What does the Israel COVID data indicate about vaccines and Delta?
I keep reading ominous reports about the Delta variant of COVID and other potential variants and their effect on the vaccinated. To me the most important metric is not the number of cases, it’s the percentage of serious cases and deaths in the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated.
However, the statistics, even when available, are flawed and/or incomplete for several reasons. We would need to have reliable statistics on how many people (vaccinated and unvaccinated) who become seriously ill and are hospitalized with COVID are hospitalized because of COVID, and how many are primarily sick with other things and are going in “with COVID” in terms of a test or diagnosis but not because of it. We also would need to know how many have strong co-morbidities such obesity or diabetes. And yet I don’t seen many – or actually any, so far – statistics that indicate this in terms of variants such as Delta and vaccinated versus unvaccinated.
Israel is one of those countries which apparently keeps good statistics. But I have yet to see any reports – even from Israel – that include what I’d like to know. The best I could find was this:
The third wave of infections in the country has been bigger than the first two. In the first week of September, Israel recorded the highest number of cases per million in the world.
The Delta variant of the virus fuelled this surge. The share of Delta-positive sequences in Israel increased from 13% in the first week of June to 87% in mid-August indicating that the surge in cases was driven by the variant.
Data show that the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing infections against the Delta variant reduced, which led Israel to administer a third dose to fully vaccinated people. However, the share of severely ill patients and fatalities due the virus was low among the fully vaccinated, indicating that the vaccine continued to protect people against critical infection and death.
So it was Delta that was causing the increase in cases, and vaccination protected against serious illness for the most part. I also recall that until recently – until Delta hit, that is – Israel had had a relatively low number of COVID cases and COVID deaths per million, compared to other Western nations. And even now their figure for COVID deaths – 798 per million – is on the low side, although cases per million is high. So it is very possible that the Israeli population may have had little or only a moderate amount of naturally-acquired immunity to the disease prior to Delta, and that its unvaccinated people were especially at risk for that reason.
Continued [comments in brackets and emphasis added]:
The rise in cases came despite the fact that nearly 60% of the country had received both doses of the vaccine as on September 8. From mid-July, Israel started administering a third dose to people aged over 60 who had received their second shot at least five months before. Over time, the eligibility was relaxed and as on Sept. 8, 28.9% of the population had received the booster shot.
The booster shot was introduced because the efficacy of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine (which is Israel’s main vaccine) in preventing infection reduced, particularly against the Delta variant. However, its efficacy in preventing hospitalisation and severe illness remained high [even without the booster]. The table shows the results of efficacy studies of the vaccine over several time periods [the table can be found at the link].
As daily cases in the country started increasing in the second half of June, the number of patients hospitalised with severe illness also rose. However, the number of severely ill patients who are fully vaccinated fell over time, while the number of unvaccinated severely ill patients continued to increase. This indicates that the vaccine provides protection against severe illness.
Following a surge in cases, Israel saw a spike in deaths, particularly among the 60+ population, due to the virus in August. However, the majority of deaths occurred among patients who were unvaccinated while fatalities among those who were fully vaccinated remained relatively low. This points to the vaccine’s efficacy in preventing COVID-19 deaths too.
Unvaccinated Israelis represent only about 20 percent of the population eligible for a vaccine, but they now constitute half of all serious COVID-19 cases in the country.
According to the latest figures from the Health Ministry, serious cases among unvaccinated Israelis keep on rising, and are on track to surpass those among the inoculated…
As of Tuesday afternoon, 330 out of 679 seriously ill patients were unvaccinated, while 16 were partially vaccinated and 333 were fully vaccinated. There are 168 patients currently in critical condition and 123 are on ventilators. Even so, the number of seriously ill vaccinated patients appears to have plateaued.
There are no serious cases in children under twelve, although that group remains unvaccinated.
As of August 21, the Health Ministry recorded 215.9 severe COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people among the unvaccinated over the age of 60, compared to 21 per 100,000 people among those who had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. This makes unvaccinated older people more than 10 times as likely to experience a severe case as their immunized counterparts.
And that is true despite the fact that the oldest and more vulnerable are far more likely to be fully vaccinated.
NOTE: As I’ve said many times, I am vaccinated but I support anyone’s right to remain unvaccinated.
My data from worldometers for national numbers and from individual states for their data shows the delta may be on its way out. Cases and serious cases declining for last 2 weeks nationwide. Individual states showing declines are Florida. Georgia, Connecticut. NH, Colorado, NC, showing plateau. Another week or so, and it might actually be reported in the media.
My husband and I are fully vaccinated. He had Moderna and I had Pfizer. We both had family gatherings in the recent past where certain people insisted on knowing the vaccination status of other attendees. We both have in-laws who are unvaccinated. We said we thought that was a matter of privacy but we would accommodate those people who thought they should be outside only. The person who pitched the biggest fit was maskless and hugged all the other attendees. She stayed outside while other people came in and out. She had negative things to say about those who came inside. Ugh, Covid brings out the worst in people.
I support the legal right to remain unvaccinated, but I also strongly believe everyone who doesn’t have a bona fide medical exemption *should* get vaccinated.
The Delta variant has caused a lot of anxiety among Americans, but it doesn’t appear to be any more lethal than previous variants. The problem with all numbers is they come with questions attached: did the patient die “of” Covid, or “with” Covid? Did the patient have significant comorbidities? Etc.
It just seems as if we are trying to get a handle on a pandemic with insufficient accurate data. I trust the Israeli data pretty well, but even it appears to have gaps.
We need better information!
Good sources of info, mostly data based: https://healthy-skeptic.com/; https://dailysceptic.org/.
The “vaccine”, at this point, should be considered a treatment which reduces symptom severity. It may also be an accelerator of variant propagation since it seems to have a narrow preventative range (the Alpha variant). So, unvaccinated people could make the case that the vaccine is a threat to them, totally counter to the narrative.
Yes, I’ve been looking for the same data. I’ve seen a lot studies that track hospitalizations and deaths among the vaccinated and unvaccinated but they usually start before the Delta variant became dominant. I’m also interested in looking at transmission of the Delta variant between vaccinated people 4 or more months after they have been vaccinated, because it seems the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine degrades over time.
From the data I have seen, the Pfizer vaccine offers some protection from getting very sick, but doesn’t really do much to prevent transmission, which is why the re-emphasis on masking and the talk of booster shots. It is not actually a vaccine but a moderately effective prophylactic measure
I know I’ve mentioned this before but I recently had a moderate case of Covid (I had the Pfizer shots in May). It was similar to an average flu, with the body aches and fever. What got my attention is the number of people that I know — young, healthy, and vaccinated — who have become sick. They have all recovered but they had symptoms that probably would have hospitalized people who were more vulnerable.
