I don’t think there’s yet proof-positive scientific research to back me up, but what seems to be true (at least superficially) is that if you are fully vaccinated, you’d better keep your ass away from large concentrations of virus. Yes, the vaccines - particularly the mRNA vaccines - do a good job at preventing an infection in a lot of situations, but if you go around thinking that vaccines make you bulletproof…that is a bad assumption to make. Even if you are fully vaccinated, if you are around people who are unvaccinated and transmitting delta variant, you’re at serious risk of infection, and if you are older or have underlying conditions, you’re not just at risk; you’re in danger.
I will say it again: CDC, you are wrong. You need to revise your mask guidance and recommend indoor masking again regardless of whether you are fully vaccinated. They are making a Trumpian-like error right now. And it pisses me off.
It’s old news by now, but COVID is surging once again in several states. I’ve been largely absent from this thread for a long time because it’s been so long since cases have been a serious problem, but it looks like we’re headed that way again. Hopefully, I won’t be posting how many states are posting new record high new cases on a daily basis, but it could come to that.
Right now we’re seeing very sharp increases in
Arkansas
Missouri
Nevada
Louisiana
and increasing rates in virtually all the others. (Yes – if you look at the seven-day averages close enough, they’re all going up) Except Florida, but that’s a mess, and looks like it’s just a statistical fluke.
Internationally, it looked as if some of those rates of new cases were slowing or even reversing, bu they’re still going up rapidly in
Indonesia (which now seems to have the highest number of new cases of any country)
United Kingdom
Spain
Colombia
Iran
Bangladesh
Malaysia
Mexico
Netherlands (a 20-fold increase in new cases in only the past couple of weeks)
Iraq
Thailand
Cuba
According to the NYT website, Florida is definitely surging. For once, Miami-Dade isn’t in first place per capita (although obviously most of the new cases are there).
The two articles seem to have a degree of concordance, which leads me to believe that we’re underestimating the number of infections among vaccinated people. The vaccines are keeping people out of the hospital - that seems to be clear. But it also seems to be less effective at completely blocking the virus. Vaccinated people might have mild symptoms and shrug it off as a cold and not get tested, which is what Gottlieb seems to be saying. And it’s also possible then - increasingly probable - that delta is beginning to put some serious pressure on our vaccine regime.
Bottom line: it’s unwise to assume that vaccinations alone are sufficient protection against infection. I think everyone should be masking up, just as we’ve been since early in the pandemic. And we may need to reevaluate the degree to which we are open and going back to business as usual.
A homeopathic doctor licensed in California was arrested yesterday and charged with a scheme to sell homeoprophylaxis immunization pellets and to falsify COVID-19 vaccination cards by making it appear that her customers had received the Moderna vaccine, according to the US Department of Justice.
Juli A. Mazi, 41, of Napa, is charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of false statements related to healthcare matters. The case is the first federal criminal fraud prosecution related to homeoprophylaxis immunizations and fraudulent vaccination record cards, the DOJ said in a news release.
We’re entering another wave, and in some ways, even though the numbers are probably going to be lower in the aggregate, this wave could be the most emotionally shattering one.
Mark my words: fully vaccinated people are going to suffer severe illness, and in some cases, they will die, and in numbers that might surprise us. I don’t mean that we’re going to drop like flies, but I mean that there will be enough hospitalization and deaths to force us to rethink our level of bulletproof-ness
While Arkansas as a whole isn’t quite as high, my county has creeped back up to nearly its peak levels. The actual numbers match what the average was before, but the actual average has not peaked (yet).
What I’ve read is that people in the bigger cities in our state are getting vaccinated as they’re seeing the enormity of the impact, while more rural residents are continuing to ignore it.
Vaccination rate in Arkansas is 35.2% fully vaccinated, and 43.5% with at least one shot.
Following up on Scott Gottlieb’s comments, I think it’s almost certain that the U.S. is significantly underreporting new cases in vaccinated people. This can be linked back to decisions that the CDC made back in the spring to not track breakthrough infections.
The U.S. essentially is behind the curve in understanding how dangerous the delta variant is, which means that the observations and conclusions from Israel and the UK have more gravity than the current guidance here.
A senior adviser to Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, sent letters to two large school districts, asserting that their policies requiring unvaccinated students to quarantine was illegal under state law. Governor Ducey’s office posted the letters on Twitter on Wednesday evening.
“Parents are the sole decision makers in the State of Arizona when it comes to the health and well-being of their children,” the letters said, adding that “children of parents who choose not to have their children get the Covid-19 vaccine should not be discriminated against for such decisions.”
TOKYO (Reuters) — Tokyo Olympics organizers on Saturday reported the first case of COVID-19 at the athletes’ village, along with 14 other new cases connected to the Games that begin next week, raising fresh doubts over promises of a “safe and secure” event.
Just to expand, the CDC still reports every positive test given to them by the states regardless of the vaccination status. What they’re not doing is investigating asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases in the vaccinated (demographics, co-morbidities, etc.).
A major concern is that they are only sequencing the genomes of serious cases which will underreport the % of Delta variant. I personally think that ship has already sailed and the vast majority of new cases in the US are Delta. We don’t have enough vaccinated people to mask estimates on the Delta %.
Just a quick note without hijacking the thread. I already wear a mask in public but wasn’t wearing a mask to my elderly parents house. Even though we’re all vaccinated, I’m going to start wearing a mask to their house again starting today.
There are two concerns: one is that people with mild infections are mistaking the delta variant for a bad cold and aren’t reporting it, which would happen regardless of CDC data collection. But another concern is that without tracking and categorizing specifically which cases involve previously vaccinated individuals, the data about vaccine efficacy in the real world gets a bit murkier. Obviously, there is data about breakthrough cases, but it’s not centralized and aggregated by CDC. Israel and the UK seem to have better data at this point.