When Will You Take a Vaccine?

[cwericb]

“If you get vaccinated, it helps you is the claim for vaccine.  But even Fauci is not saying it helps others.”  

Simple logic would tell you that if you don’t get the virus than the risk of you spreading it would negligible.

“It is far easier to convince people to take a vaccine because its good for them rather than make up that it reduces transmission to others which is still being studied and raises suspicions about other claims of vaccine.”

I guess if you are trying to apeal to selfish or sociopathic people, but most people are not that way and would do everything they can to avoid spreading it to others. Are you suggesting that there is a qusetion about wether or not people with the virus can spread it? Surely you are not.

My point is not very difficult to understand. Get vaccinated and help stop the spread. Pretty damn simple.

[Investor20]

25 minutes ago, cwericb said:

“If you get vaccinated, it helps you is the claim for vaccine.  But even Fauci is not saying it helps others.”  

Simple logic would tell you that if you don’t get the virus than the risk of you spreading it would negligible.

“It is far easier to convince people to take a vaccine because its good for them rather than make up that it reduces transmission to others which is still being studied and raises suspicions about other claims of vaccine.”

I guess if you are trying to apeal to selfish or sociopathic people, but most people are not that way and would do everything they can to avoid spreading it to others. Are you suggesting that there is a qusetion about wether or not people with the virus can spread it? Surely you are not.

My point is not very difficult to understand. Get vaccinated and help stop the spread. Pretty damn simple.

But they are not claiming that with this vaccine - atleast not yet.  Read the Fauci comments given in the link.

They are claiming even if someone gets infected after vaccination, they will get less symptoms.  But that person could still transmit to others.

Whether they get less infected and less transmission after vaccination is still being studied. Making unproven claims will make people question genuine claims.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Investor20

[Jurgis]

8 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

I do not know anyone who has gotten the JnJ shot yet, as this vaccine has been hard to get and until very recently only small amounts trickled to vaccine centers. Let us  know how it goes. I know a few folks who would prefer to get the JnJ vaccine over the mRNA flavors.

There have been some claims that mRNA-based vaccines may be more effective against new virus variants. Not sure how reliable these claims are.

[Gregmal]

My understanding is that the vaccine is not yet know to prevent transmission, rather it simply throws one into the asymptomatic category. I do not know the "science" though. My oldest younger brother, who is an MD(not Jill Biden type PHD, but real white coat wearing PHD) says get the vaccine and figure it out later. My youngest brother who is a grad student in one of the most prestigious Ivy League biomedical/genetic engineering programs in the country, says he'll take care of it the traditional way; at a bar with his friends... to each their own.

[RichardGibbons]

6 hours ago, Investor20 said:

If you get vaccinated, it helps you is the claim for vaccine.  But even Fauci is not saying it helps others. 

From the article you posted: 

Preliminary data points to substantially lower rates of transmission among vaccinated people. During a February news briefing, Fauci cited a study from Israel that showed the amount of viral load -- or the amount of the COVID-19 virus in someone’s body -- is significantly lower if someone gets infected after they’ve been vaccinated, compared with people who get infected and didn’t have the vaccine. A lower viral load means much lower chances of passing the virus to someone else, Fauci says.

It is likely that it will help others, and likely to the extent that it's hard to believe that anyone claiming this isn't likely is making a good-faith attempt at analysis.

[Investor20]

3 hours ago, RichardGibbons said:

From the article you posted: 

Preliminary data points to substantially lower rates of transmission among vaccinated people. During a February news briefing, Fauci cited a study from Israel that showed the amount of viral load -- or the amount of the COVID-19 virus in someone’s body -- is significantly lower if someone gets infected after they’ve been vaccinated, compared with people who get infected and didn’t have the vaccine. A lower viral load means much lower chances of passing the virus to someone else, Fauci says.

It is likely that it will help others, and likely to the extent that it's hard to believe that anyone claiming this isn't likely is making a good-faith attempt at analysis.