I am seeing a few more stories of transmission of Covid among the vaccinated but I’m looking for some solid data on the efficacy of the Pfizer shots against the Delta variant over time and I’m not finding what I’m looking for.
We have become a society of amateur epidemiologists, most of whom (not unlike the pro’s) are making wild speculations based on unreliable data.
Important to keep in mind that no virus/disease in history has ever been tested for to this degree.
More testing, more results. Doesn’t necessarily make those results reliable, and more to the point we really don’t have anything to compare the results with, other than other COVID data. We really have no way of knowing how the data compares with past flu epidemics, particularly for “cases” where we never kept track of that before.
Boatbuilder:
I wrote a post about that very thing back in April of 2020.
The CDC currently estimates the R0 (R-naught) of Delta to be 5-9. The original Covid R0 was 2-3. That’s a much bigger difference than meets the eye. Cases increase after six iterations:
R0=3: 1+3+9+27+81+243 = 364
R0=9: 1+9+81+729+6561+59049 = 66430
Delta is explosive. This is why countries and states, like Israel, which had low Covid numbers were often hit hard by Delta even with vaccinations.
The Worldometers Covid graphs show the world, US and Israel on down side of the Delta cases spike. Deaths lag cases and are plateaued or going down. The next question is how much of a winter spike we will get.
It looks like we are going to have to learn to live with Covid as we do with seasonal waves of flu or colds. Maybe Zaphod’s countries can keep Covid batted down, but the rest of the world, including the US, just doesn’t have the necessary social cohesion.
Happily with vaccinations, natural immunity and acquired immunity plus improved treatments, I don’t think it will be that bad. We will have to give up the dream of Zero Covid.
huxley:
Zero COVID never made any sense. We don’t even have zero H1N1 and we certainly don’t have zero flu or pneumonia.
huxley,
The only thing to watch with the R for Delta is that they said the same thing about Alpha (the British variant) that the R was way higher than the original Covid but as time went on they kept lowering it and lowering it and the same seems to be happening in the UK with Delta as time goes by.
An almost universal trend with this entire episode is the apocalyptic worst case are slowly disproven but the narrative is already established.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
That link is to the official site for COVID-19 data in Britain. It’s easy to display graphs for cases, vaccinations, and deaths. We can probably assume that the population (i.e. all the people in the U.K.) is unchanged, and that the data collection methods are unchanged, and that the data definitions are unchanged.
If we accept those assumptions, then we can attribute the great drop in deaths, during the delta variant’s outbreak, to Britain’s vaccination program. Furthermore, we can also assume that widespread vaccination, as well as natural immunity, will lead to much lower death rates for the delta variant in the US. Hopefully, that wave will also soon be coming to a close here in the US.
I’ve mentioned the British data before, so I was already familiar with it. I haven’t yet taken a close look at the Israeli data.
The other thing is this is all seasonal and regional and yet the idiot powers that be just totally ignore that. Delta is probably not over in the Northeast and upper Midwest if last year is any indication but it probably is over for the SW and Southeast.
Seasonality and the fact that virtually every wave everywhere in the world lasts 8-12 weeks and follows the same shape are the two things that are just ignored by the fear porn people.
So dishonest and evil.
Cornflour,
The UK data is the best in the world and is the best thing for honest data people to look at for what is happening in the US because here it is a totally, dishonest mess.
Griffin:
I’ve looked at enough graphs showing the Delta surge to be higher than the earlier waves — in spite of acquired immunity — that I’m persuaded that Delta is significantly more transmissible. Check India, where Delta originated:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/
I’m sure there is finer grain to the discussion, but overall I’m impressed with Delta.
An example of great data from the UK.
https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/1437697627836067842
huxley,
It may be but it is so hard to tell because the data is so screwed up. Who is testing positive? What are their PCR threshold levels? Why are they being tested (for work, school, asymptomatic)?
Also have certain areas gotten off easy in earlier waves because if yes they are more apt to be hit hard.
So many variables and the distrust with public health officials is so high that it’s easier to assume they are lying at this point.
“But I have yet to see any reports – even from Israel – that include what I’d like to know.”
By now, it should be obvious to everyone that it is intentional. The government and medical ‘authorities’ don’t want us to know. That would be… counter-productive.
“As of August 21, the Health Ministry recorded 215.9 severe COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people among the unvaccinated over the age of 60…”
215.9 ÷ 100,000 = a rate of .002159
I can’t recall, does Israel allow the use of Ivermectin?
If not Israeli authorities are, at least to some degree, participating in the scamdemic.
“There are lies, damn lies and statistics” Benjamin Disraeli, the United Kingdom’s first conservative and only Jewish Prime Minister, twice elected to office.
huxley,
I fortuitously searched for R0 numbers rather extensively around November 2020. I was surprised that the CDC was rather slyly referring to the Los Alamos analysis (highly suspect IMO) without flatly stating that it was the correct number. Well, that number was 5.9 or 6.0. Hmmm. That is a very high number for the original Alpha or Wuhan/Italy strain. I haven’t looked lately, but I’m sure that Oceana’s Ministry of Information has sent that data to the memory hole. Other analyses with similar numbers were mentioned elsewhere. I recall a French study.
So Delta is the current bogeyman, thus R0 must be even higher than 6. A good narrative requires it.
Another point is that all R numbers derived from recent infection data really shouldn’t be called R0’s. R0 is the reproduction number at t = 0. At t = 0, i.e. late February 2020 in the U.S., the “dry tinder” people are still circulating in our society and there are no immunities specific to the new “novel” virus. I suppose some exotic computer model could try to back out the correct R0 number from recent data, but I wouldn’t trust it.
I don’t doubt that Delta is substantially more transmissible than Alpha. But is the resultant disease more serious, less serious, or about the same as Alpha? I guess the CDC isn’t allowed to tell us that.
I’m so disgusted. Can you tell?
This is a good site for state info that is used by a lot of people I trust.
https://covidestim.org/
I’m (*takes off Australian bush hat, puts on baseball cap*) rooting for Delta. The sooner it rips through the population everywhere and gives everyone’s T-Cells a tickle the sooner we might stand a chance of returning to some modicum of sanity — although I’m doubtful even there.
It would be an irony to beat them all if Western Governmental incompetence won out in the end through failure to contain Delta resulting in reading the fairly benign endemic endpoint while China / Macau/ Hong Kong / Taiwan got stuck in relatively unexposed bubbles.
You can imagine all the Open Society Self-congratulatory Masturbation Fests in GloboHomo’s Organs: FT, Economist, NYT, etc.
