Covid-19 #34 - Alpha, Delta, It’s All Greek to Me!

[Luzifer's right hand]

3 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

re: covid stupidity. I have an acquaintance (I hesitate to call her a friend, lol), whose father died of Covid. She still doesn't believe in Covid killing people or the vaccines.

The "died with covid-19 not because of it" and "died because of the vaccine not because of something else" crowds are really weird and have a 100% overlap I feel...

[Relic]

There in the Czech Republic they are basically forcing us to wait 42 days between doses of Pfizer. Seems like a risky thing to do to me, no? 

[Relic]

Regarding hysteria about the Delta variant - correct me if im wrong but the States and Canada have vaccinated pretty much every willing person in the most vulnerable demographics, right? This should mean that hospital cases will remain low. And even tho a first dose doesn't protect you as much as being fully vaccinated it DOES still offer some measure of protection, right? So, there shouldn't be another huge spike of deaths and hospitalizations, and hopefully no need for further lockdowns. Am i wrong about any of the above? If so please educate me. 

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The "died with covid-19 not because of it" and "died because of the vaccine not because of something else" crowds are really weird and have a 100% overlap I feel...

Surely the former is larger - so the latter is merely a subset of the former.

Surely.

Please tell me the former is larger?

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The "died with covid-19 not because of it" and "died because of the vaccine not because of something else" crowds are really weird and have a 100% overlap I feel...

I feel there might also be some correlation between the people who were convinced last year that hydroxychloroquine was a miracle cure for Covid that would save us all despite the lack of any scientific evidence and the people who are now suspicious of vaccines despite all the scientific evidence.

[Luzifer's right hand]

2 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Surely the former is larger - so the latter is merely a subset of the former.

Surely.

Please tell me the former is larger?

I'm not sure I must admit. 

[Clueless Northman]

11 hours ago, Paxter said:

That largely comes down to young people (who make up just under 30% of the Israeli population) not being vaccinated (either due to parents' influence or lack of an authorized vaccine for under 12s). Adults did a good job of getting the jab. 

Israel apparently has the highest fertilty rate among OECD nations, hence the large % of young people. 

Or, to be blunt, it's mostly the ultra-orthodox's fault - lots of kids and plenty of anti-science BS.

 

4 hours ago, Relic said:

There in the Czech Republic they are basically forcing us to wait 42 days between doses of Pfizer. Seems like a risky thing to do to me, no? 

It seems that delaying the doses helps to get an even greater immunity and to reduce side-effects. But with Delta hitting plenty of people who only had 1 dose, it'sa bit risky because you're still at risk of getting covid for 8 weeks after having your first dose - granted, odds are that you get a lighter covid than if you were fully unvaccinated.

[Fragile Bird]

4 hours ago, Relic said:

There in the Czech Republic they are basically forcing us to wait 42 days between doses of Pfizer. Seems like a risky thing to do to me, no? 

I actually laughed out loud at this!

Canada decided to vaccinate everyone possible with a first dose, because we had no vaccine coming in and we have no plants manufacturing any doses. Thank heavens for the EU, which was letting us have an allocation every week, because the US banned exports. Without the EU allowing the export of vaccine we’d have been in a bad way.

Since one dose of Pfizer or Moderna gave an estimated 80% protection against the original wild virus and the initial variants, Health Canada set 16 weeks as the 2nd dose date. That’s 112 days. Several provinces had already decided on 42 to 49 days, but everyone switched to 112 pretty quickly. That upset some people, like my brother, who kept saying “Dr. Fauci says it’s critical to get your second dose in 21/28 days”. But the UK was using 12 weeks (84 days) and getting good results, and I pointed out to my brother that 3 months between doses was commonly used  with other vaccines, and even longer periods. I also told him once supply picked up we’d get our second doses more quickly than in 16 weeks, and he soon decided 12 weeks did seem to be the sweet spot. I’ll be getting mine on Monday, 13 weeks later, and he’ll get his a week Friday, in 11.

While it’s been said the US did this because they were conservative, cynical me says it was done because the US couldn’t justify a ban on exports without being able to say it needed every dose to “properly” vaccinate the population. I heard a lot of people on CNN say it might be better to vaccinate with one dose first and lengthen the time period, but that was never in the cards for the US.

Now we’re doing 2nd doses at a fast and furious pace, because the efficacy of one dose against Delta drops from 80% to about 33%.

[Filippa Eilhart]

Isn't the 33% figure based on one early study? I wonder if there's more data on that by now.

[Altherion]

4 hours ago, Relic said:

There in the Czech Republic they are basically forcing us to wait 42 days between doses of Pfizer. Seems like a risky thing to do to me, no? 

Up until now, it has not been too risky because a single dose of Pfizer offers decent protection against the most variants and delaying the second dose does not diminish its effectiveness. However, the Delta variant appears to require being fully vaccinated for protection so if that's the dominant strain in a given location, then delaying the second dose is indeed somewhat risky.

