccination alone as the ultimate solution. But, at the same time, I really shake my head at people who act like vaccination is of no use and even dangerous. People who work to contribute to us having an unacceptably low vaccination rate then say "SEE, vaccination doesn't help" in the context of a situation in which we have never had a vaccination rate sufficient to have vaccination be the factor it could be on a population level.

BTW I do think vaccination also cuts the risk that a person will end up transmitting the disease. Here's an article on that for Omicron: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new ... finds.html, I don't see a convenient link to the paper in the article so I'll try to find it later.

Here is a paper on that for Delta: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... al%20loads.

That effect isn't taken into account by the formula described above.

Is anyone actually reading all of JSO’s drivel? If so, can someone please give me the cliff notes version?

The short version is that he's taking SG to school.

You probably wouldn't understand the math judging by your response.

[AZGrizFan]

Read my posts dude. They were all comparing sheer total numbers, not vaccine effectiveness. I was pointing out the shift from the unvaccinated to the vaccinated.

You do realize you've been StWrong on every prediction don't you? When will you stop being told what to think and actually think for yourself?

Vaccine prevent you from getting Covid
Vaccines prevent spread.
You'll catch Covid, but it won't be bad.
It may be bad, but you won't die.

What a total crock of bullshit. From the very beginning of this thing nobody from the gubmint has said this. They have said, time and time again, that no vaccine is 100% effective. You're trying to fuck a fly's ass over the difference between "none" and "a vanishingly small part of the population". Out of curiousity, what is it that you do in the medical industry? Do you work in a lab?

100% bullshit. ABSOLUTELY people in government have said that.