^— Only one small fly in this ointment. Chinky Fu Manchu now knows he can probably contain something mucho nastier with R0 ~= 3 and West cannot. And he’s learned a whole lot of other things about Western failure modes and his own weaknesses these last 20 months. Whitey Ruling Classes, unlike the Bourbons remember nothing and learn nothing. Be worried. I am.
Yes, Griffin’s site is interesting. I looked at the R(t) data at some length previously. When you bring up that covidstim.org page, you need to click on the R(t) button. That’s the Reproduction number as a moving function of time. Numbers below 1.0 is desired Nirvana.
It may be but it is so hard to tell because the data is so screwed up.
Griffin:
The data is far from perfect, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to extract valid information. For instance, it looks clear to me there is a seasonal component to it.
Would you disagree?
I don’t doubt that Delta is substantially more transmissible than Alpha.
TommyJay:
That was the only point I was making.
TommyJay,
Yes I click on ‘Details’ for each state and then dive into the R(t) numbers. That is where the regional patterns show themselves like Idaho, Montana right now.
huxley,
Well yes I guess if the data is all flawed in similar ways and goes on for years then you can compare things so there is that.
My main point is in comparing peak Delta to earlier variants is hard because there was not widespread vaccination then and many places were still locked down or very restrictive so it’s hard to say what the comparison is.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the lockdowns have caused this to last much longer because it takes much longer to burn through a community.
Chinky Fu Manchu now knows he can probably contain something mucho nastier with R0 ~= 3 and West cannot. And he’s learned a whole lot of other things about Western failure modes and his own weaknesses these last 20 months. — Zaphod
Probing the enemy’s defenses and inadequacies. Yup. Military SOP, as one of my retired Army inlaws told me.
___
The sooner it rips through the population everywhere and gives everyone’s T-Cells a tickle the sooner we might stand a chance of returning to some modicum of sanity
That one is good too. It does not work for the old and infirm, but the young really should be exposed to it and recover. It’s much better immunity than the new-age vaccines most probably.
Re: Covid Waves occurring at different times in different US States.
There’s old (ca. 1950s) research into global influenza prevalence patterns which I don’t have the citation for handy. Ivor Cummins found the monograph and discussed in his YouTube channel around March last year.
Basically flu has a typical mid-Winter to early Spring large peak in far Northern and Southern climes. And then not much during the rest of the year. We all know this anyway.
It gets more interesting in the tropics. Most countries show two smaller peaks IIRC roughly centered around April/May and September/October. These countries have less annual temperature variation… and it’s more a case of Wet and Dry Seasons… and plenty of their own local water-born pathogens which may weaken the inhabitants more or less at different times of the year. Or could be something as simple as seasonal changes in Relative Humidity affect our susceptibility to airborne viruses.
But certainly someone looked at global influenza patterns and found latitude effect within same hemisphere.
Hey, Neo-Great minds…
Except that your great mind is clearly way, way ahead of mine.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the lockdowns have caused this to last much longer because it takes much longer to burn through a community.
Griffin:
One can argue that the lockdowns gave us the time to develop the vaccine and thus the lockdowns saved lives, particularly elder lives, from Covid.
But there was no guarantee the vaccine was coming so fast (or at all) and it’s clear the cost of the lockdowns was not balanced against their benefits, as discussed in a recent neo post.
I haven’t tracked the Third World and I imagine its data is questionable too. They may have used masks, but I doubt many of those countries could afford to lockdown or contact trace. Has Covid burned out in those countries?
I saw my doctor today and we are still waiting for the Novavax option, for medical reasons. So, I’d be in a bind if I really needed to have a vax for job or travel purposes.
We discussed treatment options and she indicated that there is pressure from state boards not to prescribe ivermectin. The risk to her is the loss of her license. The good news is that she shares her office with a NP who does the monoclonal antibody treatment. It’s always good to know where to get treatments instead of waiting until you’re sick. I wish there was more research on treatments.
My state (OK) is already on a downward trend and the Delta peak was much lower than the peak in mid January. Even better is that my county (OK) has a 97% 1-shot vax rate for 65+ and 85% for 2-shot. The rate for 12+ is 75% and 63%. While I do watch the world and national trends, it is more important to be up on the local trends.
Or could be something as simple as seasonal changes in Relative Humidity affect our susceptibility to airborne viruses. — Zaphod
That’s absolutely true. I spent a couple hours with a research pub. back in early to mid 2020 that measured and graphed it for influenza. I missed saving it to disk.
The obvious part is that in cold dry air, the wet respirated micro droplets can evaporate their water mass in a second, and then the dry remnant droplet can waft on the breezes for dozens of meters. The part I could not understand is that very humid air is also good for the transmission of viruses. I believe 50% humidity is close to optimum for reducing transmission. Though I think somebody said that you need 50% absolute humidity, not relative. The complexity never stops.
I was kinda shocked back then that ASHRAE, the heating and ventilation standards people, had a whole list of rather smart but expensive ventilation measures to mitigate viral transmission. I’m not aware of any of those measures being adopted, though I’m sure a few people/buildings have done some of it, unbeknownst to me.
That’s amazing Liz.
What’s up with the Novavax? I thought it was being sold around the world for weeks or months now. I had noticed that I hadn’t seen any U.S. approval news. Why the heck not??
If only they would approve Nova Lox for Covid…
I’ll bring the bagels. Or maybe bialys instead.
Tommy – the delay has something to do with production, though it is continuing to push for approval in other countries. Maybe someday they will give out more info.
Liz, So there is U.S. approval? I’m not too surprised to hear of production issues. I would have thought that the technology was impossible.
I have some recent experience with breakthrough infections. My extended family (grandparents, adult kids, grandkids) vacationed together in early August, thinking it wasn’t too much of a risk as we were (almost) all vaccinated and had continued to be pretty careful. We were wrong. By the end of the vacation all but one vaccinated adult had come down with Covid (relatively mild though it wasn’t fun, and I’m still dealing with an annoying cough.) All three grandkids, too young to be vaccinated, tested positive within a few days after the end of the vacation, though they had few or no symptoms. And about a week after we all got home, one of the unvaccinated adults got sick, though no more so than the rest of us. The other is still fine.
Clearly, the vaccinated adults spread the illness among ourselves, as we were the first to get sick, and weren’t spending time with anybody else. We thought at first we just had colds (common when you get together with small children who aren’t in your germ pool) because the symptoms were fairly mild and because everything we read suggested that breakthrough infections in vaccinated people are far too rare to show up like that, bing, bang, boom in five out of six vaccinated adults.