The real question is can vaccines take us to herd immunity.  There are doubts about that.  Please read below article:

Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2

The key to herd immunity is that, even if a person becomes infected, there are too few susceptible hosts around to maintain transmission — those who have been vaccinated or have already had the infection cannot contract and spread the virus. The COVID-19 vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer–BioNTech, for example, are extremely effective at preventing symptomatic disease, but it is still unclear whether they protect people from becoming infected, or from spreading the virus to others. That poses a problem for herd immunity.

“Herd immunity is only relevant if we have a transmission-blocking vaccine. If we don’t, then the only way to get herd immunity in the population is to give everyone the vaccine,” says Shweta Bansal, a mathematical biologist at Georgetown University in Washington DC

 

 

Even though the discussion is about Pfizer and Moderna which they are starting studies of infection and transmission, AstraZeneca released some data about infection.  In below study they showed...

 

"The data showed that PCR positive readings were reduced by 67% (CI: 49%, 78%) after a single dose, and 50% (CI: 38% to 59%) after the two dose regimen, supporting a substantial impact on transmission of the virus."

https://covid19.astrazeneca.com/latest-news/primary-analysis-trial-data.html

 

It could be as low as 38%, which considering mutations and reduction in mitigation such as distancing could cancel out.

 

I am being fair, waiting for full data to make a judgement.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Investor20

[Spekulatius]

7 hours ago, Jurgis said:

There have been some claims that mRNA-based vaccines may be more effective against new virus variants. Not sure how reliable these claims are.

The mRNA vaccines have proven themselves against the variants. Overall, they seem to work better than the traditional vaccines in terms of efficacy, at least compared to those on the market.

I would like to see more data on the Novavax and the Sputnik V vaccine. Novavax showed some very good data. Sputnik V is a bit more of a question mark (who trust the russians?) but there have been some peer  reviewed papers published that seem to indicate strong efficacy. they sell a lot of South America so soon we will get epidemiological data on how well it works. I think AstraZeneca < JnJ< Novavax in terms of the ranking with Sputnik having the potential to be equivalent to Novavax. 

 

I am recalling this from memory and several twitter threads post4ed by biotech cracks that seem to know what to look for.

 

I think it bodes well to mRNA tech in general. There have been some articles posted that a malaria vaccination based on mRNA is in the works and seems possible. Malaria vaccination has been an elusive goal and what is out there doesn't seem to work all that well. Perhaps with mRNA vaccines, we can get the job done which would be huge for mankind.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Spekulatius

[cwericb]

Look, there is a lot we still don’t know about Covid and the vaccines. But the odds are that the vaccine will likely be the answer to stopping this epidemic.

If not, do you have a better idea of how to stop Covid-19? Don’t contribute to the problem, get vaccinated.

[rkbabang]

Who knows if it will stop the pandemic? Time will tell.  However it offers some amount of protection for you for some unknown length of time against severe disease or death. 
 

The problem with these discussions is that everyone (experts included) are just speculating.

[Spekulatius]

44 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

Who knows if it will stop the pandemic? Time will tell.  However it offers some amount of protection for you for some unknown length of time against severe disease or death. 
 

The problem with these discussions is that everyone (experts included) are just speculating.

The vaccine will stop the pandemic, but COVID will become endemic and will be around forever, I think.

 

The protection against severe disease is much better than the protection a flu vaccine provides against flu and probably exceeds even the optimistic guesses early on what we could achieve, both in terms of efficacy and speed to market.

 

With such good individual protection provided by the vaccine, I care much less if other people take it or not - if something happens due to getting COVID-19  to them it will be on them. It is undesirable to have the virus floating around in huge numbers because that also means that variants will pop up (evolution is a number game after all) but I think those can be solved with yearly vaccine updates/booster shots. We just need to provide everyone on earth access to the vaccine. The US will probably be fine within two month, but the rest of the world will take much longer.

[Cigarbutt]

44 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

...The problem with these discussions is that everyone (experts included) are just speculating.

Isn't this statement reflecting the spirit of this (investment) Board in general? 

