Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

Graham wrote:

I do not believe that is true for infection and I’m not aware of any data to support it.

There is – and we do not need trials for that because we have good and broad real world data by now.

Just tiny example: The incidence in Berlin last week has been 200 new infections amongst 100.000 unvaccinated but only 50 new cases amongst 100.000 vaccinated.

Graham wrote:

Macro population-level studies cannot really measure it in a way that isolates it from all other factors, e.g. the way people behave, other preventative measures, degrees of exposure, etc.

You can always question statistics – but at large enough populations you need to give indication why exposure should be difficult.

Your argument is like: We can’t know if seatbelts safe lives because it would be unethical to do experiments with deadly crashes and from population level data we can never say if people who do not wear a seatbelt do not just drive more dangerously.

“In any case, continued high infection rates – often as high as they ever were pre-vaccines – among vaccinated populations, do not support your hypothesis”

I don’t understand this statement when here in France 8 out of 10 people in hospital with Covid are unvaccinated. Ok its not 10/10 but to me it says you are several times safer having been vaccinated.

[quoted part fixed – see Posting Tips]

Malibuflyer wrote:

There is – and we do not need trials for that because we have good and broad real world data by now.

I don’t think that’s the case. If you look at cumulative or rolling 7-day average curves for confirmed cases in our two countries covering Q1 2020 to the present day, the curves don’t show any obvious change as a result of vaccine introduction. The only obvious visible trends are the ‘waves’ that are reported.

Malibuflyer wrote:

Just tiny example: The incidence in Berlin last week has been 200 new infections amongst 100.000 unvaccinated but only 50 new cases amongst 100.000 vaccinated.

Without knowing the details of the data or study you’re reporting, that is almost certainly a function of the effect vaccination has on symptomatic infection. Most recorded infections are symptomatic infections simply because it is symptoms that prompt people to get tested. I would hypothesise that the delta in that data consists largely of asymptomatic infections in the vaccinated. Note also that even with population-level random testing it is now harder to catch the vaccinated, since they are infected for a shorter duration of time.

Malibuflyer wrote:

Your argument is like: We can’t know if seatbelts safe lives because it would be unethical to do experiments with deadly crashes and from population level data we can never say if people who do not wear a seatbelt do not just drive more dangerously.

Not at all. There is no similarity. Seatbelts are a parachute case.

This debate is going around in circles… Obviously vaccinated people are

• less likely (probably much less likely) to be infectious – because they are less likely to reach a given level of symptoms at which virus shedding runs at a given level! *
• less likely (probably much less likely) to have symptoms so are less likely to report anything (so all the stats based on absolute numbers will be dodgy)

On top of that you have a strong correlation between

• age and probability of being vacced (older → more cautious)
• age and probability of doing “close-up social stuff” (older → less sociable)

The vast majority of people in hospital (= serious illness) will be

• young unvacced and with serious conditions (like the ~150kg woman, age ~25, shown on the news here yesterday, moaning about how ill she was, could not walk after weeks on a ventilator, but nobody, and definitely not the BBC, was going to make the slightest comment about the “elephant in the room” – the “150kg” – because they would get slaughtered by the PC movement; we live in truly weird times)
• the old unvacced (unless you live alone and never go out, IQ must be in the bottom few %?)
• the old and vacced but immunity weakened

* that sentence is 30 words, and two brackets and a hyphen, so you will not hear it on the BBC

gallois wrote:

I don’t understand this statement when here in France 8 out of 10 people in hospital with Covid are unvaccinated. Ok its not 10/10 but to me it says you are several times safer having been vaccinated.

I’m not talking about safety from severe disease or hospitalisation. I’m talking about infection. As an individual you are several times ‘safer’ being vaccinated, but most people were pretty damn safe anyway. Perhaps the conflation between severe (in hospital) Covid and Covid itself is because we’ve somehow all been conditioned to think that Covid = almost certainly really bad. People say “you really don’t want to get this thing”, and of course you don’t because there’s always an element of dice-rolling (e.g. genetic susceptibility) but that doesn’t change the fact that >9 times out 10 “getting this thing” will be a total non-event.

Back to some basics:

A very significant number of people infected with Covid, probably >50%, are completely asymptomatic. If it were not for testing, they simply would not know they had anything.

For the vast majority of those that are infected and experience symptoms, they are no worse than a cold and again, if it wasn’t for testing and the general hype not something you would see a doctor about or bother seeking to establish a specific cause for.

A very small proportion of those infected experience quite a severe illness that knocks them out for a week or two.

A small proportion of those are so ill they have to be hospitalised, and a very small proportion of those sadly die.

Graham wrote:

For the vast majority of those that are infected and experience symptoms, they are no worse than a cold and again, if it wasn’t for testing and the general hype not something you would see a doctor about or bother seeking to establish a specific cause for.

A very small proportion of those infected experience quite a severe illness that knocks them out for a week or two.

A small proportion of those are so ill they have to be hospitalised, and a very small proportion of those sadly die.

These variations are really fascinating, and I hope that someone is studying why this is. There must be something more than “genetics” at play, and I hope we learn from it.

While I’m at it, the only thing known to keep people in crowds safe from covid is fresh air – why we are not investing more in this I can’t understand. Fresh air coming in, warmed up/cooled down by good heat exchangers, stale air being exhausted – just seems so obvious. True, there is a cost for each business, but look at the costs we’ve already suffered, and are likely to continue to suffer.

We appear to have reached a new low, if that were possible. Tesco in their Xmas advertisement has Santa, yes Santa, gaining access by showing his Covid Health Passport.

Kwality, if Terscopoly can be credited with anything near kwality.

BeechBaby wrote:

Tesco in their Xmas advertisement has Santa, yes Santa, gaining access by showing his Covid Health Passport.

Santa visits more than 2 bn. people in less than 24 hrs – he better has good protection to not act as superspreader ;-)

How much of an infection does one get in 0.2 milliseconds (which is the average time per 5 person household he has)? Also, traditionally he comes when there is nobody else in the room, I would say it is quite safe.

On a different note – do beards count as masks?

Malibuflyer wrote:

Santa visits more than 2 bn. people in less than 24 hrs

Yes but the Elfs are totally screwed!