Well, it turns out that they’re not rare AT ALL. My doctor and the public health nurse who called me about quarantine both said that they are seeing many, many cases, more than in last summer’s surge and running about about half and half in vaxed and unvaxed people. That precisely echoes the demographics of our little rural county, where about 50% of the population is vaccinated, and suggests that the vaccinated have little or no advantage over the unvaccinated when it comes to getting sick in the first place, or spreading it to others. BUT both the doctor and the nurse also said that only unvaccinated people are getting serious illness or being hospitalized. We figure we have our vaccinations — and the youth and healthiness of most of us — to thank for the fact that most of us recovered within a few days.
It seems to me that this means that all the fear and anger being stoked against the unvaccinated is misplaced. The vaccinated seem just as likely to make one another sick as the unvaccinated do; we’re all spreading it to everybody, all over the place. There’s no reason for vaccinated people to be fearful of the unvaxed: we don’t face nearly as much risk from this as the unvaxed do, and the unvaxxed can and, in my view, should, in most cases, choose to protect themselves.
I got vaccinated as early as I could, and I think most people should. However, I do not like the divisiveness of what’s going on now, the scapegoating of the unvaccinated as the unwashed pariahs of modern life. I do understand why a young, healthy person — like my family member who didn’t get the shot and never got sick — might think that the slight risk of Covid isn’t worth the unknown risks of a brand new vaccination, not to mention the humiliation of kowtowing to an overbearing government. This is America, and there is no way that we should be forcing people to choose between their privacy and physical integrity and their livelihoods, not to mention their right to medical care, for crying out loud. The curve of new cases is already dropping; there’s no pressing need for sudden federal action. Biden is only doing this — driving up division and fear and making Americans into scapegoats – to distract attention from his own increasingly obvious incompetence. And it’s working. I see the temperature rising and the squabbles increasing on Facebook, and have witnessed the end of a couple of friendships over this issue just since his speech. I worry about just how bad it will get. It makes me sad and tired, and so very angry and disgusted.
Liz, I guess the wait for approval continues. Sheesh. Don’t hold your breath. Blame Pfizer?
https://news.yahoo.com/novavax-expects-available-least-2-210142037.html
Mrs Whatsit:
I’m glad everyone in your family is okay now!
I have a few questions for you. How long was the vacation? Were the kids tested during it, and only ended up positive after it? Or were they not tested till after they got home? I’m thinking that the order in which people got sick is not necessarily indicative of who was the first to get it, because people have different incubation times over a range. If the kids weren’t tested till they got home, they might have been the ones who initially had it, since they were pretty much symptom-free.
I also very much agree about the pernicious nature of the disputes between some vaccinated people and unvaccinated people, and the condemnation of the latter. I have long felt that the indications were that vaccines are fairly good at protecting from serious illness, which is the important thing. I don’t like being sick, but if it’s just a fairly mild cold or flu type, that’s the sort of thing we’re all used to and ordinarily take in stride. It’s the unvaxxed who should be fearful, if anyone. They are most at risk. If they’re quite young the risks are low, but I still think that the risks of COVID are worse than the risks of the vaccine in young adults, so I would advise them to get vaccinated. If they don’t, I understand that, too.
Mrs Whatsit:
I had an unpleasant cold in early August. On the second day I convinced myself it was breakthrough Covid. (I got the J&J in June.) But I was running a fever and not thinking clearly.
Then I read more closely on the web, which said breakthrough Covid was rare, so I decided it was a garden-variety cold.
Now you tell me otherwise, so who knows. Since it was a mostly average cold (though the cough lasted a very long time), I would just as soon it was Covid for the presumed extra immunity.
Thanks for the report!
Griffin often points out the structural tendency to improperly diagnose Covid and I agree.
However, I also wonder how many people have had Covid, but thought it was a cold or didn’t check it for whatever reason.
According to Worldometers, ~13% of Americans have been diagnosed with Covid. According to current news, ~75% have received at least on vaxx shot. I have no idea how many people may be naturally immune, but surely some are.
So it seems likely 80+% of the population have some immunity to Covid now. It also looks like we are past the Delta peak in the US. Barring significant mutations, we could see Covid rates collapse in the next few months — not to zero, but by enough to reopen society — unless Democrats get even crazier.
I honestly find it difficult to try and parse all the data that’s being thrown at us every day about this–twist it one way and it says one thing, twist it another and it says something else. I know logical conclusions ARE there to be teased out… I’m just not great at doing that.
Where I’m at in the Carolinas, though, the situation is concerning (anecdotal, I know, but it’s what I have). The hospital systems are struggling not to be overwhelmed. I’m not on the front lines of it, but I do work with oxygen equipment, and we’re running into national shortages of tanks and concentrators; we’re having to turn away referrals and tell them to try and find someone else to provide the equipment while we do our best to support our primary hospital system. (Better to have someone on oxygen at home than taking up a bed in the hospitals–to that end, we’ve been waiving some of our normal billing/qualification processes, and just absorbing the financial loss if necessary.) And of course everyone is short-staffed and burning out–the strain in case managers’ voices is almost palpable–but that was going on before this current surge.
I haven’t been vaccinated. Caught COVID a couple weeks ago when it swept through our office, had a relatively mild case, and am relieved to only have a lingering cough and a half-missing sense of smell. But I’m trying to research natural antibodies vs. vaccine antibodies, and depending on how that goes, I’m considering getting the vaccine in a few months… but trying to balance that decision with opposing the mandates. I might get it at a facility outside of the healthcare system where I work, and just not tell my employer, so I can make my own decision while still standing up for my principles, but I honestly don’t know yet. It seems a little ludicrous.
“I also wonder how many people have had Covid, but thought it was a cold or didn’t check it for whatever reason.”
If authorities gave free testing where you could learn if you have natural antibodies and if having antibodies was considered equivalent to being vaxxed it would go a fair distance in persuading people they were legit.
Instead, there is only one answer and anyone objecting is censored and canceled.
@Tara:
Good that you had a fairly mild case! So you’re pretty much home and hosed regarding immunity at least for some months. So can adopt a wait and see posture regarding vaccination if you’re so-minded — and no rational person could hold it against you.
I think if you do decide to get vaccinated at a later date, there’s no point in making some kind of noble gesture by doing it secretly and not telling anyone — and getting marked down as a Troublemaker in a bunch of databases both Local, State, and Federal. Grey Rock: Be one. Should you decide to be otherwise at a later date, you will then still have that option.
“I honestly find it difficult to try and parse all the data that’s being thrown at us every day about this…”
I believe that’s intentional.
As a result, the authorities can justify their holy mantra of “Just get the vaccine.” And, recursively, they can then thus justify all the confusion they’ve helped to spread as…”for the good of society”….
– – – – – – – –
FWIW, related (from Singapore):
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/life-has-not-improved-much-we-hoped-singapore-outbreak-worsens-80-vaccinated
@huxley at 0105-
Re your query as to # of people with natural immunity.