4 hours ago, Relic said:

Regarding hysteria about the Delta variant - correct me if im wrong but the States and Canada have vaccinated pretty much every willing person in the most vulnerable demographics, right? This should mean that hospital cases will remain low. And even tho a first dose doesn't protect you as much as being fully vaccinated it DOES still offer some measure of protection, right? So, there shouldn't be another huge spike of deaths and hospitalizations, and hopefully no need for further lockdowns. Am i wrong about any of the above? If so please educate me. 

You are mostly right, but the devil is in the details. The US as a whole has vaccinated every willing adult and many teens, but the distribution of the vaccines is very uneven. Unless a variant that ignores the vaccines altogether shows up, it is almost certain that there should be no need for further lockdowns in, say, Vermont. On the other hand, if you scroll all the way down the chart of states in that link, Alabama and Mississippi have fewer than a third of the population fully vaccinated, fewer than 40% with one dose and just barely over two thirds of 65+ year olds vaccinated. This is not likely to be enough without restrictions.

[Fragile Bird]

Further to my rant on Monday about my vaccination site switching from Pfizer to Moderna, I do have good news, I’ve now booked 2nd dose Pfizer appointments for both my brother and I for next week! Hallelujah! Of course the laugh will be on us if it turns out that Pfizer + Moderna gives better protection against some future variant, but I really preferred the idea of getting the same second dose.

After I posted we actually drove out to the vaccination site and talked to people, and yes indeed, only Moderna was available until at least July 4 (bookings were only open until Sunday). As one person said to me, he didn’t care, they’re the same, it’s Coke and Pepsi, right? We got a massive shipment of Moderna in and Delta is spreading and the government has taken the position they’re interchangeable.

At the same time my province announced more booking dates would open on Tuesday, so I started hitting the computer to see if they put some dates up early, checking at 8:00 pm, 10:00 pm and after midnight, but nothing. Then at 7:00 am and 9:00 am yesterday morning. At one point I found an appointed on July 28 at a site 80 Km away. I took ten seconds to think about it, and when I clicked on it it was gone. In fact all the posted Pfizer sites actually had no appointments available, and just hadn’t been taken down yet.

I had a 30 minute phone call to do and then checked again, and bingo! Toronto Public Health opened up it’s vaccination bookings, with a good mix of both Pfizer and Moderna sites. I booked for Monday (I had originally booked July 4, and then changed it to July 1, so 1 day later was great), and booked my brother for Friday, which was 11 weeks for him. He told me that was fine, he already decided earlier than 12 weeks was okay. When I did my first dose back on Easter Monday, it took almost two hours to be processed at the conference center mass vaccination site. My brother’s first dose took him 25 minutes, including the 15 minute post-vaccine wait. We decided our second doses would be there if possible. On Monday when we went to talk to people, we saw the line-up at this shopping mall stretched across the front of the building, and as we drove out we saw it went around the corner (oh wow, look how long it is!) and around the building along the back of the mall past all the back doors of the stores, around the corner again to the shopping mall’s grocery store, and was winding around the next corner to the front of the mall! It had to be at least a one hour wait. People here really want their second dose, and I expect almost every person there had received Pfizer as a first dose.

[Luzifer's right hand]

There have been many attempts to get the unwilling to vaccinate including granting people who had only one shot easier access to things here in Austria. A lot of these people are now either canceling their 2nd shots or they just do not show up at least here in Austria. They got what they wanted out of it and now that the pandemic is over in their minds (if they even believed in the pandemic in the first place)

This is a slap in the face of the people who believe in science and want the vaccine for health reasons. 

Instead of getting the unwilling to vaccinate they should have vaccinated all willing people asap. No benefits and no incentives until all people who want to be fully vaccinated are. 

This might be different in other countries. 

Now we are close to ending all restrictions with many people in at risk jobs and young people with chronic illnesses having only one shot. 

It just makes me angry to be honest. 

My uncle who does manual lymphatic drainage would not have his first shot if he had no connections because masseurs were not included in the at risk group. He has to touch unmasked people in the face and works directly for our national health care system.

[Altherion]

There is a fairly large anomaly in Brazil relating to child mortality due to this virus:

Quote

When comparing the number of Brazilian child deaths from such illnesses in 2018 and 2019 with the number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, Vital Strategies found an excess 2,975 deaths. The organization says it's likely that the vast majority of these excess deaths -- not just the official number of 1,122 -- were because of Covid-19.

"What we see in Brazil is that the number of kids dying with Covid specified as the cause of death is higher than what we are seeing in other countries of the world -- it's 10 times higher," Dr. Ana Luiza Bierrenbach, an epidemiologist at Vital Strategies, told CNN.

In the United States, the only country in the world with a higher overall official death toll than Brazil's, far fewer children have died from Covid-19 -- 382 Americans under the age of 18, according to CDC data.

Bierrenbach adds that the coronavirus variant known as Gamma or P.1, which was first identified in Brazil, may not be entirely to blame.
"Kids have been dying more in Brazil since the original variant was here, so it was not the addition of the P.1 variant that made kids die more here than in other countries," she said.

It's almost certainly at least partly due to lack of care, but the magnitude of the difference is still surprisingly large even if you use the official numbers.

