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COVID-19 detected in United States

Evan

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Unfortunately, those insanely high results are almost certainly data-manipulation/lying with statistics. Those numbers will break down completely soon, and already break down if you choose a more recent starting point. In Israel this past week, of the 81 people hospitalized with severe COVID, 73 of those were fully vaccinated. This isn't too surprising, given that unvaccinated people under 20 are still at less risk from COVID than a vaccinated older person. It should be expected that a higher percentage of hospitalizations here to be unvaccinated people, but it will not come anywhere near the 95-99% numbers some are pushing.

The other potentially impactful stat coming out of Israel is that it appears those with previously natural infection are much better protected against Delta than those that are vaccinated with no prior infection. We'll have to see if those numbers hold up over the next few months, and if they end up being replicated here in the US.

I don't have the time to formulate a full response right now, but I think you are mixing transmission on small scale and large scale areas vs. what I'm arguing. Vaccination rate could absolutely be a driver in a micro-scale (say, Jefferson County vs. Blount county), but on a macro scale seasonality is driving where it spreads (Alabama vs. Wisconsin). However I don't see any correlation in Alabama and Florida (only two I've had a chance to look at) between vaccination rates at the county level and case counts at the county level.

Saying it doesn't make it so. Proof is required. There's no proof seasonality is driving the spread of COVID. In contrast, I've already provided numerous pieces of evidence from reputable studies showing a lack of vaccination is what is driving COVID infection and serious illness/hospitalization.

If seasonality plays even a remotely significant role then help me understand why cases per 100k in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina are 4-5x LESS than the rate in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida? While Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming are virtually identical to Alabama and Mississippi?

In fact, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina, are more similar to Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, and Oregon than they are to Alabama/Mississippi. Vaccination rates are clearly not the only factor that plays a role, travel/tourism patterns and outbreak clusters in states are also major factors, but if seasonality is a major factor then why are so many states with different climate, temps, and humidity levels so similar while states that have a similar climate, temp, and humidity level are so very different?
 

Jacob

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If I get a chance later tonight I'll respond to all your points. I'll be sure to double check my Israel data, not being able to read Hebrew makes it more difficult.

Edit: Using a browser that translates automatically sure makes that easier
 
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Jacob

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Disclaimer: I'm probably going to post a handful of posts following this one. I'd rather reply to each individual point with a post and not have something get buried in one long gigantic post.

The recent Israeli numbers, which are updated weekly, are quite similar finding that being fully vaccinated is 93% effective against being hospitalized:


I would definitely like to see a link to your stats on Israeli hospitalizations as the Israeli government's stats that they post at https://www.gov.il/en/departments/guides/information-corona?chapterIndex=1 -- doesn't show any numbers in the last several weeks that match yours.

I have not been able to find the data from this current week on this Israeli site. It is possible that I shared bad data there. It appears that data updates weekly per their databases, so I might be able to parse through and find this on Sunday/Monday. One thing I've tried to do is always include the actual data, and I did not take the time to confirm this one, so that was my mistake. Right now I'm looking at the week 7/4-7/10, and I'm unable to find the exact statistic I cited for this past week. I have however found statistics for general hospitalizations, and during the week of 7/4-7/10, approximately 70% of the hospitalizations were among fully vaccinated individuals. I say approximately because if 1-4 hospitalizations occur in an age group, it is listed as "<5", so I'm unable to add up the exact numbers. This causes this number to fall somewhere in the 61-80% range. With hospitalizations increasing more this week, these numbers should be larger and the uncertainty range smaller for the 7/11-7/17 week, so I'll update that on Monday.

Your earlier point about 52% of the cases being in ages of 19 and under is true, and certainly could be a major driving factor there. One concern I have with the Israeli data though is that in cases of people aged 20 and above, there is no statistical improvement in cases among those vaccinated and those not vaccinated. One would think there would be some difference between the two groups if the vaccine is effective at preventing cases. Of those remaining 48% of cases, the amount of cases are almost directly proportional to the % of people vaccinated in those groups. I think this is a cause of concern. Once again this is the week of 7/4-7/10, so we'll see what the data looks like next week as more data will be available since they've had a lot more cases this week.

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The only thing I can find referring to natural immunity in Israel is stuff on fringe nutter anti-vax sites. Have you been vaccinated, Jacob? Because it certainly sounds like your pushing an agenda that vaccines aren't effective at preventing COVID infection, serious illness hospitalization, or death. All reputable studies have shown otherwise.

The natural infection information was based off of the same information as above, I'm trying to locate where in the database this is shown so I can replicate it. I'm going to come back to that so that I can respond to other points. I think your last sentence is not supported by all the statements I've previously made on the vaccine. I'm far more pro-natural immunity than anything (meaning those with previous infection should be treated the same as a fully vaxxed person) Here's a post I made to the Matthew70 guy during his time.
What I bolded in your post is misinformation/untrue, unless we are to assume everything we know about the vaccines is false. No vaccine is going to be perfect, but significantly reducing the risk of hospitalization/death, and severely limiting the spread isn't exactly "nothing changes".