Another very important question for which there are hard data that are being suppressed.
Remember the carrier Theodore Roosevelt? ~5K sailors, no masking, pre-vax, all working in close proximity. 1 died out of the 5000. Approx 20% eventually tested positive, IIRC. ~80% naturally immune???
The military has complete control of the medical records of that 5000 cohort, full access to their blood samples, full follow-up on the sailors’ health status.
Where are the published studies on these folks? I can’t help thinking that they were done but the results were inconvenient, or that the studies were not done for fear of similar inconveniences being revealed. There was, of course, the stray voltage story about how the ship’s commanding officer was relieved due to his reaction to the situation, and his subsequent reinstatement. I believe that Gen Milley was involved in that, may be wrong but don’t care enough to check. More stray voltage.
There was a similar but smaller outbreak on the French carrier Charles de Gaulle. I believe that the positive conversion rate there was higher, maybe close to 50%. I don’t know if that is due to some difference in the population, how it was tested, how many cycles the PCR was run through. What I do know is that any useful information gained from study there is also not public knowledge.
Almost makes me suspicious that Pfizer, the CCP, the US govt, and lefties in general have a common goal. I would be delighted to learn of any contradictory information.
Data is one thing. I guess it’s a lot of things.
Watching what’s happening among various folks is either funny or disheartening.
We had some folks over last night. They live about a quarter mile away and had decided to walk. Their route put them within fifty yards of a home with a person in it, and past four which, due to one circumstance or another, were not, for the moment, inhabited.
They showed up wearing masks of some cheerfully decorated fabric, which they’d worn on the way over here, and took off upon entering.
We had a cheerful evening without masks.
They are well-educated, good-hearted, liberal to left, and as a usual thing quite practical. Fortunately, the subject of covid didn’t arise.
I have no idea what they were thinking, but whatever it was, it led them to mask while walking down what amounted to a country road without another person in sight, nor any likelihood of same. And then unmask when visiting the home of some friends they hadn’t seen in person in about two years.
From time to time, you’ll see such odd things happening and I have to wonder if there are sufficient people doing the weird and inexplicable as to invalidate many of the conclusions we are told are fact.
As an example, the most careful masker may think absolutely nothing at all about hands-to-mask-to-door handle in a public building. And when surveyed, will insist he’s being masked at all times. So, as a source of infection, or not, is there a difference between this and not masking at all?
To the extent a mask mandate gets the reluctant on side, is that cohort’s masking as effective as that of the eager types who started early and do it according to this week’s advice? Do surveys and conclusions consider such questions?
“Almost makes me suspicious….”
EVERYTHING points in that direction.
Especially the TOTAL rejection—either by blackout or ridicule—of alternative treatments AND the continued official denial of the efficacy of natural immunity (including immunity after illness).
In my view, it’s a criminal conspiracy. (I imagine I’m not alone.)
Continued (from Joseph Mercola):
“According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, you’re not counted as fully vaccinated until a full 14 days have passed since your second injection in the case of Pfizer or Moderna, or 14 days after your first dose of Janssen, despite the fact that over 80% of deaths after the vaccines occur in this window. How convenient.
“Anyone who dies within the first 14 days post-injection is counted as an unvaccinated death. Not only does this inaccurately inflate the unvaccinated death toll, but it also hides the real dangers of the COVID shots, as the vast majority of deaths from these shots occur within the first two weeks.
“The CDC also has two different sets of testing guidelines — one for vaccinated patients and another for the unvaccinated. If you’re unvaccinated, CDC guidance says to use a cycle threshold (CT) of 40, known to result in false positives. If you’re vaccinated, they recommend using a CT of 28 or less, which minimizes the risk of false positives.
“The CDC also hides vaccine failures and props up the ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ narrative by only counting breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death.
“Hospitals are still also reporting non-COVID related illnesses as COVID-19.”
The authorities (CDC/Fauci/Media) have provided no reason to pooh-pooh the above and every reason to believe it.
In fact, unfortunately, those three—along with the Democratic Party, generally—have encouraged a reaction of total and utter skepticism to practically everything that they declare.
Worse, they don’t care in the slightest that this is the case.
And so…is the above quote from Mercola true? Speaking personally, and taking everything with more than a grain of salt, I’d believe him over anything spouted by “official” channels.
And no, I wouldn’t say that this is a healthy situation at all, but c’est la vie…
Barry Meislin:
Good Singapore link.
__________________________________
Another scientist said the continued spread is merely a sign that 80% vaccinated is still “too low for delta”. Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious diseases expert from Singapore’s Rophi Clinic, said the Delta strain had moved the goalposts, in terms of what level of community vaccination was necessary.
__________________________________
If the R0 of Delta really is 5-9, that will move the goalposts. See my little math exericse @ 8:15pm. Nonetheless, Singapore sounds like Covid paradise. Only 58 deaths total out of a population of six million.
I have found an article discussing the Zero Covid strategies of Asia. Singapore got slammed after they started relaxing controls.
__________________________________
Can ‘zero COVID’ countries continue to keep the virus at bay once they reopen?
Successful strategies used in Asia and the Pacific may not be sustainable in the long run
But the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant, the economic burden of closed borders, lockdown fatigue, and increasing vaccine availability are changing the equation. “In the long term [zero COVID] is not really economically sustainable,” says Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
…
Singapore, meanwhile, is cautiously relaxing border controls. Starting 8 September, it began to allow immunized travelers from Brunei and Germany to enter without quarantining, on a reciprocal basis, as a trial step. But expansion of this scheme may be put on hold because the city-state is in the midst of its worst outbreak in more than a year, with 450-plus cases reported on 9 September, despite nearly 80% of residents being fully vaccinated.
https://www.science.org/content/article/can-zero-covid-countries-continue-keep-virus-bay-once-they-reopen
A reminder:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/natural-immunity-longer-lasting-than-protection-from-covid-19-vaccines-dr-robert-malone_3983305.html
I used my DNA from Ancestry.com and submitted it to https://www.covidforecaster.com/ It said I have a 1 in 244 chance of severe symptoms based on DNA. Based on age I have a 1 in 19 chance of problems. I am old.
How did covidforecaster develop this? Why the lack of any detail about variations in different populations in reporting?
I did have covid and except for the unusual lack of taste and smell it was no worse than a cold.
The politicization of covid is a sign of the times.
We see the adult version of Hall Monitor Syndrome exhibited and glorified on the left, and covid disaster porn driving out any meaningful reporting, not just in the US but even in Israel.