An interesting aspect (opinion based on interpretation of presently known facts) is that most people aged below 50 who are reasonably healthy and who get vaccinated basically are getting vaccinated for the benefit of others. It was something that Alexis De Tocqueville noticed when he visited early America (many people will tend to do the 'right' thing especially if they're not told directly to do so).

[rkbabang]

1 minute ago, Spekulatius said:

The vaccine will stop the pandemic, but COVID will become endemic and will be around forever, I think.

 

The protection against severe disease is much better than the protection a flu vaccine provides against flu and probably exceeds even the optimistic guesses early on what we could achieve, both in terms of efficacy and speed to market.

 

With such good individual protection provided by the vaccine, I care much less if other people take it or not - if something happens due to getting COVID-19  to them it will be on them. It is undesirable to have the virus floating around in huge numbers because that also means that variants will pop up (evolution is a number game after all) but I think those can be solved with yearly vaccine updates/booster shots. We just need to provide everyone on earth access to the vaccine. The US will probably be fine within two month, but the rest of the world will take much longer.

 

Exactly.  Take it for selfish reasons knowing that it may or may not be good for society too.  Good enough for me.  I agree with you about it becoming endemic.  I really think at this point when Dr. Fauci or other public officials talk about this being over at some point, they are lying.  It's pretty clear COVID is here to stay. I'm sure these shots we are all getting are just the first, we will probably all need yearly boosters (or some other interval).  The good thing is that with so many people getting these we will have the data eventually about which ones work best and for how long.

[rkbabang]

3 minutes ago, Cigarbutt said:

Isn't this statement reflecting the spirit of this (investment) Board in general? 

An interesting aspect (opinion based on interpretation of presently known facts) is that most people aged below 50 who are reasonably healthy and who get vaccinated basically are getting vaccinated for the benefit of others. It was something that Alexis De Tocqueville noticed when he visited early America (many people will tend to do the 'right' thing especially if they're not told directly to do so).

 

Maybe, but there have been young healthy people die from this.  And it isn't just the deaths, but many end up with long term health problems.  You can know the odds, but you can't know in advance how you as an individual will fare.  Even for a 20 year old, if the ball landing on 0 means chronic heath problems and 00 equals death, would you spin the wheel just because the odds are against it?   What if you could remove 0 and 00 from the wheel?  Even if the odds are good, if something can increase the odds all the better.

[Cigarbutt]

11 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

 

Maybe, but there have been young healthy people die from this.  And it isn't just the deaths, but many end up with long term health problems.  You can know the odds, but you can't know in advance how you as an individual will fare.  Even for a 20 year old, if the ball landing on 0 means chronic heath problems and 00 equals death, would you spin the wheel just because the odds are against it?   What if you could remove 0 and 00 from the wheel?  Even if the odds are good, if something can increase the odds all the better.

It is an odds game and you can make your own assessment.

It's still interesting to see how people evaluate low probability events and how context matters. There is a lot of noise now (maybe some underlying signal) about the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and the related 'thrombosis' risk. If there is a causality risk, it is extremely low, much lower for example that the thrombosis risk that women get exposed to when starting to take the birth control pill. Many people are refusing the A-Z vaccine based on that specific risk. Do you know many women wondering about their thrombosis risk when taking the pill?

Small addition: i just saw some work suggesting that many of the 'long-covid' population start to feel better after the vaccines. Humans are fascinating.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Cigarbutt

[Spekulatius]

Interesting experiment. There is a lot of skepticism about Astra Zeneca's vaccine in Europe and back and forth on approvals, but when Wismar did an open "walk in" vaccination using the AZN vaccine for everyone above 60 year old, there was huge demand:

https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/mecklenburg-vorpommern/AstraZeneca-Andrang-beim-Impfen-ohne-Termin-in-Wismar,coronavirus4838.html

 

I guess people are voting with their feet.

[LongHaul]

Let me bring my expertise and everything in the world to this topic! haha

I just got my 2nd Moderna Vaccine - kicked my ass on the 2nd day, wife had it even worse than me but it was tolerable.

2 reasons why I got it.

