There’s growing evidence that Delta is able to beat the vaccine in an increasing number of cases, though it appears that the vaccines are able to generally do its job of preventing the worst outcomes. Still, as someone who’s in the office four days a week and who checks the high blood pressure box, this ain’t good.
just saw this today, Pfizer is only 64% effective against symptomatic infection.
still highly effective against severe disease and death which is good.
I’m going to be wearing my kn95 mask well into next year it looks like.
I think that’s the bottom line, Wes: I enjoyed having the last two months of not taking masking as seriously as I used to, but those days are done. I feel better that I’ve gotten my vaccines, but I’m going to be double masking and I’ve got my Listerine and iodine swabs ready if the surge gets real. The thing that allows me to rest a little easier - for now - is that incidence is pretty low where I am. But I suspect that in 4-6 weeks, there will be talks of mask mandates and restrictions again.
Aren’t we going to all need booster shots sometime near December, too? These vaccines aren’t lifelong.
I’m definitely concerned. I’m in a county of a million people with a 34% fully vaccinated rate. A little over a week ago we had the first day of 0 new cases with around 300 active cases. Since then the numbers have steadily risen with 96 new cases today and over 550 active cases. I’d say Delta is here. I’m sticking to outside dining and avoiding crowded stores for the foreseeable future. I really envy people who live in places with good vaccination rates. The South is about to get kicked in the ass.
I’ve only just started going out and doing stuff, mostly because the rate of new infections has gotten really low where i live. But i expect an uptick in the fall. And yeah, i haven’t thrown out any masks.
We don’t actually know, yet. So far, the persistence of an immune response is looking really good. I expect we might be looking at Delta boosters, but not at “wearing out” boosters, round about December.
There was an article on CNN recently suggesting that unvaccinated individuals are basically virus mutation factories. I think we need to be looking at strict international travel prohibitions on those who don’t have documented proof of full vaccination.
I think there needs to be serious talk about mandating vaccines or no school and no job. We’re past the point of trying to understand them or massage their irrational, baseless fears of tyranny or allergic reaction.
a wide range of vaccines are already mandatory to attend public school, several of them are for diseases less disruptive than covid.
So mandating a new vaccine isn’t really a controversial idea, at least on paper.
Good luck with mandating a vaccine for work. It’s all fake, right? Less dangerous than flu. Why are taking an unproven vaccine for a hoax of a disease.
The former seems a lot easier than the latter. Is there a mechanism by which the federal (or even state) government could force vaccine mandates on private businesses, even particular ones?
Yes, that was meant to be sarcastic.
This podcast might interest you…
Last summer, at a hospital in England, a man in his 70s being treated for complications with cancer tested positive for covid-19. He had lymphoma, and the disease plus his drugs weakened his immune system, making him particularly susceptible to the virus. He wasn’t too bad off, considering, and was sent home. That was Day 1. This is the story of what the doctors witnessed, over the course of his illness: the evolution of covid-19 inside his body. Before their eyes, they get a hint of what might be to come in the pandemic.
I don’t know how scientifically accurate that is, but wow, that’s scary!
Just to ask: if a variant is less affected by vaccines than others, is that considered scientific evidence by itself that higher or complete evasion is possible? It seems to from my layman perspective, but I don’t know jack about epidemiology.
I don’t think so. I think we’d need employers to mandate it.
And honestly, we need the FDA to issue full approval of some vaccines before we have any leverage to mandate them. I’m delighted to have gotten vaccinated under an EUA, but I think we need a stronger stamp of approval. I believe Pfizer and Moderna have applied for approval (for adults. There’s not yet enough data to get it for kids)
Novavax may apply for an EUA, but might just attempt full approval. I’m not sure when their clock started ticking.
Yeah, I just listened to the first 8 minutes or so and was blown away. Worth listening to the rest I’m sure.
It occurred to me as well that Delta is almost made to order for the situation we have now. We’re a world leader in terms of vaccine efficacy but we still stubbornly refuse to reckon with this illness and it’s likely that this will have another high price tag that will become evident in the next 2-3 months.
The UK is a study in the effectiveness of the vaccines. When the current surge started around the third week in May, only 55% of the population had at least one dose of the vaccine and only 35% fully-vaccinated. Now 67% of the population has had at least one dose and 50% fully-vaccinated.
The Delta hadn’t taken hold yet in May, but still, the explosion in cases in new cases has been faster than it was in the Fall, yet the number deaths and hospitalizations has been barely a blip. This is pretty impressive considering there were plenty of completely unvaccinated people back in May.
Israel and, to a lesser extent the US, are highly vaccinated before the Delta mutant has taken hold. Over 90% of cases in Israel are the Delta variant. Israel’s cases are starting to rise in the past two weeks with over 90% of cases now being the Delta variant. Only one death in that length of time and only a slight uptick in hospitalizations. I predict they will do even better than the UK because of their higher fully-vaxxed rate prior to Delta predominance.
The US has such a vastly different vaccination rate that I suspect we’re going to be able to see even more differences in deaths and hospitalizations per county than we did with social distancing and masks. For example, 35% of cases in Miami Dade are the Delta variant. Cases are starting to rise. Deaths and hospitalizations are continuing to fall. The next two weeks will be very telling because Miami has been completely open and partying like, well, they never stopped.
Not necessarily. @puzzlegal and I were just discussing, in another thread, that there seems to be a limited number of mutations the virus can make in the spike protein that retains its ability to infect cells while better evading the immune system.