I can report a similar scenario as Mrs. Whatsit, so glad all fared well, as they have in this case. Of the recent symptomatic illness in our accounting 6 were vaccinated/ 7 not. Age range of the first group 14 to 87, 2nd group 4 to 72. 4 of the people struggled but none were hospitalized. Of these 1 was vaccinated and 3 were not. As far as the studies even from Israel, unless we know the prior health conditions of those that needed hospitalization or died what sound conclusions can we draw? The survival rate prior to vaccine was extremely high and remains so. The only thing that the study of the vaccine stated as a conclusion prior to use was that it would prevent symptomatic disease in the recipient, PERIOD. And we clearly now know that was WRONG. These studies excluded children/adolescents; pregnant and breastfeeding; and immunocompromised patients. Once EUA was obtained the control group was allowed to get the vaccines so there is no control group for the ongoing original trials. So information that is presently being recorded is being done so in a different fashion than any formal scientific investigation we would expect. As for the unvaccinated, are these by and large people that are not taking the vaccine because of preconditions (blood clotting problems, allergies, etc etc) and thereby are more vulnerable if they get the virus (or the shot)? We don’t know, and we won’t know. What we also don’t know is if there are any long-term effects of this shot. And there are plenty of scientists and people in the medical field whose point of view regarding the possible negative long-term effects that may occur who have been deplatformed and their views suffocated with a pillow by the very people and agencies that we oppose in almost every other arena. From my own experience and research, I no longer trust the authorities at the CDC or WHO (in the same category as the FBI, CIA, DOJ) and do not believe they care one bit about my or my family’s health and well-being. In their corner are my Mayor (Garcetti) and Governor (Newsom) who closed restaurants where sound hygiene and food safety was practiced and have done nothing about the pop-ups all over town that have operated off of busy street corners under tents with coolers in the heat (100 degrees) and in the rain. Third-world country here in the San Fernando Valley, brought to you by our expensive and corrupt government–Federal and State.
“it’s a criminal conspiracy” Barry Meislin
Yes, it is…
Rumors coming out of Australia that vaccinated who are hospitalized are secretly being treated with Ivermectin. Unvaccinated are put on respirators but get no Ivermectin. Hospitals get big money per patient and it twists the numbers. Goal to propagandize the need for vaccinations.
In 2019 I wouldn’t have believed it but now, I put nothing past them. They’ve lost all credibility.
Neo, on your questions: It was a two-week vacation. We developed symptoms sequentially, Adult 1 a few days after we arrived, 2 (me) a few days later, 3 a few days after that and 4 and 5 at the very end of the trip or shortly after we got home. Nobody got tested during the vacation. However, the day after our return Grandchild 1 developed mild symptoms and tested positive, so we got tests. Adult 1 — by then completely recovered and almost two weeks past the start of his symptoms — tested negative. (We have no doubt at all that he did have Covid, though.) Adults 2 and 3 were positive. Adult 4 was negative on the first home test but positive on a PCR a day or two later. Adult 5 never got tested because his symptoms made it clear that he had the same illness as the rest of us.
Grandchild 2 initially tested negative, but a week later was retested because of the start of school, and this time tested positive. Grandchild 3 tested positive on the same day as 2 — by that time, more than three weeks after the vacation had begun. So, you can see why we’re fairly sure it didn’t start with the children. Likewise, we think it didn’t come from the unvaxed adults, who spent a lot of their time separate from the rest of us for work reasons (nobody gets to just take a vacation anymore!) If either of the unvaxed adults — who live together — had been sick but asymptomatic when it all started, it seems unlikely that the other one wouldn’t show symptoms until three weeks later. Of course, there’s no way to be sure of any of that.
Our best guess is that Adult 1 picked up the infection somewhere on our trip down, or perhaps in the vacation town’s insanely crowded grocery store, where social distancing was impossible and absolutely nobody was wearing masks, including us (until after the first person got sick!) Before this, I didn’t think there was much risk of transmission in places like grocery stores because you don’t have long periods of close contact — but from what I understand, the Delta variant is far more contagious than earlier forms, so maybe that has changed.
I have been trying to research this and running into so many roadblocks and contradictions. The CDC stopped tracking positive cases other than hospitalizations and deaths in May, and nobody seems to be keeping official track of case numbers in vaxed and unvaxed people. I doubt this is an oversight.
huxley, your early-August bad cold sounds EXACTLY like my early-August experience, complete with the self-persuasion that it was a cold and the lingering cough. I wonder how many vaccinated people out there have had “colds” that were never tested? Or unvaxed either, for that matter.
in any event, I’m glad you recovered, and I share your optimism that this will boost your immunity, at least for a few months!
From the Tablet: “The Masked Ball of Cowardice: How fear of admitting error in trusting China’s coronavirus propaganda is driving Western societies into a doom spiral”
“One by one, governments of the world imported China’s totalitarian lockdown measures. Neil Ferguson, whose series of alarmist, wildly inaccurate models fueled lockdowns around the world, recalled how China’s example had inspired him: I think people’s sense of what is possible in terms of control changed quite dramatically between January and March … It’s a communist one-party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought … And then Italy did it. And we realised we could … If China had not done it, the year would have been very different. . . . .
What’s transpired since has been a predictable spiral into the abyss, aided and abetted at virtually every stage by a media apparatus that has perpetuated the fraudulent lockdown narrative. The Chinese government has financial stakes in almost every top media outlet and friends in corporations, universities, and governments. Preexisting financial relationships with China led institutions to trust information from China, endorse the CCP’s narrative, and ultimately advocate for the global adoption of the CCP’s policies. Owing to this combination of naivete, groupthink, and outright corruption, scientists and journalists have been incorporating information from China into their work as true, when in fact nearly every bit of information that has come from China with regard to the virus has been a lie. . . .
At the heart of the lockdown madness was the collective fantasy of controlling a common respiratory pathogen—a feat the epidemiology profession had agreed was impossible and self-destructive just months prior. When China’s fraudulent data was left out of the mix, it was abundantly clear that no country was ever able to ‘control’ COVID-19. Instead, the virus appeared to resurge in ‘waves’ despite the use of these socially and economically suicidal measures. . . .
For Xi Jinping, lockdown was never about a virus. It was about sending a message: that stripped of all disguise, the illusion of virtue, competence, and commitment to human rights among the Western political class is nothing more than conformity with easily subvertible norms and institutions passed down by prior generations. As lockdown policies grind on into their 18th month, it’s increasingly difficult to disagree with him.”
Full article here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/masked-ball-cowardice
Tara, so glad you have recovered reasonably easily! On your question about getting vaxed in the future, my doctor surprised me by telling me I should have a booster vaccination 90 days after having Covid. He says that that even though I was vaccinated in March, the fact that I got sick may indicate that the vaccination’s protection had waned by then, and nobody knows how long protection lasts from having the illness itself. (I’m in my 60s, so am in a somewhat high-risk group, though otherwise quite healthy.)
