Coronavirus COVID-19

[BDKJMU]

So 5 shots (2 vax shots + 3 boosters)?

One original shot plus 3 boosters = 4.

Oh, so you had the J&J.

Since moat people got Pfizer or Moderna, was thinking 2.

[kalm]

One original shot plus 3 boosters = 4.

Oh, so you had the J&J.

Since moat people got Pfizer or Moderna, was thinking 2.

Moderna for all 4. I got vaxxed very early each time as I was bumped to the top of the list due to comorbidity.

[BDKJMU]

Oh, so you had the J&J.

Since moat people got Pfizer or Moderna, was thinking 2.

Moderna for all 4. I got vaxxed very early each time as I was bumped to the top of the list due to comorbidity.

Saying you got the moderna vax + 3 boosters totalling 4 shots doesn’t make sense . Moderna was 2 vax shots. 1st booster would be 3rd shot (I know multiple people who’ve had this). So someone who had the moderna vax (2 shots) + 3 boosters would have 5 shots.

[kalm]

Moderna for all 4. I got vaxxed very early each time as I was bumped to the top of the list due to comorbidity.

Saying you got the moderna vax + 3 boosters totalling 4 shots doesn’t make sense . Moderna was 2 vax shots. 1st booster would be 3rd shot (I know multiple people who’ve had this). So someone who had the moderna vax (2 shots) + 3 boosters would have 5 shots.

Hmmm. Maybe I had 5? Was the 1st Moderna booster (2nd shot) within a month or so of the first? I don’t remember.

Regardless, I scheduled all of my vaccinations/boosters as soon as I was eligible and I was eligible for the earliest available due to a compromised immune system.

[SeattleGriz]

Saying you got the moderna vax + 3 boosters totalling 4 shots doesn’t make sense . Moderna was 2 vax shots. 1st booster would be 3rd shot (I know multiple people who’ve had this). So someone who had the moderna vax (2 shots) + 3 boosters would have 5 shots.

Hmmm. Maybe I had 5? Was the 1st Moderna booster (2nd shot) within a month or so of the first? I don’t remember.

Regardless, I scheduled all of my vaccinations/boosters as soon as I was eligible and I was eligible for the earliest available due to a compromised immune system.

Moderna and Pfizer's initial vaccination protocol is two shots. Everything after those initial two shots is considered a booster.

[JohnStOnge]

In case you are wondering, State by State data suggest that vaccination has been working since Omicron BA.5 became the dominant variant even though people have been slacking on vaccination. I used data obtained from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ to calculate State by State COVID-19 cases and deaths per million population (case and death rates) during July 16 - October 11, 2022. I started with July 16 because, as of that date, Omicron B5 had come to represent 73.5% of COVID-19 cases in the United States. It peaked at 86.7% during the week ending August 20 and was at 79.2% during the week ending October 8.

I used data obtained from https://usafacts.org/vis.../covid-vacci ... er-states/... to get an indication of vaccination rates. I used the "% with booster or additional dose" for each State. That's as of August 31; which is not ideal. But it still provides an indication with respect to how each State has been doing with vaccination.

I used Spearman's correlation to test association because it does not assume continuous variables or a linear relationship. Technically, case rate data are not continuous. And the relationship between vaccination rate and case rate may not be linear.

Here are the results:

Vaccination rate vs. case rate: Spearman's Rho = -0.39442, p = 0.00459.

Vaccination rate vs. death rate: Spearman's Rho = -0.33592, p = 0.01708.

For those of you not familiar with interpreting such things: By convention, a p value less than or equal to 0.05 is considered to be "statistically significant." A p value = 0.05 means 95% confidence. The p values above indicate 99.5% confidence that there is an association such that States with higher vaccination rates had lower case rates during July 16 through October 11 and 98.3% confidence that States with higher vaccination rates had lower COVID-19 death rates during that period.

And I don't think that even reflects the impact of the new bivalent booster that is targeted for the later Omicron variants. That's mostly an association involving the original vaccines.

Speaking of the bivalent vaccine: People are stupid. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... ter-surge/

I'm sorry. But one thing Public Health officials have to deal with in the United States is that people are stupid.

[GannonFan]

I'm sorry. But one thing Public Health officials have to deal with in the United States is that people are stupid.