I hope they are as effective as they are made out to be, particularly for severe illness and deaths. I'm concerned with some of the data I see from Europe and Israel that they don't limit the spread nearly as much as we had hoped. I hope that the data over the coming weeks from there shows a significant improvement in the severe illness/deaths, even if it isn't as effective as hoped against the actual spread. My intention is only to go where the data leads and to comment on that.

To answer your question, no I'm not vaccinated. I'm pretty sure I've also said that a few times in the past, it isn't new news. I had a mild case of it second half of 2020, I'm relatively young and in good health, I don't think there's a significant benefit to me getting the vaccine.
 

Jacob

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It's neither data manipulation nor "lying" it's from a reputable study performed by the Cleveland Clinic:



This study is misleading at best. Look at the time period that they analyzed, Jan 1 - April 13. I don't have Ohio level data at hand, but their vaccination rates track pretty close to the US as a whole, so I'm using the US percentages by date. If you look at cases, and assume 0% efficacy of the vaccine, during that time 97.35% of cases would've occurred in unvaccinated people simply because of the percentages of people vaccinated vs. unvaccinated during that time.

Note: I'm tired, clearly, I used national cases instead of Ohio. I don't have a good data source for Ohio offhand newer than March 7th, though I'm sure it's out there. From Jan 1 - March 7th, the same calculation above using Ohio cases would mean 99.4% of cases would be in unvaccinated, even with a 0% efficacy vaccine. This number would come down slightly if I had the data for Ohio to April, probably in the 97.5-98% range, but I think you get my point.

I'd like to see a similar study this fall for this summer wave once it is over, that's where we'll get good data. If it is anywhere near those 90%+, or 95%+ numbers, this summer wave will be significantly stunted by the vaccines.
 
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Jacob

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I have to strongly disagree. Look at the NYTimes County level data. Current COVID hotspots match almost perfectly with areas of lower vaccination rates. The only exceptions are South Florida and South Texas near the Mexican border. There's a very simple explanation for South Florida and the parts of Texas near the border. Many foreign nationals came to Dade and Broward counties to get vaccinated. Likewise in the border counties of Texas. With the way vaccination counts are done, there's not an easy way to control for this in most areas.

I don't believe seasonality explains this because, as I already stated, the county level data shows lower vaccination areas are the places with sharp rises in case counts. But, on a state level approach, why is southern Missouri and most of Arkansas so bad whereas Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Tennessee are not. And, if you look at the county level data, the county hotspots in states bordering Missouri and Arkansas all have lower vax rates like Missouri/Arkansas whereas the better vaccinated counties are at or below 10 cases per 100k whereas the hotspot counties are 40 - 120 cases per 100k. You can see this data by looking at the NYTimes' COVID Tracker site.

Besides that the areas you've previously referred to in making this argument all PEAKED around July 7th - 18th. We're nowhere near a peak yet in most of these areas. We're on an accelerated upslope. No, I think the conclusion that the Delta variant and low vax rates are what is responsible.

As an example to back this up, almost 52% of new cases in Israel are among those 0-19 years old while that age group is less than 36% of Israel's population. For obvious reasons, these are the least vaccinated groups in Israel. And, this is happening even though all prior evidence points to the fact that those under 19 are way less likely to contract COVID than those in older age groups.


Israeli population by age can be fine in numerous places online.

We know Delta is say more transmisible. We know we're seeing many more severe cases in those under 30 in the United States than last year. We know those under 30 are less likely to be vaccinated than older peer groups. We know from hospital reporting and county/state health departments that reports are that almost all (some quoting numbers as high as 99%) of those being hospitalized or dying from COVID right now are unvaccinated.

This article on CNBC looked at 463 counties with at least 100 cases per 100k. 80% of them have vax rates below 40%. It's obvious that transmission is being driven by those who are unvaccinated -- especially in areas with low vaccination rates.


Do I think seasonality and weather plays some role in COVID transmission and cases? Of course. But, I think it is a very small factor comparable to something like getting different gas mileage if you use 89 octane versus 87 octane. The reason is because we have vaccines now. There was likely more of a correlation before widespread vaccine availability. Now that vaccines are available that's by far the predominate factor.

Unfortunately after the previous two posts and working a 14 hour day, I don't have the time to formulate a useful response here. Not surprisingly, I disagree strongly with your conclusion on seasonality, but I'll have to try to find time tomorrow to respond.
 

Evan

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This study is misleading at best. Look at the time period that they analyzed, Jan 1 - April 13. I don't have Ohio level data at hand, but their vaccination rates track pretty close to the US as a whole, so I'm using the US percentages by date. If you look at cases, and assume 0% efficacy of the vaccine, during that time 97.35% of cases would've occurred in unvaccinated people simply because of the percentages of people vaccinated vs. unvaccinated during that time.

