Much is being made of this Israeli study

[mister_coffee]

It will no doubt be interesting to see what happens, as long as the body count is not grossly high.

I am skeptical about "natural" immunity and how much it will impact controlling the pandemic. Right now outside of studies with very small and questionably selected samples there isn't any serious evidence for such, and there is no evidence at all in the larger data about the progress of the disease in the population.

If there was a strong "natural" immunity effect, one would reasonably expect that an area that had a very high rate of covid last year would have a lower rate of covid this year, independent of immunization. On a global scale you might look at Brazil, South Africa, or Iran. Closer to home you might consider Yakima County, which had a very high rate of covid in 2020 and has a mediocre vaccination rate. Even with all that covid rates this year are still quite high. You can find lots of counties with a similar history across the United States. What you probably aren't going to find is a county that (1) Had a very high covid rate in 2020, (2) Has a low to moderately low vaccination rate, and (3) Has a low or very low covid rate in 2021.

[RachelJulien]

According to researchers from Israel's Ministry of Health and leading scientific institutes, the probability of a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection fell 11.4-fold after a booster dosage of vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech SE, compared to patients who received only two injections. According to the study presented on Friday, a third dose was linked to a 10-fold reduction in the risk of becoming very unwell

[Fun CH]

one has not gotten that much from the vaccine.
a 66% or 95% freedom from serious infection is not that good when confronting 1000 times greater viral load.
do the math yourself.
1/5 [roughly] of icu and ventilator patients with c19 [central washington hospital] are fully vaccinated.
David suggests that this is correct, but i suggest that a 20% vax rate in those showing severe covid is not correct.
In other words, the vaccine, and the masks, and the other measures are working exactly like before, but the breakthrough infections are amplified many times.
i do not want this to be true.
but, i will not hide my findings simply because they are dire.
the unvaccinated are dying about 5 times faster than the vaccinated.
i think that this is the source of the 20% figure at CWH.
so, with the current influences, the equation ballances out to a 1/5 reduction in covid death for those who take every precaution. That is very worth a sore arm and some infections around my nose.

ps... chris can evaluate my typing, and comment, but i will never know about it. sorry chris, i tried and tried to work with you.

I'm not evaluating your typing Alf, just warning people not to take medical advice or believe what they read from people who pose as medical experts on the internet.

Social media Misinformation on the internet is creating a lot of confusion and furthering the spread of Covid 19 and leading to unnecessary serious illness and death.

I actually prefer that you not respond to my posts or threads. So thanks for blocking them from your view.

[PAL]

You all must know by now that there have been 9 Covid deaths in Okanogan County due to Covid. If you look at the County's website or Dept. of Health, OK county cases are rising rapidly. From time to time they give vaccinated stats vs unvaccinated. But they don't mention natural immunity. They may just not have the workers needed to crunch those numbers. Is the measure of immunity through the antibody test or just that a person has had Covid?
But I don't want to find out if natural immunity works. I've been vaccinated, so wouldn't know. Andy Hover, our county commissioner knows for a fact, as he stated in a meeting, that he has super-immunity because he had Covid. What more proof do we need.
I saw some numbers on FB that showed that Israeli study and I think they were quite incorrect and now they admit shortcomings to the study.
Pearl

[mister_coffee]

Found this video from Dr. James Lawler, MD at Nebraska Medicine:

https://echo360.org/media/df6327b6-1e39 ... f8e/public

In the video he talks about the kinds of bias that might well be present in the Israeli study (and some evidence that at least some of that bias is, in fact, present). He later discusses the effects of all the covid cases on children and also how our data-gathering and testing infrastructure is likely again failing us. Worth the 16:03 .

[mister_coffee]

...
the news reported yesterday that 80% of the people in this country have some immunity to covid either by vaccination or by contracting the disease.

That number might be right. Then again I'd have a healthy respect for the uncertainties present. The actual number might be 65% or it might be 90%. There is also a lot that we seem to understand poorly about how immunity is acquired to this disease during infection and the observed immunity varies bewilderingly -- it seems that people who get mild or asymptomatic infections might get very little immunity, while people who become seriously ill might get much greater immunity. There is some evidence that people who were infected with covid and then get vaccinated produce a far stronger immune response, and also evidence that people infected long ago with SARS and MERS who get vaccinated generate that same strong immune response.

I would not bet my life or health on that information.

[Fun CH]

Any idea what total percentage of the U S population has been vacinnated plus the percentage of folks who have had covid (natural immunity)?

I haven't been able to find that number.

You haven't been able to find that number because nobody really knows.

We don't really know how many people were infected with covid.

We know that there are a lot of asymptomatic cases, but we haven't done a very good job of counting them. Also, immunity to future infection seems to vary bewilderingly if you had a mild or asymptomatic infection.

We also know that there were lots of undercounted or missed cases, sometimes for political reasons, sometimes because there were no test kits available. This time last year lots of people were dying in Tennessee from "viral pneumonia", which is odd because normally that is associated with influenza and happens in the winter. Early on in the pandemic there were lots of stories of people who went to the doctor or hospital with mild symptoms, but there were no test kits so they just were sent home. Some of them died at home and some of them got better. We still don't really know how many of them had covid.