Public Health officials did themselves no favors by so badly managing the pandemic almost from the very beginning of all of this. That will be the true outcome of this for years if not decades to come - the lack of confidence in public health officials. We're in a hyper-charged political atmosphere with strong divisions in the public - having public health officials act like just another politician was the wrong tack to take. The American public has always been stupid, but having public health officials match that stupidity really hurt us.

[BDKJMU]

Saying you got the moderna vax + 3 boosters totalling 4 shots doesn’t make sense . Moderna was 2 vax shots. 1st booster would be 3rd shot (I know multiple people who’ve had this). So someone who had the moderna vax (2 shots) + 3 boosters would have 5 shots.

Hmmm. Maybe I had 5? Was the 1st Moderna booster (2nd shot) within a month or so of the first? I don’t remember.

Regardless, I scheduled all of my vaccinations/boosters as soon as I was eligible and I was eligible for the earliest available due to a compromised immune system.

2nd shot of Moderna was/is not a booster. 1st booster of Moderna is 3rd shot. Simple.

[BDKJMU]

Hmmm. Maybe I had 5? Was the 1st Moderna booster (2nd shot) within a month or so of the first? I don’t remember.

Regardless, I scheduled all of my vaccinations/boosters as soon as I was eligible and I was eligible for the earliest available due to a compromised immune system.

Moderna and Pfizer's initial vaccination protocol is two shots. Everything after those initial two shots is considered a booster.

Yep.

[GannonFan]

Just got my flu shot today and my bivariant booster. Both arms are sore, but other than that so far so good. Pfizer for all mine, so the initial two dose, then a booster last November, and now the bivariant booster now. Also had a slight case of COVID (probably lasted about 12 hours and I suspect the COVID medicine I took - didn't do the whole 5 days, stopped after the first dose) in early August. Will probably hold off for the kids - my oldest is in college so he'll get whatever they require (he needed to be vaccinated and a booster before starting school), but my other two are still at home. Youngest got COVID this summer at Boy Scout camp (and brought it back and that's what got us), middle guy hasn't had it at all. He's still in cross country season so I'm not having him get it till after the season. Still disappointed that the vaccine doesn't significantly protect against transmission - that would've been a real game changer.

[JohnStOnge]

I'm sorry. But one thing Public Health officials have to deal with in the United States is that people are stupid.

Public Health officials did themselves no favors by so badly managing the pandemic almost from the very beginning of all of this. That will be the true outcome of this for years if not decades to come - the lack of confidence in public health officials. We're in a hyper-charged political atmosphere with strong divisions in the public - having public health officials act like just another politician was the wrong tack to take. The American public has always been stupid, but having public health officials match that stupidity really hurt us.

They were being interfered with by a corrupt Administration. Bottom line: If everyone had listened to public health officials without all of the nonsense all along, there would have been far less negative impact from the pandemic. The lack of confidence in public health officials is due to ignorance and public health officials having to deal with a bunch of people putting out misinformation to undermine their efforts.

[SeattleGriz]

Public Health officials did themselves no favors by so badly managing the pandemic almost from the very beginning of all of this. That will be the true outcome of this for years if not decades to come - the lack of confidence in public health officials. We're in a hyper-charged political atmosphere with strong divisions in the public - having public health officials act like just another politician was the wrong tack to take. The American public has always been stupid, but having public health officials match that stupidity really hurt us.

They were being interfered with by a corrupt Administration. Bottom line: If everyone had listened to public health officials without all of the nonsense all along, there would have been far less negative impact from the pandemic. The lack of confidence in public health officials is due to ignorance and public health officials having to deal with a bunch of people putting out misinformation to undermine their efforts.

Please expand on your, "interfered with by a corrupt Administration". Who did what?

[GannonFan]

Public Health officials did themselves no favors by so badly managing the pandemic almost from the very beginning of all of this. That will be the true outcome of this for years if not decades to come - the lack of confidence in public health officials. We're in a hyper-charged political atmosphere with strong divisions in the public - having public health officials act like just another politician was the wrong tack to take. The American public has always been stupid, but having public health officials match that stupidity really hurt us.