Note: I'm tired, clearly, I used national cases instead of Ohio. I don't have a good data source for Ohio offhand newer than March 7th, though I'm sure it's out there. From Jan 1 - March 7th, the same calculation above using Ohio cases would mean 99.4% of cases would be in unvaccinated, even with a 0% efficacy vaccine. This number would come down slightly if I had the data for Ohio to April, probably in the 97.5-98% range, but I think you get my point.

I'd like to see a similar study this fall for this summer wave once it is over, that's where we'll get good data. If it is anywhere near those 90%+, or 95%+ numbers, this summer wave will be significantly stunted by the vaccines.
You're missing the larger study which was among Cleveland Clinic personnel who were vaccinated. 47,000+ employees. Vaccination started in December. 70% of Cleveland Clinic personnel were vaccinated as of early May. While it would be nice to have exact dates for vaccination dates it's incredibly tough to do that because of how people are vaccinated and how the records filter back in to various databases. However, as the study stated, over the 1,991 out of 47,000+ employees who tested positive 99.7% were unvaccinated and 0.3% had been fully vaccinated.

It'd be fair to assume that 70% were NOT fully vaccinated in the January - April time period. However, fully vaccinated cases were only 0.3% or 6 employees. It stands to reason that somewhere between 20% - 40% +/-10%-15% of employees were fully vaccinated during the time of the study. I think that's a fair estimate and potentially on the low end send vaccinations started in December and healthcare workers had top priority.

Nonetheless, 1,985 out of 1991 cases were unvaccinated. Just 6 were fully vaccinated. That's pretty powerful evidence that the vaccine is extremely effective. Somewhere along the lines of someone who is vaccinated is 325 times LESS likely to contract COVID in the study than someone who was unvaccinated. 47k is a pretty large sample size. If 70% were vaccinated by early May then I don't think my 20 - 40% figure is very far from the actual numbers in January - April. I received the JnJ on March 16th and I had nowhere near the priority that a healthcare worker had. Majority of people I work with or in my family were vaccinated in March. Anecdotal to be sure, but I think it's fair to that a good chunk of the 70% vaccinated at Cleveland clinic included in the study had their vax in February - early March. If the vaccine was less effective you'd expect a lot more than 6 people to have been infected when we're talking about nearly 2k positives out of more than 47,000. Especially when a majority of those people were not working from home and were in a clinical setting where they were way more likely to be exposed to COVID than your average person.
 
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Evan

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Disclaimer: I'm probably going to post a handful of posts following this one. I'd rather reply to each individual point with a post and not have something get buried in one long gigantic post.



I have not been able to find the data from this current week on this Israeli site. It is possible that I shared bad data there. It appears that data updates weekly per their databases, so I might be able to parse through and find this on Sunday/Monday. One thing I've tried to do is always include the actual data, and I did not take the time to confirm this one, so that was my mistake. Right now I'm looking at the week 7/4-7/10, and I'm unable to find the exact statistic I cited for this past week. I have however found statistics for general hospitalizations, and during the week of 7/4-7/10, approximately 70% of the hospitalizations were among fully vaccinated individuals. I say approximately because if 1-4 hospitalizations occur in an age group, it is listed as "<5", so I'm unable to add up the exact numbers. This causes this number to fall somewhere in the 61-80% range. With hospitalizations increasing more this week, these numbers should be larger and the uncertainty range smaller for the 7/11-7/17 week, so I'll update that on Monday.

Your earlier point about 52% of the cases being in ages of 19 and under is true, and certainly could be a major driving factor there. One concern I have with the Israeli data though is that in cases of people aged 20 and above, there is no statistical improvement in cases among those vaccinated and those not vaccinated. One would think there would be some difference between the two groups if the vaccine is effective at preventing cases. Of those remaining 48% of cases, the amount of cases are almost directly proportional to the % of people vaccinated in those groups. I think this is a cause of concern. Once again this is the week of 7/4-7/10, so we'll see what the data looks like next week as more data will be available since they've had a lot more cases this week.

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The natural infection information was based off of the same information as above, I'm trying to locate where in the database this is shown so I can replicate it. I'm going to come back to that so that I can respond to other points. I think your last sentence is not supported by all the statements I've previously made on the vaccine. I'm far more pro-natural immunity than anything (meaning those with previous infection should be treated the same as a fully vaxxed person) Here's a post I made to the Matthew70 guy during his time.


I hope they are as effective as they are made out to be, particularly for severe illness and deaths. I'm concerned with some of the data I see from Europe and Israel that they don't limit the spread nearly as much as we had hoped. I hope that the data over the coming weeks from there shows a significant improvement in the severe illness/deaths, even if it isn't as effective as hoped against the actual spread. My intention is only to go where the data leads and to comment on that.

To answer your question, no I'm not vaccinated. I'm pretty sure I've also said that a few times in the past, it isn't new news. I had a mild case of it second half of 2020, I'm relatively young and in good health, I don't think there's a significant benefit to me getting the vaccine.