I’m not sure I’ll do it. Like you, I oppose the mandates and am trying to balance my health against my principles. And I’m retired, so most of the time, I’m neither exposed to other people nor out there exposing others (family visits excepted — and for that matter, I don’t know what our family will want to do about getting together in the next few months, given what just happened). I agree that the information out there is bewildering. As many commenters have noted, it’s practically impossible to parse out anything useful from the deluge of contradictory and incomplete data. I’m hoping things will be clearer by the time that 90-day window rolls around — but the way things are going, it seems unlikely.
I think we might see a faster natural spread of COVID in the college populations where the last few Saturdays have seen thousands and thousands of college kids and fans jumping up and down, cheering and hugging each other and they are maskless. Perhaps younger, under 25 years old, people are ready to stand up and resist the senseless rules and mandates.
Sharon W, I’m so glad your group — which included some unvaxed people in high risk groups — got through this more or less unscathed! I agree with everything you said about the sad state of the data and your complete distrust of the “authorities” who are supposed to be guiding us through this. It’s frightening to realize how many of us must be experiencing this complete loss of trust combined with suspicion. It won’t get any better, and it certainly can get worse.
And we’re turning on ourselves instead of on the authorities who are putting us in this position. I just ran across this quotation from Bertrand Russell, which seems almost too apropos:
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
OldTexan: Our future “elites” may be different from the students at Big Ten and other large universities:
Harvard reports that 94% of its students are vaccinated; its test positivity rate is 0.18% as of 9/14. Nevertheless, Giang Nguyen, executive director of Harvard University Health Services, sent out the following memo on 9/10 advising students to eat and drink with their masks on:
“Follow the ‘Quick Sip Rule’ when drinking. Lower your mask, take a sip, and then promptly cover your mouth and nose. A straw can make this more efficient. Do not linger with your mask down. If you wish to slowly savor a hot beverage, do it away from others.
Consume and cover! Consume your meal and immediately mask up when done. Conversation, checking your phone, and other activities should be masked, even when you are in a designated indoor dining area. If you are taking your time between bites (for conversation, for example), put your mask back on.
Dine in small parties of 2-to-4 people. Avoid table-hopping. Consider dining consistently with the same small group of people rather than a different group at every meal of the day.”
https://www.thecollegefix.com/consume-and-cover-quick-sip-rule-harvard-wants-students-to-eat-drink-with-mask-on/
The estimated cost of undergraduate tuition, fees, and living expenses for 4 years at Harvard is $295,200– that’s a pretty expensive jail.
Mrs. Whatsit:
Glad to hear that you recovered. Your experience is very similar to mine. I attended a wedding where almost everybody was vaccinated and I came down with symptoms a couple days later. I first thought it was a cold and then I got a fever and lost my sense of taste. I thought I was an outlier because I read how rare breakthrough cases with symptoms were amongst the vaccinated. But then I began hearing from other guests who tested positive. About half of the people at my table ended up with symptoms. All were vaccinated.
PA+ Cat,
“The estimated cost of undergraduate tuition, fees, and living expenses for 4 years at Harvard is $295,200– that’s a pretty expensive jail.”
Self-imposed and the real jail exists within their minds. So wherever they go, there the ‘jail’ will be…
West TX Intermediate Crude:
I recall the basic story of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, but nothing based on deeper analysis. The conclusion I recall was that a military ship was an impossible environment to contain Covid, yet as you note only 20% or so were infected. Most were young men in reasonable shape of course.
There was the also story of the Diamond Princess cruise ship in which out of 3700 passengers and crew — 700 were infected, 400 were asymptomatic and 14 died.
huxley,
If I were you I would absolutely get antibody tested. I had stupidly thought that a person could not be tested for natural antibodies after vaccination, but I’m relatively sure that is not the case. When checked up on it early this year before getting vaccinated, it was a 10 or 20 buck cost to me. I think I would have had to lie on a form to get it, since I never had any symptoms at all, so I didn’t; but you’ve had symptoms.
Not to beat the issue to death, but I do think it matters what the correct absolute numbers are for R0. I think the Diamond Princess was a unique situation that enabled really good numbers for R0. (Yes, cruise ships environments are different than communities.) Outside of some isolated Amazon tribe, I don’t think it is possible to determine real R0’s for new strains at this point in time.
______
On your question about getting vaxed in the future, my doctor surprised me by telling me I should have a booster vaccination 90 days after having Covid. He says that that even though I was vaccinated in March, the fact that I got sick may indicate that the vaccination’s protection had waned by then, and nobody knows how long protection lasts from having the illness itself. — Mrs. Whatsit
Again, I’d get the antibody test. If you’ve got natural antibodies, I’d tell your doc. to get lost on the booster issue. (Plus you’ve already got your vax card for political coverage.) How long does the natural protection last?
This article is not bad.
One recent study found that natural immunity is still present in people 8 months after they were infected. Another study noted that parts of the immune response of people who had COVID-19 are similar to those of people who were sick in the early 2000s with SARS (a virus very similar to the one that causes COVID-19). Because of this, some experts think natural immunity to the coronavirus might last for several years.
People talk about the symptom similarities between influenza and covid, but on a microbiology level the virus structures are entirely different. Aside from the furin cleavage of the spike protein, the structures of the SARS viron (2003) and the SARS2 viron are very similar; and the natural immunity for the former is believed to last more than a decade.
TommyJay:
Checking with the FDA on getting tested when vaxxed, I get a non-answer answer:
____________________________________________
Q. I received a COVID-19 vaccination. Do I need an antibody test to know if I am immune to COVID-19?
A: Antibody tests are not recommended to determine your level of immunity or protection from COVID-19.
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/antibody-serology-testing-covid-19-information-patients-and-consumers
I’ve been to four outdoor mass crowd events (whole afternoons) since being vaccinated in late Feb. One had a state wide crowd, one a nation wide crowd, and the other two were local crowds. No problems.
I’ve not been on a plane, nor have I stayed in a motel, hotel, or airbnb. The latter concerns me. Is living in some strange place overnight safe? Is fomite transmission a problem? I do suspect that fomite transmission is a real issue, but at what level?
India seems to be doing much better now. — https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/lucknow-news/33-districts-in-uttar-pradesh-are-now-covid-free-state-govt-101631267966925.html
huxley,
What a crock. There is a reason why two of the FDA’s top virologists quit recently. Firstly, apparently the antibodies generated by the vaccine and the natural infection are very different and are easily distinguished by antibody tests. That is, and test for natural antibodies will not be affected by vaccination.
Check this out at Lab Corp.
https://www.labcorp.com/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/individuals/antibody-test
There are limitations. Don’t get the test within a week or two of feeling sick. And don’t wait a year, as antibodies may wane.