They were being interfered with by a corrupt Administration. Bottom line: If everyone had listened to public health officials without all of the nonsense all along, there would have been far less negative impact from the pandemic. The lack of confidence in public health officials is due to ignorance and public health officials having to deal with a bunch of people putting out misinformation to undermine their efforts.

We have 50 separate states that played a part too. Trump was just one person, and despite how inept he was, he didn't cause all this contempt for public health officials. And heck, people overresponding to Trump played a part in this too - not everything is about Trump. Ever changing dictates, slow responses to adjust to the changing pandemic and slow responses to back away from measures, and using a broad swatch to implement measures when a more nuanced approach was needed, did far more harm to the confidence in public health officials.

[SDHornet]

[SeattleGriz]

Destroys StOnge's and the superstitious's assertion. But of course those that pointed this out were labeled as anti science.

Still a lot of reckoning with the assholes to be had.

[SeattleGriz]

Guy confronts group over Pfizer payouts. Beta male tries to grab him, only to see guy giggle and push him off him easily.

https://rumble.com/v1o0uhc-i-was-attack ... e-sim.html

[JohnStOnge]

Destroys StOnge's and the superstitious's assertion. But of course those that pointed this out were labeled as anti science.

Still a lot of reckoning with the assholes to be had.

You guys are just completely wrong on this issue and it is becoming more evident every day.

[SeattleGriz]

Public Health officials did themselves no favors by so badly managing the pandemic almost from the very beginning of all of this. That will be the true outcome of this for years if not decades to come - the lack of confidence in public health officials. We're in a hyper-charged political atmosphere with strong divisions in the public - having public health officials act like just another politician was the wrong tack to take. The American public has always been stupid, but having public health officials match that stupidity really hurt us.

They were being interfered with by a corrupt Administration. Bottom line: If everyone had listened to public health officials without all of the nonsense all along, there would have been far less negative impact from the pandemic. The lack of confidence in public health officials is due to ignorance and public health officials having to deal with a bunch of people putting out misinformation to undermine their efforts.

You lost. Everything you advocated has turned out horribly. Thank God you are not at the switches of public health.

[JohnStOnge]

The below describes publicly available data that clearly show that States with higher vaccination rates have tended to have less negative impact from COVID-19.

Fun with numbers again. I got COVID-19 case rate data for the period 7/16/2022 through 10/14/2022 from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/. I picked that period based on the information on proportions of COVID-19 variants in the US over time at https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/... (at least right now...my start period is about to drop off the graph). The idea is that I'm looking at a period during which Omicron BA.5 was the dominant strain. I got vaccinated plus boosted rates as of 8/31/2022 from https://usafacts.org/vis.../covid-vacci ... er-states/.... I got population density by State from https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... -densities. I got percentages of persons in each State 65 and older from https://www.prb.org/resou.../which-us-s ... he-oldest/.

As in the past, I used Spearman's correlation to establish that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that States with higher vaccinated and boosted rates have had COVID-19 lower case rates during 7/16/2022 through 10/14/2022 (Spearman's Rho = -0.38284, p = 0.00607) as well as lower COVID-19 death rates (Spearman's Rho = -0.29644, p = 0.03659) during the period.

Then I did ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression to take population density and % population 65 and older into account. There can be issues with using OLS regression with count and/or rate data but I tested for effects of those. I ended up having to convert the case and death rates into logarithms but ended up with things working. Here is how it turned out:

1) Boosted rate and population density are both factors in 7/16/2022 through 10/14/2022 case rate while percent population 65 and older is not. Within the range of boosted rates (18.2% through 52.4%), going from 18.2% boosted rate to 52.4% boosted rate is estimated to reduce case rate by 35% (25,014 per million population to 16,368). If you control for population density by holding that constant at the 208.9 persons per square mile density, going from 18.2% boosted rate to 52.4% boosted rate is estimated to reduce case rate by 42% (26,339 to 15,245).

2) Boosted rate and percent population 65 and older are both factors in 7/16/2022 through 10/14/2022 death rate while population density is not. Within the range of boosted rates (18.2% through 52.4%), going from 18.2% boosted rate to 52.4% boosted rate is estimated to reduce death rate by 39% (137 per million population to 84). If you control for percent population 65 and older at the 17.4% average, going from 18.2% boosted rate to 52.4% boosted rate is estimated to reduce death rate by 48% (147 to 77).