To be quite honest, I think the natural immunity discussion is a red herring at best. Most people don't have natural immunity. There's limited evidence on the durability and effectiveness of natural immunity when compared to vaccines. And, I'd say it is pretty obvious that natural immunity isn't available to most people so there's little reason to even compare it to vaccination in the first place.

The reason we have dozens of effective vaccines for other dangerous communicable diseases is because any consideration of waiting for natural immunity when it comes to polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis, measles, mumps, and chickenpox is outright foolish.

Why would anyone want to risk hepatitis, polio, tetanus, measles, or chickenpox when all of those easily preventable diseases can cause long-lasting, if not permanent, damage? Whereas the vaccines for each of those diseases have extremely minimal side-effects. I don't know of a single person who's ever had any kind of serious vaccine side-effect, but I know plenty who've had hepatitis, shingles, and polio. I myself have had Hepatitis A and shingles, and I wouldn't wish either on anyone. It's a shame the hepatitis A and varicella vaccines weren't available for me as a part of my childhood immunizations.

I don't understand the idea that natural immunity is all that is needed. As soon as I'm eligible for the shingles vaccine I'll get it. Thankfully my children never have to worry about it since they received varicella vaccinations. If I let them get chickenpox then they'd be susceptible to shingles unless/until they got a shingles vaccination.

We know the COVID vaccines are not perfect. But there's already plenty of studies showing the vaccine is SAFE and improves immunity in those who've already had COVID. You say you're relatively young and in good health. Well, it's also quite true that due to my age and health I'm much more likely to survive a head-on collision than someone over 65. I'm more likely to survive a hard punch to my jaw as well. But, that doesn't mean I forgo a seatbelt or go around picking bar fights. If immunity is improved by being vaccinated, whether previously having had the vaccine or not, then why would somewhere forgo it just because they're at less risk? I'm at less risk of a house fire or theft than many people in the United States, but I still have homeowner's insurance. It's highly improbable my home will get hit by a tornado, but on April 27th I had over 80k in damage to my house. Thank goodness I had homeowner's.

There's no way to prevent all risk. Vaccination is a risk mitigation strategy just like having insurance is. However, if I don't have insurance, it's still pretty unlikely I screw anybody over. Yet, there remains a reason why mortgage lenders mandate it and so does the state for automobiles. Because it's not just about my own personal risk. It's about the risk to others. That's what has been missing in most of these conversations about the vaccine. I have an Uncle at UAB in the Oncology unit right now. He's as Conservative at they get. Loves Trump. But he'll demand that you wear a mask around him regardless of whether you've been vaccinated or not. When you've endured numerous surgeries and multiple rounds of chemo and radiation for stage IV cancer you tend to think someone having to wear a mask and get a shot ain't such a big deal. Vaccination, whether or not someone has immunity, isn't solely about one's own personal risk. It's about the risk posed to others. And if you can reduce the risk you pose to others why wouldn't you want to do so?

People think politics are going to control what happens over the next few years, but politics isn't nearly as powerful as money. More and more businesses are going to mandate the vaccine for their employees. It has nothing to do with someone's individual rights. No one has a right to a job. No one has a right to expose their colleagues to a communicable disease. It won't be long before we start seeing the first employers held responsible liability wise for an employee's, customer's, or vendor's serious illness or death. Money drives our society. Unless one signs the checks then one doesn't make the rules. There's plenty of business owners or executives who've had or have cancer, have a family member suffering from it, or simply want to protect all their employees from COVID.

People can fight it all they want but vaccine mandates are going to grow. Employers have a right to enforce rules related to a healthy and safe workplace. The EEOC has said COVID vaccines may be mandated in all but rare situations. Once the vaccines transition from EUA to full FDA approval we're going to see companies rapidly implement mandatory vaccination for COVID or de facto vaccine requirements.

Want to come into the office, participate in a training, or attend a conference? Want to work at the majority of our customer's facilities? Proof of vaccination is required. There's a variety of ways to mandate vaccines without actually doing so. Money will always override politics. Besides, if a handful of employees aren't willing to partake in something that is safe and effective that protects their colleagues and the company then do you really want them as an employee? It's coming whether people like it or not.

I find it amusing that anyone is that worked up about avoiding something that is so simple, safe, and effective. It's like the people who swore they'd never wear a seatbelt because they wanted to be thrown clear from their vehicle or simply because the government said they have to. OK, more power to ya. Does anyone seriously argue that seatbelts aren't safe and effective?
 

Jacob

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To be quite honest, I think the natural immunity discussion is a red herring at best. Most people don't have natural immunity. There's limited evidence on the durability and effectiveness of natural immunity when compared to vaccines. And, I'd say it is pretty obvious that natural immunity isn't available to most people so there's little reason to even compare it to vaccination in the first place.

The reason we have dozens of effective vaccines for other dangerous communicable diseases is because any consideration of waiting for natural immunity when it comes to polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis, measles, mumps, and chickenpox is outright foolish.

