I Know I’m in The Minority But I Have To Ask

The more I hear from folks (yes, I'm freshly pissed off again, hearing about another's mother's suffering) and read about people suffering because they can't get, or have extreme waits for emergency medical help, the more I just want to say fuq off to all the anti-vaxers causing this.

They should have to wait. I don't want anyone to suffer but it seems they should be the ones doing so as they caused it. Unvaxed and taking up space causing another vaxed person with an emergency? Sorry unvaxed by choice should be the one to wait. All things being equal in so far as urgency, vaxed before unvaxed. Every time. To the back of the line.

It is hard and seems uncaring for me to say this, but then again "uncaring" for others is causing this medical catastrophe.

Yes.

As was reported in the newspaper link that I provided - not the tweet that someone else posted, I responded to/quoted, and that apparently is all that cindosha could be bothered to read. Maybe because the article was longer than 280 characters. 🤷‍♀️ 

Some good information:

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina
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How do vaccines prevent transmission?
There is a common misconception that vaccinated people spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. I even received blowback from my holiday post because I said that a room full of vaccinated people with no other precautions didn’t pose a significant threat on the community.
I’m not surprised of the confusion given the suboptimal messaging from public health officials over the past year. But, vaccinated people do not spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. Not even close. Here’s how it works…
***Vaccines prevent infection in the first place***
Let’s say a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person are standing next to each other and both are exposed to the same amount of virus for the same amount of time. An equal playing field. The virus then enters both of the people’s nasal passageway. What happens next depends on vaccination status:
-For the unvaccinated person, viral particles try to find and invade cells. Once a virus particle enters the cell it starts replicating fast. We need a certain amount of virus to become contagious. The virus reaches this threshold and the person starts transmitting to others. The person is contagious for 24-48 hours before getting disease (i.e. showing symptoms).
-For the vaccinated person, the viral particles try to find host cells but the immune system (and particularly neutralizing antibodies) recognize the virus and quickly destroys it. Importantly, the virus is destroyed before entering host cells and, thus, cannot replicate. Because it can’t replicate, the vaccinated doesn’t become contagious. This phenomenon is called “sterilizing immunity”, which prevents infection from happening in the first place. Not everyone gets sterilizing immunity, but COVID19 vaccines help with approximately 50-75% reduction in initial infection risk.
This has a huge effect on transmission in the community. You cannot transmit an infection you never get.
***Reducing transmission among breakthrough cases***
But, vaccines aren’t perfect. For some unlucky few (and specifically those with high exposure jobs like healthcare), vaccine-induced immunity won’t be able to catch all the virus particles before finding cells. Once the virus finds a cell, it starts replicating enough virus to make the vaccinated person contagious. Then, this person typically gets asymptomatic disease, but some breakthrough cases get mild to severe disease.
The vaccine still kicks in though, making breakthrough cases less contagious than unvaccinated cases. Vaccines do this in two ways:
1. Clears the virus faster. The vaccinated are contagious for far fewer days than unvaccinated (average 3-6 days vs. 13-18 days with Delta). We’ve had three studies provide this evidence thus far: one in Singapore (here; see figure below), one among NBA (basketball) players (here), and one in the UK published in the Lancet (here). The faster the virus is cleared, the less it’s transmitted.
2. Reduces number of infectious particles. In the first few days, breakthrough cases have the same number of virus particles as unvaccinated (this is called viral load). But viral particles do not equal infectious particles. In fact, vaccinated have less infectious viral particles than unvaccinated. For example, in a study with healthcare workers, the vaccinated and unvaccinated had the same viral load. However, 69% vaccinated were positive for infectious virus compared to 85% unvaccinated positive for infectious virus. We also saw this in another study in China (here). The less infectious virus particles we have, the less the virus is transmitted.
So, in conclusion, the majority of vaccinated people won’t spread the virus if they are exposed. Among breakthrough cases, vaccines ensure less infectious virus for a shorter period of time. Together, transmission is significantly reduced.
***Boosters reduce transmission even more***
Unsurprisingly, boosters reduce transmission because they increase our neutralizing antibodies. Boosters increase the likelihood of preventing infection in the first place and, presumably, helps clear the virus faster among breakthrough cases. This week a preprint was released assessing this phenomenon for the first time. The study was a lot of mathematical models, but essentially a booster made a sizable impact in reducing individual transmission. Because of this, boosters decreased community transmission by 21-66%.
***What about infection-induced (“natural”) immunity?***
Some that are unvaccinated and survive COVID19 disease mount an immune response. This means they too have neutralizing antibodies and, because of this, their body acts much like the vaccinated: prevent infection and, thus, prevent transmission.
The problem is that this response is not guaranteed. For example, people with asymptomatic or mild disease may not mount a strong enough response for variants of concern but people who survive severe infection (i.e. hospitalization) do (here). If they don’t mount a response, they don’t have enough neutralizing antibodies to fend off infection and thus transmission.
If the unvaccinated mounts an immune response, the durability of protection is also variable. Infection-induced immunity lasts for at least 90 days and a maximum of 5 years. Mathematical models found that, on average, people will mount immunity against SARS-CoV-2 for 16 months.
Because of this, reinfection is much higher among unvaccinated. Two peer reviewed studies found the reinfection rate is 2.5-5 times higher among infection-induced immunity compared to vaccine-induced immunity (here, here).
***Bottom Line***
The majority of vaccinated people won’t spread the virus if they are exposed. Among breakthrough cases, vaccines ensure less infectious viral particles for a shorter period of time. Fully vaccinated people provide little to no threat to community transmission. Boosters also help. And those with infection-induced immunity may or may not help reduce transmission.
We desperately need pandemic off-ramps. What is our plan to transition into an endemic state? I continue to be surprised and disappointed that we still don’t have guidance on this from public health officials. But, a very safe “off-ramp” is vaccinated people. A room full of vaccinated people, for example at Thanksgiving, with no other precautions poses little to no threat to the larger community.
Love, YLE
P.S. I originally included how vaccines prevent long COVID19 too, but this post was getting too much for a Saturday morning. I’ll explain in the next. Stay tuned.
To support this work, please subscribe to my newsletter here. You can also find all the data sources and hyperlinks here too: yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/.../how...