I know that's a lot of arcane stuff. But there is no question...none...that States with higher vaccinated and boosted rates have tended to have less negative impact from COVID-19.

The sad thing is that no State had more than a 52.4% vaccinated and boosted rate as of August 31. We can only guess as to how much better things would be if something like 90% were up to date on their vaccinations because a rule of OLS regression is that you can't predict beyond the range of the values of the independent variable.

if you are my age (64) right now, being up to date on your vaccinations means you have had five shots. i am not sure where the break point is, but for people in younger age groups but not the youngest you'd have had four shots to be up to date. That is not happening. I think it's safe to say that less than one third of the US population is up to date. Yet you can still see strong evidence consistent with the idea of a positive vaccination effect in data such as described above.

[JohnStOnge]

They were being interfered with by a corrupt Administration. Bottom line: If everyone had listened to public health officials without all of the nonsense all along, there would have been far less negative impact from the pandemic. The lack of confidence in public health officials is due to ignorance and public health officials having to deal with a bunch of people putting out misinformation to undermine their efforts.

You lost. Everything you advocated has turned out horribly. Thank God you are not at the switches of public health.

Again: You are completely wrong. It is obvious that vaccination has a dramatic positive effect. It is also obvious at this point that community masking has a positive effect (see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0249891 as an example). What has turned out horribly is the effect of people like you spreading misinformation. Not that you in particular had that much of an effect. But the whole anti-vax, anti-mask type of thing has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States and made the episode much worse than it had to be.

[JohnStOnge]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... n-each-sta

Nearly 319,000 COVID-19 deaths could have been averted if all adults had gotten vaccinated

And, of course, "Party of Stupid" (i.e., red states) fared the worst.

[SeattleGriz]

You lost. Everything you advocated has turned out horribly. Thank God you are not at the switches of public health.

Again: You are completely wrong. It is obvious that vaccination has a dramatic positive effect. It is also obvious at this point that community masking has a positive effect (see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0249891 as an example). What has turned out horribly is the effect of people like you spreading misinformation. Not that you in particular had that much of an effect. But the whole anti-vax, anti-mask type of thing has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States and made the episode much worse than it had to be.

May everyone know what an unhinged nut you are. Scary.

StOnge is now smarter than human immunity!

Nut job.

[SeattleGriz]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... n-each-sta

Nearly 319,000 COVID-19 deaths could have been averted if all adults had gotten vaccinated

And, of course, "Party of Stupid" (i.e., red states) fared the worst.

This has been debunked so many times. It all has to do with all metro areas fare better as far as health outcomes. Closer to medicine. You trying to use this to your advantage is despicable.

[JohnStOnge]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... n-each-sta



And, of course, "Party of Stupid" (i.e., red states) fared the worst.

This has been debunked so many times. It all has to do with all metro areas fare better as far as health outcomes. Closer to medicine. You trying to use this to your advantage is despicable.

That is ridiculous. Go ahead and link something to support what you are saying. Go ahead and post a link to something you think shows that the data support that theory as the reason for why "red" states tend to have higher COVID-19 death rates. i looked at population density as a factor in death rate in the analysis described above. It's not a factor when vaccinated/boosted rate is taken into account. No that's not looking directly at metro areas. But the apparent idea you are proposing should show up in that.

You're just completely wrong man. I suspect you really THINK you're right. But you're not.

[JohnStOnge]

Again: You are completely wrong. It is obvious that vaccination has a dramatic positive effect. It is also obvious at this point that community masking has a positive effect (see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0249891 as an example). What has turned out horribly is the effect of people like you spreading misinformation. Not that you in particular had that much of an effect. But the whole anti-vax, anti-mask type of thing has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States and made the episode much worse than it had to be.

May everyone know what an unhinged nut you are. Scary.

StOnge is now smarter than human immunity!

Nut job.

Human immunity is made more effective through vaccination.

If you're talking about "natural immunity" that is foolish. We learned a long time ago that we can improve upon the protection offered by "natural immunity."

Again: This thing was made much worse than it had to be because of people doing the kinds of things you are doing. You should stop. I suspect your heart is in the right place. But you are just completely wrong and you are contributing to a misinformation stream that is killing people.