Why would anyone want to risk hepatitis, polio, tetanus, measles, or chickenpox when all of those easily preventable diseases can cause long-lasting, if not permanent, damage? Whereas the vaccines for each of those diseases have extremely minimal side-effects. I don't know of a single person who's ever had any kind of serious vaccine side-effect, but I know plenty who've had hepatitis, shingles, and polio. I myself have had Hepatitis A and shingles, and I wouldn't wish either on anyone. It's a shame the hepatitis A and varicella vaccines weren't available for me as a part of my childhood immunizations.

I don't understand the idea that natural immunity is all that is needed. As soon as I'm eligible for the shingles vaccine I'll get it. Thankfully my children never have to worry about it since they received varicella vaccinations. If I let them get chickenpox then they'd be susceptible to shingles unless/until they got a shingles vaccination.

We know the COVID vaccines are not perfect. But there's already plenty of studies showing the vaccine is SAFE and improves immunity in those who've already had COVID. You say you're relatively young and in good health. Well, it's also quite true that due to my age and health I'm much more likely to survive a head-on collision than someone over 65. I'm more likely to survive a hard punch to my jaw as well. But, that doesn't mean I forgo a seatbelt or go around picking bar fights. If immunity is improved by being vaccinated, whether previously having had the vaccine or not, then why would somewhere forgo it just because they're at less risk? I'm at less risk of a house fire or theft than many people in the United States, but I still have homeowner's insurance. It's highly improbable my home will get hit by a tornado, but on April 27th I had over 80k in damage to my house. Thank goodness I had homeowner's.

There's no way to prevent all risk. Vaccination is a risk mitigation strategy just like having insurance is. However, if I don't have insurance, it's still pretty unlikely I screw anybody over. Yet, there remains a reason why mortgage lenders mandate it and so does the state for automobiles. Because it's not just about my own personal risk. It's about the risk to others. That's what has been missing in most of these conversations about the vaccine. I have an Uncle at UAB in the Oncology unit right now. He's as Conservative at they get. Loves Trump. But he'll demand that you wear a mask around him regardless of whether you've been vaccinated or not. When you've endured numerous surgeries and multiple rounds of chemo and radiation for stage IV cancer you tend to think someone having to wear a mask and get a shot ain't such a big deal. Vaccination, whether or not someone has immunity, isn't solely about one's own personal risk. It's about the risk posed to others. And if you can reduce the risk you pose to others why wouldn't you want to do so?

People think politics are going to control what happens over the next few years, but politics isn't nearly as powerful as money. More and more businesses are going to mandate the vaccine for their employees. It has nothing to do with someone's individual rights. No one has a right to a job. No one has a right to expose their colleagues to a communicable disease. It won't be long before we start seeing the first employers held responsible liability wise for an employee's, customer's, or vendor's serious illness or death. Money drives our society. Unless one signs the checks then one doesn't make the rules. There's plenty of business owners or executives who've had or have cancer, have a family member suffering from it, or simply want to protect all their employees from COVID.

People can fight it all they want but vaccine mandates are going to grow. Employers have a right to enforce rules related to a healthy and safe workplace. The EEOC has said COVID vaccines may be mandated in all but rare situations. Once the vaccines transition from EUA to full FDA approval we're going to see companies rapidly implement mandatory vaccination for COVID or de facto vaccine requirements.

Want to come into the office, participate in a training, or attend a conference? Want to work at the majority of our customer's facilities? Proof of vaccination is required. There's a variety of ways to mandate vaccines without actually doing so. Money will always override politics. Besides, if a handful of employees aren't willing to partake in something that is safe and effective that protects their colleagues and the company then do you really want them as an employee? It's coming whether people like it or not.

I find it amusing that anyone is that worked up about avoiding something that is so simple, safe, and effective. It's like the people who swore they'd never wear a seatbelt because they wanted to be thrown clear from their vehicle or simply because the government said they have to. OK, more power to ya. Does anyone seriously argue that seatbelts aren't safe and effective?

I don't think natural immunity is a red herring at all, there's 100m+ people in this country that have had and recovered from COVID. However I think with your next couple of paragraphs you are arguing against a point that I'm not trying to make. I'm referring to "naturally acquired immunity", not the "T Cell natural immunity" type ideas from a year ago that have long been proven wrong. I don't suggest people choose to get the virus over getting the vaccine, and I've never suggested such. As for the next couple paragraphs, both of my young kids are vaccinated against everything they are suggested to be, and I never considered not vaccinating them.

I'm simply taking a wait and see approach with the vaccines since I've already had it. I've done plenty of reading and analysis on it, and I don't see a significant benefit in me getting the vaccine at this time. I'm not against potentially getting it sometime in the future.
 
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Jacob

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You're missing the larger study which was among Cleveland Clinic personnel who were vaccinated. 47,000+ employees. Vaccination started in December. 70% of Cleveland Clinic personnel were vaccinated as of early May. While it would be nice to have exact dates for vaccination dates it's incredibly tough to do that because of how people are vaccinated and how the records filter back in to various databases. However, as the study stated, over the 1,991 out of 47,000+ employees who tested positive 99.7% were unvaccinated and 0.3% had been fully vaccinated.