Wow. There is new news to me in the above. The test is quantitative. So in theory, you can tell if you have been heavily infected or only lightly infected. Well, as gaged by your immune response which is also variable.
According to some vaccine experts it is a mistake to vaccinate people while the pandemic is happening. The idea here is that while people are building immunity from the vaccine they are vulnerable to infection and if they do get infected the virus may mutate to a form that is better able to survive. Kind of like bacterial resistance to antibiotics. If it isn’t killed or stopped right away it gets the chance to mutate.
TommyJay:
I’ve done all those things – fly, stay in motel, stay in air b&b – and so far so good. I don’t think there’s much transmission through inanimate objects.
Yawrate:
Yes, I’ve read those arguments, and I don’t find them persuasive, at least not so far. Viruses always mutate and there’s always a chance that a more virulent form will emerge. But usually these new variants are both more easily spread and less virulent. Even with the vaccine so far, that seems to be holding – more easily spread and less virulent. Viruses are successful if they spread and don’t kill their hosts or even make them too sick, the better to spread. After all, if you’re alive and moving around, you can infect more people. That’s something I remember learning long ago, and I think for the most part it will still hold true.
The medical establishment in our country has demonstrated mind-numbing incompetence and relentless dishonesty in every aspect of the handling of covid. The numbers on cases, hospitalizations and deaths are blatant fiction. I am really shocked at people who should know better after 18 months of this nonsense continuing to use data generated in the USA as if it were actually quality information.
Apparently, some people are so addicted to crunching numbers and offering analysis that they will do so no matter how bad the data. Sad. It’s like climate science only worse. Rumpelstiltskin only claimed to turn straw into gold. Today’s covid number crunchers are claiming to do it with crap.
I’m reminded of the Wall Street con artists who claimed that they could slice and dice bad mortgage debt into “tranches” and make most of it investment grade quality.
Sorry, it ain’t chicken salad. No matter how much mayo they add.
“I do suspect that fomite transmission is a real issue, but at what level?” TommyJay
Sometime in May/June of 2020 Johns Hopkins had an entire layout on how fomite transmission was a non-factor in transmission– a very thorough analysis of sources and findings. I wondered when the adjustments were going to be made at public places. I was telling my friends not to worry. When one of them wanted proof, I went back to the site and lo and behold that information was wiped. The best you could get was the CDC stating that “it isn’t the main way it is transmitted.” I was already in a place of not trusting the “authorities”. There was much work to do, to stop the Trump rallies and to ensure that mail-in voting be instituted for the election. Our science, truly became political “science” via the government/social media response to the pandemic.
Thanks for that Neo. I haven’t intentionally avoided things like motels, though I was contemplating such a trip soon.
The CDC did say at one point not too long ago, that if a family has an infected family member living in their household, they should disinfect surfaces frequently.
My suspicion is that there may be this “noble lie” factor where the CDC and other officials don’t want to provoke a panic where people stop seeing doctors and stop eating for fear of supermarkets, etc.
I’ve read that things like scrap metal drives during WW2 were basically useless to the war effort, but let the general public feel like they were contributing.
I think a lot of the CDC Covid guidelines have been similar.
(War Bonds, I’m told, were mostly intended to suck up all that extra cash that was being paid out as war wages and therefore keep inflation down.)
Part of the issue here is that you’re citing infections.
The Key POINT:
WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT INFECTIONS?
No one gives a rat’s ASS about being infected. They CARE if they are hospitalized, experience a serious complication (i.e., losing their sense of smell), or die.
The first two stats are literally impossible to get any actual contextually significant information on, and the latter tend to get thrown about without context, as well… i.e., age group and co-morbidities. THAT info is out there, on the CDC site (age data, at least) but not much else.
It’s the lack of CONTEXT surrounding data, perceptions, and reporting which is the main issue.
I had some idiot who had posted “kids are dying and getting hospitalized in mass numbers from the delta variant”. I challenged this — he cited a report that said, no, there wasn’t any overall increase (i.e., he was either lying or just too fucking stupid to actually comprehend the news article).
Actual facts: (At that time, about 6w ago), Florida had seen an upsurge of 300% of “kids hospitalized”… Only far lower down — para 12 or so, was it mentioned that this “upsurge” was from 4 to 12… out of 2.6 MILLION SCHOOL AGED CHILDREN. Yeesh.
SMH.
Give me a fucking BREAK!
And yet this is the kind of shit idiots everywhere are yammering about and supporting idiotic mandates over.
Gregory+Harper, thanks for your story. You didn’t say how you are doing. I hope that you and the other wedding guests are recovering well and feeling better by now. Your experience echoes my sense of how this summer has gone: we thought and hoped and even assumed that now, with vaccinations, we could finally go back to celebrating weddings, going on family vacations, attending funerals and all of that. Living normally. And maybe we can, and maybe we should, even given the transmissibility of Covid in its current form. I have plans to attend a family memorial service in October, with far-flung family members from various continents, for an aunt who died during the pandemic (not of Covid — but Covid delayed the memorial). And I have other plans to travel and explore and visit that I am so reluctant to put on the shelf. But right now I still have a cough that would scare you to death if you were right next to me, and for that reason am mostly staying home.
Are you and the other wedding guests recovering well? Has anybody been hospitalized?
Mrs. Whatsit:
Thanks for your interest. I am now fully recovered. I would rate my illness as an average flu with the exception of losing my senses of taste and smell. I wouldn’t have been concerned at all about my illness if I hadn’t heard all the horror stories.
As far as I know there were no hospitalizations. Although I did hear that one guest may have infected someone who was already very ill. What I found unusual were the number of people who not only became infected but became sick, several of these people were young and healthy (including my son). This made me think that this must be happening to other vaccinated people. I long ago lost my faith in the CDC but now I am even more skeptical of anything they say.
I hope I now have strong immunity. I’m not changing any plans based on this experience. I plan on going to Europe in October to visit my in-laws.
All these stories of vaccinated people getting infected in group settings and probably being the carriers (rather than the unvaxxed being the plague bringers), calls to mind the explanations that Obama’s people gave for why his birthday bash was okay – they were all the superiorly intelligent vaccinated.
Any bets on whether or not we will ever hear how many of them got sick later?
Also, it’s been linked elsewhere, but don’t miss the Glenn Greenwald article on our newly minted Bourbon Burlesque Aristocracy.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-masking-of-the-servant-class
“The Masking of the Servant Class: Ugly COVID Images From the Met Gala Are Now Commonplace
While AOC’s revolutionary and subversive socialist gown generated buzz, the normalization of maskless elites attended to by faceless servants is grotesque.”