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You know who is living in fear? All those freaking gun owners. All those Texans carrying guns around everyday. The phrase they know to use is “I was in fear for my life.” “That is why I shot you. Cause I was in fear of my life.” Why carry a gun when not hunting or going to a shooting range? FEAR. FEAR. FEAR.

They are more likely to die of Covid than need to use a gun.

You know who else lives in FEAR? All those people in FEAR of who is coming across the border. They fear terrorists are lurking in every corner.

They are cognitively dissonant, ignorant and a bunch of hypocrites.

By the way I am a gun owner, am vaccinated and wear a mask in public. Does it mean I am fearful?

My life is not less meaningful because I won’t go get a pedicure in a pandemic. I don’t need activities to feel my life is worth living. Some people are just so shallow that life isn’t worth living unless they are traveling to lots of states so they can brag about something. I feel sad for people like that.

To the pea that said it, some people just don’t care even if they see a loved one die of Covid. I know of a family where the mom died of Covid. She was hospitalized for 4.5 months and was on a ventilator for the majority of that time. Her husband and children refuse to be vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask. So if after seeing that, they won’t change their behavior, nothing we say can possibly change that. I just wish those that refuse to do anything preventative would just stop taking up healthcare resources.

And those who say, God will make sure I don’t get sick, obviously haven’t read the Bible.

Matt 4:5-7
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Let’s just say that unfortunately the Herman Cain award will continue to be awarded.

Beliefs > evidence

I am reading now that the Houston man that died had Covid-19 before. I guess he did not have "natural" immunity against other variants.

Some of her memes (before she died at age 29 leaving 3 children under 10):

Too bad she didn't believe in her God to trust his wisdom who sent all the doctors and vaccines to protect her and us. He did provide for her!

To be fair, we have to consider population size, also with NYC the fact that everyone is living on top of each other and most rely on public transportation for everything. I’d be curious to see the percentages of deaths though. That is NOT to say that I think they are doing a good job dealing with it, living in Texas I know better.

I know, and didn’t suggest otherwise, I was only specifically addressing the locations she listed. 

One person's Draconian is another's respect for scientific knowledge, prudent good sense and concern for the well-being of one's fellow man, something lost on those anti-vaxxers and idiotic rugged individualists in Texas. Yee-haw, losers!

This is what I found for deaths per 100,000.
www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

Oregon and Washington which both have inside/outside mask mandates and vaccine requirements for all school employees are very low on the list. From what I gather from the board and the news is that we have consistently had some of the biggest restrictions for covid.   We didn’t start school in person fully until this September, schools have strict mask policies with social distancing protocols,etc.  i don’t actually know what the latest restaurant restrictions are but most of them in my area still have tables spread out and a limited number of seats .  People can bitch about tyranny all they want, but it seems like what my states are doing is helping.  

Texas is doing a kick ass job of dealing with it by NOT dealing with it. They have been in denial of Covid and the ramifications the entire time. And if they had the capacity to think outside of their little pea brains, they would realize that they are doing more harm to the state as a whole. But again, denial and stupidity prevails. Plus add a layer of narcissism, politics and religious brain washing and there you go. Yeehaw.

If you’re talking living on top of each other, then it’s not so much population size, as it’s population density. New York, California, Florida and Texas all have highly urbanized populations - all above 85% urbanized.