It'd be fair to assume that 70% were NOT fully vaccinated in the January - April time period. However, fully vaccinated cases were only 0.3% or 6 employees. It stands to reason that somewhere between 20% - 40% +/-10%-15% of employees were fully vaccinated during the time of the study. I think that's a fair estimate and potentially on the low end send vaccinations started in December and healthcare workers had top priority.

Nonetheless, 1,985 out of 1991 cases were unvaccinated. Just 6 were fully vaccinated. That's pretty powerful evidence that the vaccine is extremely effective. Somewhere along the lines of someone who is vaccinated is 325 times LESS likely to contract COVID in the study than someone who was unvaccinated. 47k is a pretty large sample size. If 70% were vaccinated by early May then I don't think my 20 - 40% figure is very far from the actual numbers in January - April. I received the JnJ on March 16th and I had nowhere near the priority that a healthcare worker had. Majority of people I work with or in my family were vaccinated in March. Anecdotal to be sure, but I think it's fair to that a good chunk of the 70% vaccinated at Cleveland clinic included in the study had their vax in February - early March. If the vaccine was less effective you'd expect a lot more than 6 people to have been infected when we're talking about nearly 2k positives out of more than 47,000. Especially when a majority of those people were not working from home and were in a clinical setting where they were way more likely to be exposed to COVID than your average person.

I agree those numbers in that study for the employees are very encouraging, I hope we continue to see similar studies over later time periods that come to the same conclusions. However I think the presentation of "99% of cases are unvaccinated", when the absolute lowest the number could be would be in the 95-97% range due to how the study was designed is misleading. Perhaps that's splitting hairs on my part.

I unfortunately don't think future studies will have results anywhere near those numbers based on what is occurring in Europe and Israel. think it is concerning that almost 50% of cases coming out of Israel are in the vaccinated population. Is that vaccine escape from the delta variant? Are the vaccines losing their efficacy after only a few months? Is it simply an outlier? I have a lot of questions, but not many answers right now.
 
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Jacob

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Saying it doesn't make it so. Proof is required. There's no proof seasonality is driving the spread of COVID. In contrast, I've already provided numerous pieces of evidence from reputable studies showing a lack of vaccination is what is driving COVID infection and serious illness/hospitalization.

Again, this doesn't have to be mutually exclusive from my seasonality argument. Let me see if I can make my argument more clear in non-COVID terms. Lets compare it to a severe weather event. Seasonality/favorable conditions for spread is the large incoming negatively tilted trough. In this scenario, vaccination/immunity would be say, a large MCS that develops along the coast and chokes off moisture return to the area. We still end up getting rain and storms, but the upper end severe threat is eliminated. It was going to rain regardless, but if enough limiting factors are in place, you don't get a severe outbreak.
If seasonality plays even a remotely significant role then help me understand why cases per 100k in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina are 4-5x LESS than the rate in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida? While Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming are virtually identical to Alabama and Mississippi?

Seasonality doesn't mean it is going to be perfectly uniform. It is still relatively early in this summer wave, so it isn't surprising that there isn't a huge difference in certain states yet. Cases are clearly increasing the quickest in the sunbelt region, with Florida leading the way (same as it did last year). The surge is occurring 2-3 weeks later than last year. I won't pretend to know exactly why that is, though it is worth noting that the weather patterns across the US were completely different in June 2020 and June 2021.
In fact, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina, are more similar to Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, and Oregon than they are to Alabama/Mississippi. Vaccination rates are clearly not the only factor that plays a role, travel/tourism patterns and outbreak clusters in states are also major factors, but if seasonality is a major factor then why are so many states with different climate, temps, and humidity levels so similar while states that have a similar climate, temp, and humidity level are so very different?

We saw a degree of spread everywhere last summer, and we are seeing the same this year. What you'll see over the next few weeks is the highest levels of spread concentrated in the sunbelt regions. Florida being the worst, as it was last year, but you'll see increases in other states (Alabama, GA, MS, Texas, Southern California, SC) that is out of proportion with the northern states that you listed. This should peak a couple weeks into August, then fall quickly again.

For example on Georgia, their ED visits for CLI much more closely align with Alabama/Mississippi/Florida than any of the northern states you listed.

Here are Delaware, New York, New Jersey, and Montana.

1626527762651.png1626527782499.png1626527800285.png1626527820495.png

Now here is Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi

1626527940782.png1626527995497.png1626528013620.png
I hate to use this phrase, but we can revisit these in 2-3 weeks and it will be a lot more obvious.

I don't have a good explanation for why Arkansas and Missouri are so out of phase with what happened in the summer of 2020. Weather differences might have played a role, but that's just speculation at best.
 
