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COVID-19 detected in United States

Jacob

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I think the data from the UK, at least in terms of the vaccine preventing serious illness and death, is about as conclusive as it gets.



Very encouraging statistics coming out of the UK for this wave. They are nearing their peak and should start falling soon. Deaths will tick up slightly due to lag, but there's a very obvious de-coupling between reported cases and hospitalizations/deaths during this wave.

Scotland is ahead of the rest of the UK, they actually peaked back around June 30/July 1st. Daily hospitalizations are starting to fall there as well. You can see the significant de-coupling of cases and hospitalizations with this wave.

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Evan

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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.

Are we talking cases or hospitalizations? Because vaccine effectiveness (VE) can be based off of severe illness (hospitalizations), deaths, symptomatic disease, or infection and transmission. Infection can be broken down into laboratory confirmed or probable diagnosis based off of symptoms. If we're talking solely about cases then I don't necessarily disagree.

Generally, most people are referring to severe illness (hospitalizations) or death or both combined.

It's really beside the point. I don't actually disagree with you as much as you might think about vaccine effectiveness (at least against Delta). It's become increasingly obvious over the last couple of weeks that even though vaccine effectiveness is still quite good at preventing hospitalization and death due to Delta, it's not nearly as good at preventing transmission and cases.

The reason I harp on people getting vaccinated is that 60, 70, or even 80% effectiveness against being hospitalized or dying from Delta is still orders of magnitude greater than being unvaccinated or relying on natural immunity. Convalescent plasma has much weaker NAB titers than the mRNA vaccines against Delta and the other various variants out there. The in vitro lab testing released by NYU a few days ago shows this clearly. So, natural immunity is just not sufficient against Delta. I know you agree the vaccines are pretty effective at preventing severe illness and death. Surely you can understand that if natural immunity is producing weak NAB titers against Delta that the only sensible solution is to get vaccinated.

Now, consider that those without immunity have essentially no NABs to fight Delta with. The JnJ isn't looking so hot, either. Unfortunately, that was the only vaccine I could get at the time so I decided to get a mRNA booster (DISCLAIMER: not making a recommendation that people should do this...talk to your doctor) a decision I considered for several weeks before finally proceeding. I have an autoimmune disease and both my disease and the DMARD I take already cause lower NAB titers as it is.

Point is, I strongly believe that in a few weeks there's going to be a lot of people wishing they had gotten vaccinated as some of the current case trends in hotspots are extremely concerning. And, if additional evidence accrues that our best vaccines are 10 - 30% less effective at preventing hospitalization/death against Delta then we're in for a really nasty time. Especially, in light of Delta's extremely high R0 when compared to the original COVID variant and some of the earlier variants of concern.

Most importantly, those under 12 can't be vaccinated because the FDA is screwing around. Ample data exists, in my opinion, that shows the R/R ratio is skewed in favor of preventing serious pediatric illness and potential long-term damage from COVID vs. potential vax related injuries. Let's be honest, there's not a whole lot of difference between most 10 and 12 year olds.

It made sense for the FDA to wait before Delta swept the globe. It's deja vu -- yet again the CDC and FDA stood slack-jawed in front of a moving bus when once again we had 6+ weeks to get ready for the STHTF. Boosters should've already gotten an EUA from the FDA such as those companies like Pfizer who have an already safe and effective vaccine out there. Likewise they should've accelerated the pediatric trials and started slowly broadening the EUA to cover those < 12 years of age.

Louisiana and Florida are seeing ridiculous acceleration in the curve for both case counts and hospitalizations right now. Even with the vaccines, especially in areas with lower vaccination rates, we're about to return to the days of full hospitals and heavily rationed care.

So, yeah, I want people to get vaccinated. Because even if the vaccines are only 60% or 70% effective at keeping people out of the hospital that's still a huge number of people -- especially if we had a vaccination rate north of 50-60% of our population. Not a lot of time is left. It's good to see vaccination rates are rising again but the time for that to have occurred was weeks ago. It's going to be too late for a number of people. I hope that doesn't apply to anyone here.

I know we don't agree on the value of masking, but I've always thought people whistled past the fact that masking is just but one of many NPIs we can use. Besides, I agree with criticism that cloth/homemade masks are of very minimal utility. But we have plenty of cheap and comfortable N-95/KN-95s, etc available NOW that people could be USING, and how to properly fit a mask is simply a click on YouTube away.

Masking with the proper type of mask and vaccines won't stop Delta from ripping through our country, but they can slow it down, save lives, and hopefully get us through to a time when more efficacious boosters against variants like Delta are available and accessible.

Plus, it also allows for more time for additional therapeutics to become available such as an effective anti-virals and updated monoclonal and polyclonal antibody treatments. Not to mention, there's additional vaccines in the pipeline using reverse vaccinology to help refine which epitopes a vax should contain and which are best for various variants. Things like creating vaccines by using computer modeling based off of the limited future range of COVID mutations to predictively include epitopes for the "worst case" variants that could emerge.

COVID will eventually reach a state of maximum fitness, and with a limited range of potential mutations to get to that point, there's real hope we can determine what such a potential variant (or variants) would look like (what mutations it/they would have and where) and roll out a vaccine that includes coverage for those epitopes well in advance of the mutation occurring naturally.