[Fragile Bird]

3 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

Isn't the 33% figure based on one early study? I wonder if there's more data on that by now.

I have not seen any updates to that 33% number. I have heard that most people getting Delta are unvaccinated, but people who have had one dose and people who are full vaccinated have gotten Delta and have died, here in Canada.

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

Isn't the 33% figure based on one early study? I wonder if there's more data on that by now.

Hopefully.  There was one small study in South Africa months ago, which suggested that AZ wasn't great against sympothamtic COVID (but it didn't test whether AZ would reduce hospitalisations because most of the participants were young).  I expected we'd see further studies later but i've not seen anything.

The 33% figure was against sympothamtic COVID but the percentage is far higher when we look at hospitalisations.   IIRC.  I'm still curious about the reason for a good biological response v a poor one.

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

Up until now, it has not been too risky because a single dose of Pfizer offers decent protection against the most variants and delaying the second dose does not diminish its effectiveness. However, the Delta variant appears to require being fully vaccinated for protection so if that's the dominant strain in a given location, then delaying the second dose is indeed somewhat risky.

There probably is still some logic to give 1 dose to as many people as possible, as long as the most vulnerable are fully dosed.  Your average 40 year old is not likely to be badly affected, so why not ensure that both that person and an average 30 year old have doses?

There does seem to be a little hysteria around Delta here also.  Sure, we don't have the vaccination rates that the UK has but Delta isn't dominant here yet (and as mentioned, UK hospitalisations and deaths are way less scary than case figures).  Maybe i'm missing something though.  But every week makes a big difference now.  

3 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

There have been many attempts to get the unwilling to vaccinate including granting people who had only one shot easier access to things here in Austria.

Sucks but I kind of see the logic.  I would have hoped that normalising the process, getting people into the system, would make people more fully commit.  Obviously not. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I feel like public health agencies and governments need to adopt more of a club attitude and stop pussyfooting around with carrot incentives.

Maybe a host of penalties or denied privileges if you aren't getting vaccinated.

Not vaccinated then no DMV license renewals, not vaccinated then delayed tax returns, not vaccinated then no admittance to health facilities, not vaccinated then no passports, no use of airports, no use of public transport, no federal or state employment and so on and so forth with whatever penalties they can come up with. It's a legitimate public health threat to have these unvaxxed idiots floating around.

It's time to take a farrrrr more forceful stance with these non compliants. 

[Clueless Northman]

My thoughts exactly.
If unvaccinated people get covid after a set date, say end of August, then all costs of covid-related hospitalizations are on them. Fake certificates should also be punished with genuine jail time - it's tantamount to attempted manslaughter, when you think about it.

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

My thoughts exactly.
If unvaccinated people get covid after a set date, say end of August, then all costs of covid-related hospitalizations are on them. Fake certificates should also be punished with genuine jail time - it's tantamount to attempted manslaughter, when you think about it.

Actually, in countries that have health insurance, do they cover expenses if people get COVID (but refused a vaccine)?  I would have thought that would have an obvious answer but I haven't seen that discussed before.  I would think it would be a big issue in the US.

Maybe only kicks in after you renew.

[The Anti-Targ]

I read an article that quoted one of our leading epidemiologists who has said he thinks with the delta and other more contagious variants that we may never reach herd immunity. His modelling indicated that to get to herd immunity with the new variants needs >95% vaccination in the population, which is basically impossible. I expect if he is correct that goers for everywhere else. And it's not because the vaccines are less effective vs Delta, because they are effective for vaccinated people, it's because Delta has a higher basic R number, and the higher the basic R number the higher vaccination rate you need to get herd immunity.

I think the strategy for us now needs to be everyone vaccinated who wants to be vaccinated, and vaccine certificate or negative test for everyone coming into the country for the forseeable future. Vaccine certificates are required for other diseases. My sister has to keep her yellow fever vaccine certificate with her whenever she travels for the next 5 (I think) years because she has been to a yellow fever country recently. My guess is we will have quarantine-free arrival early next year when we should be at 75%-80% vaccinated. Masks on public transport, mandatory but not enforced, for the forseeable future.

Interestingly though, with the tight border restrictions the effect on the economy has not been loss of jobs and increased unemployment. It's lots of job vacancies and no one to fill them. We are basically at the capitalist definition of full employment (4% unemployment).

[Week]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I read an article that quoted one of our leading epidemiologists who has said he thinks with the delta and other more contagious variants that we may never reach herd immunity. His modelling indicated that to get to herd immunity with the new variants needs >95% vaccination in the population, which is basically impossible. I expect if he is correct that goers for everywhere else. And it's not because the vaccines are less effective vs Delta, because they are effective for vaccinated people, it's because Delta has a higher basic R number, and the higher the basic R number the higher vaccination rate you need to get herd immunity.

What a shocking turn of events. Those that crowed about nearing herd immunity and irrelevance of case rates were wrong - as was pointed out - all along. Herd immunity is a pipe dream and new cases, in any significant number in any population, lead to variants that increases the risk of dangerous variants.