We also do not know how many people who have had covid and then got vaccinated.

It is safe to guess that the "official" case numbers are low, but by exactly how much is not known. It probably isn't a factor of five or ten, but two or three probably is in the ballpark.

the news reported yesterday that 80% of the people in this country have some immunity to covid either by vaccination or by contracting the disease.

[PAL]

Yes, that "fear" card is played alot. It's true I have been with a few vaccinated people but still distanced. A lot depends on how they conduct themselves elsewhere and most vaccinated people will also mask in a crowded situation if they find themselves in one.
I was summoned to jury duty for Oct. and I applied for an exemption due to rising Covid cases in Omak and Okanogan and also my age. They rescheduled me a year out! I know by Oct. it will be worse. It's not going to get better. Isn't that pessimistic? I think it is realistic from observing behaviors I've seen in Omak and Okanogan. Glad I got my Dr. appt. all taken care of. I don't even want to go over there.
People are burned out and it seems like at this point they just don't care. And that alone will make things worse.
Pearl

[mister_coffee]

Much is made of "not living in fear", but in this case I'd argue that a healthy dose of fear would do a lot of people some good.

From what I've read and heard, it seems to me that unless you are vaccinated or you are unvaccinated and take heroic isolation measures, you will likely be infected with the delta variant within the next month or so. Given that between a quarter and a third of those infected appear to have significant long-term complications and that a much smaller percentage die it would seem wise to either isolate or get vaccinated sooner than immediately.

If you aren't vaccinated you also need to remember that even if you start the shots today, you won't get full effectiveness of the vaccination for six weeks. So that is six weeks you are going to need to take pretty serious isolation measures to keep yourself safe and healthy.

Pearl, like you I feel like I am back in March and April of 2020, with the difference that I am reasonably comfortable socializing with vaccinated neighbors and relatives. But if I'm not sure about your vaccination status I am not standing very close to you.

[PAL]

But people sure aren't acting like it's a different animal. Fair is on, car show, White's fundraising potluck, which is for a good cause, but gee, just donate money. All would be ok, if people would follow the protocols and what public is recommending for the fair. White's is on private property and outside, so there may be no protocols. There will not be distancing at these events much, I don't see, as they are outside and people tend to relax outside.
People that got Covid from the Stampede must have been at an indoor event? Or outdoors jammed together unmasked.
So in summary, stay away from these crowded events if you don't want to be exposed to Covid.
I am resorting back to my usual behavior in going to the grocery store early, getting into and out of businesses quickly, distancing, washing hands.
You know what? I am not fearful. I love recreation and the rest of the time I love being home anyway.

[Mark58]

A CDC report earlier in August that studied patients in Kentucky who were unvaccinated and got infected showed that, compared to vaccinated patients, they had a 2.34X chance of getting reinfected. This probably reflects the presence of Delta. Throw out what you "knew" before. Delta is a new animal.

[mister_coffee]

Any idea what total percentage of the U S population has been vacinnated plus the percentage of folks who have had covid (natural immunity)?

I haven't been able to find that number.

You haven't been able to find that number because nobody really knows.

We don't really know how many people were infected with covid.

We know that there are a lot of asymptomatic cases, but we haven't done a very good job of counting them. Also, immunity to future infection seems to vary bewilderingly if you had a mild or asymptomatic infection.

We also know that there were lots of undercounted or missed cases, sometimes for political reasons, sometimes because there were no test kits available. This time last year lots of people were dying in Tennessee from "viral pneumonia", which is odd because normally that is associated with influenza and happens in the winter. Early on in the pandemic there were lots of stories of people who went to the doctor or hospital with mild symptoms, but there were no test kits so they just were sent home. Some of them died at home and some of them got better. We still don't really know how many of them had covid.

We also do not know how many people who have had covid and then got vaccinated.

It is safe to guess that the "official" case numbers are low, but by exactly how much is not known. It probably isn't a factor of five or ten, but two or three probably is in the ballpark.

[Fun CH]

Any idea what total percentage of the U S population has been vacinnated plus the percentage of folks who have had covid (natural immunity)?

I haven't been able to find that number.

[mister_coffee]

Much is being made of this Israeli study and claiming it shows that natural immunity is better than immunity from vaccination. Even ignoring the fact that you are literally risking your life to get COVID, and you are risking significant long-term health issues, there is a big, gaping hole in the information from that study that you won't get from articles like this:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... fizer-shot

If you dig down into the cross tabs, what you find is that over a population of 32000 people there were eight hospitalization in the vaccinated group and one in the infected group. And that 13-fold difference quoted in the above article: that was out of 238 infections in the vaccinated population, which was around 1.5%, as opposed to 19 infections in the unvaccinated population.

The point is that all of these numbers are tiny and you are going far, far, out on a limb making extrapolations or claims based on those tiny numbers. What you can conclude is that if you either were previously infected or are vaccinated your risks of getting serious COVID symptoms are small. With numbers this small there are lots of ways subtle biases can creep into the study (admittedly the folks doing the study seemed to make quite an effort to make sure that any biases they knew about weren't present) that might make a big difference in the results.