But you go to war with the tools you have and right now the mRNA vaccines are what we've got. Therefore everyone should be making sure they're fully vaccinated. Not just to protect themselves but their children, parents, colleagues, neighbors, etc. There's no convincing and logical explanation not to.
 
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Jacob

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On a slightly different/lighter note, the CDC put out a forecast yesterday that has rightly been laughed off twitter. Not sure exactly what the value of putting out this forecast is, but my money says their prediction will technically be right, ha.

 

thundersnow

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I'm on day 9 in the ICU at Redmond in Rome GA. Sunday/Monday a week ago DR's told my family that I might not make it. Double Covid pneumonia is not easy to clear up and I'm still having a difficult time breathing. I have been on a high flow mask receiving 7L of HF oxygen with the machine set on 100%. I have zero pre existing conditions to boot.
My adventures started the Tuesday after July 4th. My wife was diagnosed and I didn't take it serious. 3 days later I had a average high temp of 102+. And health was dwindling fast.
Long of the short, my Wife, her mother and myself have all been admitted to ICU with my stay being the longest so far.
 

KoD

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Sorry to hear about that Jason. I hope you and your family get well soon.
 

maroonedinhsv

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I'm on day 9 in the ICU at Redmond in Rome GA. Sunday/Monday a week ago DR's told my family that I might not make it. Double Covid pneumonia is not easy to clear up and I'm still having a difficult time breathing. I have been on a high flow mask receiving 7L of HF oxygen with the machine set on 100%. I have zero pre existing conditions to boot.
My adventures started the Tuesday after July 4th. My wife was diagnosed and I didn't take it serious. 3 days later I had a average high temp of 102+. And health was dwindling fast.
Long of the short, my Wife, her mother and myself have all been admitted to ICU with my stay being the longest so far.
Were any of you vaccinated?
 

Mike S

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I'm on day 9 in the ICU at Redmond in Rome GA. Sunday/Monday a week ago DR's told my family that I might not make it. Double Covid pneumonia is not easy to clear up and I'm still having a difficult time breathing. I have been on a high flow mask receiving 7L of HF oxygen with the machine set on 100%. I have zero pre existing conditions to boot.
My adventures started the Tuesday after July 4th. My wife was diagnosed and I didn't take it serious. 3 days later I had a average high temp of 102+. And health was dwindling fast.
Long of the short, my Wife, her mother and myself have all been admitted to ICU with my stay being the longest so far.

Get well soon.

I tested positive today. No symptoms and vaccinated but due to an outbreak at work we were all asked to get tested.

So here I sit at home....
 

ghost

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I'm on day 9 in the ICU at Redmond in Rome GA. Sunday/Monday a week ago DR's told my family that I might not make it. Double Covid pneumonia is not easy to clear up and I'm still having a difficult time breathing. I have been on a high flow mask receiving 7L of HF oxygen with the machine set on 100%. I have zero pre existing conditions to boot.
My adventures started the Tuesday after July 4th. My wife was diagnosed and I didn't take it serious. 3 days later I had a average high temp of 102+. And health was dwindling fast.
Long of the short, my Wife, her mother and myself have all been admitted to ICU with my stay being the longest so far.
Praying for your recovery!
 

Evan

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I'm on day 9 in the ICU at Redmond in Rome GA. Sunday/Monday a week ago DR's told my family that I might not make it. Double Covid pneumonia is not easy to clear up and I'm still having a difficult time breathing. I have been on a high flow mask receiving 7L of HF oxygen with the machine set on 100%. I have zero pre existing conditions to boot.
My adventures started the Tuesday after July 4th. My wife was diagnosed and I didn't take it serious. 3 days later I had a average high temp of 102+. And health was dwindling fast.
Long of the short, my Wife, her mother and myself have all been admitted to ICU with my stay being the longest so far.

Hope all of you recover soon. Very sorry to hear you and your family are going through such a difficult time with COVID.
 

Evan

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Get well soon.

I tested positive today. No symptoms and vaccinated but due to an outbreak at work we were all asked to get tested.

So here I sit at home....

Do you know if you had a PCR or rapid antigen test for your positive result? Sorry to hear you popped positive. I'm sure that must be extremely frustrating considering you're vaccinated and the outbreak at work was introduced by those who were not vaccinated.

Hopefully no symptoms will occur and you'll test negative soon.
 

Mike S

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Do you know if you had a PCR or rapid antigen test for your positive result? Sorry to hear you popped positive. I'm sure that must be extremely frustrating considering you're vaccinated and the outbreak at work was introduced by those who were not vaccinated.

Hopefully no symptoms will occur and you'll test negative soon.

I had the rapid diagnostic test, also called the rapid molecular test, through Walgreen's. Results could take up to 24 hours but I had mine in about 2 hours. They really could not have made it any easier. I couldn't get a same day appointment but had plenty of options at several locations for next day.

I was likely exposed a week ago and have shown no symptoms. I think I'm good. In the meantime, I'm getting paid to stay home and wait to hear from HR.
 

ghost

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screen-shot-2021-08-01-at-6-48-42-pm-png.87540

Wow... Delta is so contagious
 
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