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Jacob

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I'm not up to par on what Israeli sources are considered reliable and what aren't. Is the Jerusalem Post considered a decent source? It is rated center-right by mediafactbias, and considered to have factual reporting.

I ask because of this article

 

thundersnow

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I think it’s important to look beyond raw case numbers alone and also consider hospitalization and mortality rates versus last year and also the spread of age now, which also correlates with vaccination rates somewhat.
 

Jacob

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Another reason to suspect that the numbers, at least as far as deaths and hospitalizations go, this summer should be less than last year is the reduction in severe disease by the vaccines. Obviously this effect was hoped for, and so far the early numbers in this summer wave in Florida certainly seem to suggest this is occurring.

The following graph is a snapshot comparing the 7 day averages from Jan 8 to July 10th. Dramatic reduction in the amount of ER visits in the older population.

View attachment 9995
Because it certainly sounds like your pushing an agenda that vaccines aren't effective at preventing COVID infection, serious illness hospitalization, or death.

Also would like to point out that the post of mine I quoted here is literally on the same page as this post that you directed at me.
 

ghost

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I'm not up to par on what Israeli sources are considered reliable and what aren't. Is the Jerusalem Post considered a decent source? It is rated center-right by mediafactbias, and considered to have factual reporting.

I ask because of this article

If that is true... that is certainly not what I wanted to hear
 

Jacob

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If that is true... that is certainly not what I wanted to hear

It is concerning, but we really won’t know how concerning until another month or two down the road. If it still ends up being extremely effective against serious disease/death, then it basically makes it just another cold virus circulating (for those vaccinated) even if it were to do little in stopping transmission.
 

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It appears my post on the previous page about severe illness in Israel was incorrect, which is good news. Not sure if I was duped by bad information or if I mis-interpreted something when looking through the data. Not being able to read Hebrew makes deciphering all the government graphs and such much more difficult.
 

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I agree those numbers in that study for the employees are very encouraging, I hope we continue to see similar studies over later time periods that come to the same conclusions. However I think the presentation of "99% of cases are unvaccinated", when the absolute lowest the number could be would be in the 95-97% range due to how the study was designed is misleading. Perhaps that's splitting hairs on my part.

I unfortunately don't think future studies will have results anywhere near those numbers based on what is occurring in Europe and Israel. think it is concerning that almost 50% of cases coming out of Israel are in the vaccinated population. Is that vaccine escape from the delta variant? Are the vaccines losing their efficacy after only a few months? Is it simply an outlier? I have a lot of questions, but not many answers right now.

I don't even remotely understand the concern with vaccinated individuals in Israel or the UK being a good percentage of those hospitalized. The majority of people in each place are vaccinated. Of course a significant percentage of those hospitalized with COVID are going to be vaccinated when you're talking about such high vaccination rates in UK and Israel. UK is around mid to upper 80s % wise for at least one dose. Israel also has fantastic numbers.

Again, the vaccines are not perfect. Antibody and immune response depend upon age, gender, health conditions, etc. The reason why the unvaccinated make up such a high rate in the United States is that we've sucked badly for almost several months now with getting people to become vaccinated.

I'll post this as an explanation because I know it's a concept some people need to visualize or see on paper to fully comprehend:







Basically, when you get to high vaccinated rates, it would implausible NOT to have the vaccinated make up the majority of those hospitalized. Counter-intuitive, sure, but you have to think about it with all variables in place and don't skip to "OMG, the efficacy must be trash."

Now, with that said, I absolutely do think that the vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant. The R0 of Delta is many multiples of the original COVID strains. It's extremely contagious and causes higher viral replication, infectiousness, and is much easier to transmit than any earlier variant.

I believe the CDC and FDA are making a mistake in dragging their feet on boosters. A lot of validated research with robust sample sizes is showing that mixing an adenovector vaccine with an mRNA vaccine stimulates better overall t-cell and b-cell response, and induces a stronger overall antibody response. The research on this issue has largely occurred in the UK with AZ vaccine + mRNA vax of your choice.

I believe the CDC and FDA are foot-dragging, because if they admit boosters are necessary, then the anti-vaxxers and vax skeptics who are "just asking questions" in the most negative and adversarial way possible, will dance in the street and convince even more dumb Americans not to get the vaccine. No reason to think the JnJ + mRNA of your choice wouldn't produce similar, if not superior, results.

We wouldn't have needed a booster except for the emergence of Delta, but c'est la vie.
 

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I don't think natural immunity is a red herring at all, there's 100m+ people in this country that have had and recovered from COVID. However I think with your next couple of paragraphs you are arguing against a point that I'm not trying to make. I'm referring to "naturally acquired immunity", not the "T Cell natural immunity" type ideas from a year ago that have long been proven wrong. I don't suggest people choose to get the virus over getting the vaccine, and I've never suggested such. As for the next couple paragraphs, both of my young kids are vaccinated against everything they are suggested to be, and I never considered not vaccinating them.