1. To protect myself from death and long term complications

2. To protect others.  Unknown right now but probably a 60-80% reduction in transmission of Covid if someone is fully vaccinated.   This makes sense to me - less viral load in the person results in less likely transmission.  Someone coughing away with a big viral load is much more likely to spread it.

 

If the R0 can be at even .8 from vaccines and masks then Covid should be minimal in places with a high vaccination rate.

Israel's case numbers have collapsed FYI

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/

[Castanza]

5 hours ago, rkbabang said:

 

Maybe, but there have been young healthy people die from this.  And it isn't just the deaths, but many end up with long term health problems.  You can know the odds, but you can't know in advance how you as an individual will fare.  Even for a 20 year old, if the ball landing on 0 means chronic heath problems and 00 equals death, would you spin the wheel just because the odds are against it?   What if you could remove 0 and 00 from the wheel?  Even if the odds are good, if something can increase the odds all the better.

If you're primary motivation for getting the vaccine as a healthy 20 something year old is to avoid potential long term side effects, then I also hope these same individuals exercise daily, consume zero sugar, high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, GMO produce,  starch, red meats, tobacco and alcohol. 

 

If your motivation is something else...well to each their own! 

[rkbabang]

13 minutes ago, Castanza said:

If you're primary motivation for getting the vaccine as a healthy 20 something year old is to avoid potential long term side effects, then I also hope these same individuals exercise daily, consume zero sugar, high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, GMO produce,  starch, red meats, tobacco and alcohol. 

 

If your motivation is something else...well to each their own! 

You would hope so, but then again, getting a shot is a lot simpler than exercising daily and giving up sugar.  If it was a shot per day that you needed to take then the analogy would be apt.  If you could extend your life by exercising just once  on one day then everyone would certainly do it.

 

[Castanza]

37 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

You would hope so, but then again, getting a shot is a lot simpler than exercising daily and giving up sugar.  If it was a shot per day that you needed to take then the analogy would be apt.  If you could extend your life by exercising just once  on one day then everyone would certainly do it.

 

I agree, I'm just calling out the loud mouths who like to "manage" the lives of others. 

 

As I said, to each their own

[rkbabang]

21 minutes ago, Castanza said:

I agree, I'm just calling out the loud mouths who like to "manage" the lives of others. 

 

As I said, to each their own

Of course.  There are a lot of things I think people should do, but very little to nothing I think they should be forced to do.

[Investor20]

One area that has shown potential for reduced transmission is Ivermectin.  If you look at the meta-analysis of four RCTs with Ivermectin in below link (Page 14), they have

Moderate certainty evidence suggests that ivermectin prophylaxis among health care workers and COVID-19 contacts probably reduces the risk of COVID-19 infection by about 88% (4 studies, 851 participants; RR 0.12, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.18; 4.3% vs 34.5% contracted COVID-19).

 

https://b3d2650e-e929-4448-a527-4eeb59304c7f.filesusr.com/ugd/593c4f_1b1399cb64514dc4bdcbef0cd15f7878.pdf

88% reduction is more than 50% given by AstraZeneca.  However, the push back is these are not well done studies and are not large studies.  Ofcourse no one does large studies as Ivermectin is so cheap, it is practically free.

 

There is also one more study not included in the above meta-analysis:

AIIMS find ivermectin prophylaxis reduces infection in Covid-19 patients

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/aiims-study-covid-19/

A study by All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Odisha found that two doses of potential drug ivermectin prophylaxis resulted in a 73% reduction in Covid-19 infection.

Note: Only for discussion.  Not a suggestion to take any medication.  Please follow your physicians advise.

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Investor20

[John Hjorth]

For those of my fellow CoBF members, who continue to try to distort a topic like this into a political discussion, here we go :

1. Enter the main page [www.thecobf.com],

2. Hover over "Forums",

3. Then your are opted to choose between "INVESTMENT FORUM" or "POLITICS FORUM", &

4. Make your choise, according to what's on your mind!

- - - o 0 o - - -

It's that plain simple [,and then, yet not, based on what your purpose of holding an account here on CoBF really is!].