I'm simply taking a wait and see approach with the vaccines since I've already had it. I've done plenty of reading and analysis on it, and I don't see a significant benefit in me getting the vaccine at this time. I'm not against potentially getting it sometime in the future.
Wait and see what? Is there any competent medical authority who's stated, or scientific research that shows, any indication that someone with a previous COVID infection would be harmed or not benefit from a COVID vaccine?

Should the things we do in life be based on some kind of moral code and ethical paradigm or simply be about "what's in it for me?" It's a rhetorical question. Personally, I don't see what kind of significant benefit the poor fools who volunteered for the US military and landed at Omaha Beach were hoping to obtain, but, hey, guess they should've done a better cost benefit analysis.

Likewise, I can't think of any significant benefit that accrues to me if I stop a woman from being raped in an alley or refuse to cheat on my taxes. Heck, is there really any benefit at all in refusing to take financial advantage of confused doddering old people? They can't take it with them, AMIRIGHT?

Look, it's an old tradition, really. Pontius Pilate wasn't going to significantly benefit from letting Jesus go, OR demanding his crucifixion, so washing his hands of the matter made the most sense. I think history has done a wonderful job of teaching us that you just can't blame Pontius Pilate for anything. He wasn't going to benefit in a significant way, so passing the buck was definitely the principled choice.

Yeah, I'm laying it on pretty thick, but you didn't seriously think that was a a good argument did you?
 

KoD

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I'm very interested in how the stats will look in the coming days and weeks here in Alabama, we went from a casual operation with uncommon covid + cases to half of the staff regearing with N95's and isolation gowns in 24-48 hours. Today we've had over a dozen positive tests and almost an equal amount of hospital admissions because of it. It's not nearly as bad as it has been but it's remarkably sudden.
Overall though people aren't coming in practically dead anymore, the general public seems to be more aware of when their symptoms necessitate a hospital visit.
 

Jacob

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I don't even remotely understand the concern with vaccinated individuals in Israel or the UK being a good percentage of those hospitalized. The majority of people in each place are vaccinated. Of course a significant percentage of those hospitalized with COVID are going to be vaccinated when you're talking about such high vaccination rates in UK and Israel. UK is around mid to upper 80s % wise for at least one dose. Israel also has fantastic numbers.

Again, the vaccines are not perfect. Antibody and immune response depend upon age, gender, health conditions, etc. The reason why the unvaccinated make up such a high rate in the United States is that we've sucked badly for almost several months now with getting people to become vaccinated.

I'll post this as an explanation because I know it's a concept some people need to visualize or see on paper to fully comprehend:







Basically, when you get to high vaccinated rates, it would implausible NOT to have the vaccinated make up the majority of those hospitalized. Counter-intuitive, sure, but you have to think about it with all variables in place and don't skip to "OMG, the efficacy must be trash."

Now, with that said, I absolutely do think that the vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant. The R0 of Delta is many multiples of the original COVID strains. It's extremely contagious and causes higher viral replication, infectiousness, and is much easier to transmit than any earlier variant.

I believe the CDC and FDA are making a mistake in dragging their feet on boosters. A lot of validated research with robust sample sizes is showing that mixing an adenovector vaccine with an mRNA vaccine stimulates better overall t-cell and b-cell response, and induces a stronger overall antibody response. The research on this issue has largely occurred in the UK with AZ vaccine + mRNA vax of your choice.

I believe the CDC and FDA are foot-dragging, because if they admit boosters are necessary, then the anti-vaxxers and vax skeptics who are "just asking questions" in the most negative and adversarial way possible, will dance in the street and convince even more dumb Americans not to get the vaccine. No reason to think the JnJ + mRNA of your choice wouldn't produce similar, if not superior, results.

We wouldn't have needed a booster except for the emergence of Delta, but c'est la vie.


To clarify, I understand the point you are making on the hospitalization numbers. If 100% of people are vaccinated, of course 100% of hopsitalized people are going to be vaccinated. There's plenty of anti-vax people spreading misinformation on hospitalization numbers that clearly don't understand how the math works (or those that are doing it for darker reasons). I think the latest report out of the UK is 40% of hospitalized patients are vaccinated, which on the surface would seem about what to expect given that the oldest population, even if vaccinated, would still be the age group with the highest percentage of people requiring hospitalization. However I saw that number being used throughout Twitter yesterday saying it's proof that the vaccines don't do anything, which as we both know is absurd.

My concern out of the Israel data is that for those over 20 years of age, the % of cases lines up with the % vaccinated. I.E., in the 40-49 age range, if 80% of people are vaccinated, 80% of cases have the past couple weeks have been in vaccinated people. I would expect at least some statistical difference there. Perhaps that's skewed by parents catching it from unvaccinated children, thus skewing the numbers there? Not sure, but it is something worth watching. It is encouraging that despite their recent increase, it's still a very small "wave" there up to this point. Which if the vaccine is still highly effective against severe illness in delta, which it certainly seems to be, then we really don't care much about cases in vaccinated people at all. The only concern then would be them being able to spread it to unvaccinated people.
 
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