Edited April 9, 2021 by John Hjorth

[wachtwoord]

5 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

For those of my fellow CoBF members, who continue to try to distort a topic like this into a political discussion, here we go :

1. Enter the main page [www.thecobf.com],

2. Hover over "Forums",

3. Then your are opted to choose between "INVESTMENT FORUM" or "POLITICS FORUM", &

4. Make your choise, according to what's on your mind!

- - - o 0 o - - -

It's that plain simple [,and then, yet not, based on what your purpose of holding an account here on CoBF really is!].

If political talk isn't allowed/meant here this topic really should be moved or closed here. I've not seen any off-topic post here (except yours and my current post I guess but I understand why you posted it).

[wachtwoord]

On 4/7/2021 at 4:05 PM, rkbabang said:

 

Maybe, but there have been young healthy people die from this.  And it isn't just the deaths, but many end up with long term health problems.  You can know the odds, but you can't know in advance how you as an individual will fare.  Even for a 20 year old, if the ball landing on 0 means chronic heath problems and 00 equals death, would you spin the wheel just because the odds are against it?   What if you could remove 0 and 00 from the wheel?  Even if the odds are good, if something can increase the odds all the better.

Your analogy is incorrect (and I'm very surprised you voluntarily took the vaccin. Young healthy people have negliable chance for any serious complications from covid-19. All affected had pre-existing weaknesses of some kind.

The consequences of a rushed and vaccin in the middle of phase 2 testing are not non-negligable however.

Of course chances of complications are still small so you'll pribably still fine but in my opinion you did just increase them.

[Cigarbutt]

^i guess 'political' is the wrong word. If your conclusion is based on a belief or a set of ideological (and potentially dogmatic) ideas, it becomes very hard to 'argue' based on facts and sound analysis. 

Solid evidence is building, showing that the efficacy (from stage 3 trials) is materializing into efficiency in the real world (Israel and others). The evidence is also building vs a dramatic decrease incidence in developing the disease (viral load, symptoms etc) and so transmission significant decrease can be reasonably expected.

In Israel (also seen in the US and locally in my area), the average age of hospitalized has gone down by 10 years or more, matching the age-related protocol (older to younger) and general 'permeation' of the vaccines for those who want them (favorable and hesitant-favorable reaching critical mass) into younger cohorts.

For the US (see data below), there is a residual path to herd immunity and another wave forming. Note that recent data is developing and the following comments include a personal input taking into consideration hospital reality now (hospitalizations are rising and will rise for some more time). The rise in hospitalization rates in older groups is muted, essentially because most are vaccinated (also some people are dead already and cannot die twice) whereas the hospital rate for the younger groups (especially the age 50-64, incomplete vaccinations) is going up significantly. The Canadian data shows the same thing.

CDC COVID Data Tracker

Concerning a related topic, comparing Sweden to Norway/Denmark for vaccination rates shows a comparable pattern and it's a reasonable time for a post-mortem. Somebody did that (see herd Immunity section):

Contrarians Risk Meeting Their Waterloo in European Stocks - Bloomberg

It's necessary to look at the larger picture and Sweden has remained (marginally) more open and that may be related to some benefits (schools, social fabric, other health problems) but their covid health burden to aggregate economic costs represents (IMO) an opportunity to learn from a mistake. Sweden still did better than many relatively comparable countries (and my area) because of pre-existing social and institutional factors but i think they took a relatively poor path compared to immediate neighbors.

All in all, vaccines are proving to be a very effective tool. For ivermectin and others, more work needs to be down but from an opportunity cost point of view at this point, ivermectin (and a few other options) look like rotten apples.

Ivermectin, Convalescent Plasma and Hydroxychloroquine: One Year of Rotten Apples | Office for Science and Society - McGill University

Final note:

Thank you USA. Your country has delivered extra doses of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine to my area and, after quite a transparent discussion, people responded strongly to announcements and lined up to get it (vaccine made available to ages 55 and more). There is a lot of work going on about the platelet-related clot problem and there may be a very small risk (likely much lower than the risk to develop a a blood clot when taking a plane for instance).

Edited April 10, 2021 by Cigarbutt