Recent trends in vaccine effectiveness

[TomT]

There are only a handful of people here for whom this will be meaningful but I thought that I would throw it out anyway. 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm

[Markje]

There are only a handful of people here for whom this will be meaningful but I thought that I would throw it out anyway. 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm

Vaccines are safe, covid is just the new kid on the block that nobody trusts yet because it is new.
And while it was experimental perhaps when it was first administrated, the vaccine has had more applications by now than all others except maybe the flu-shot. Calling it experimental by now is sheer stupidity. If there was something wrong with it, we'd already know.

That's sad.

[TomT]

Actually, something else jumped out at me in the surveillance report:

"During April 4–June 19, fully vaccinated persons accounted for 5% of cases, 7% of hospitalizations, and 8% of deaths overall; these percentages were higher during June 20–July 17 (18%, 14%, and 16%, respectively). Using the reported 37% vaccination coverage for the 13 jurisdictions during April 4–June 19 and an assumption of 90% VE, vaccinated persons would have been expected to account for 6% of cases (close to the 5% observed). With 53% coverage reported during June 20–July 17, vaccinated persons were expected to account for 10% of cases at a constant VE of 90%; the observed 18% would have been expected at a lower VE of 80%."

A quick read might lead something to conclude that an increase in vaccination rate from 37% to 53% resulted in an increase of breakthrough deaths from 8% to 16% which is exactly what some anti-vaxxers on social media have been claiming. I have seen them cite this very report to substantiate their claim. Not only are they stupid, but they are liars as well because they leave out this key piece of information:

"The weekly prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant increased from <1% to 90% during April 4–July 17."

"I do research," they say as they wallow in confirmation bias.

[2tallbill]

I have a question with blanket vaccine mandates that don't
exempt people who've actually caught covid and recovered.

Does anyone know if there is any data or study that suggests
that people who have had covid should take the vaccine?

[TomT]

Does anyone know if there is any data or study that suggests
that people who have had covid should take the vaccine?

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm7032e1_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM63289&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2070%2C%20August%206%2C%202021&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM63289&fbclid=IwAR2wtXOFt2WuTpc61_oWdMlrXiFBnWOO6Tsh2VdWASele53Wl9JJVuDqp_M

As always, the devil is in the details however.

1) The confidence interval is rather broad (1.58-3.47) so YMMV with respect to the odds [of reinfection] ratio of 2.34.
2) There were 246 case patients but a low margin of error requires thousands.
3) The data was collected from a period (May and June) prior to the Delta variant becoming the predominant strain at the beginning of July.
4)  Future variants are wild cards.

[Manny]

It seems to be the case here that now most adults have had the vaccine, they're still catching Covid afterwards but it's exhibiting as a cold/flu type illness lasting about five days, with another week or two of a residual cough, headaches and loss of smell.

During most of the period, I never knew anyone who had it. Now it seems as if every man and his dog is getting it post vax.

Unvaccinated kids seem to have the same illness for the same duration. This might suggest kids get a lesser illness as is claimed, and the older vaccinated persons vaccine took the edge off it to make it similar to the version that exhibits in kids. Or, the vaccine isn't very good and everyone had the same whether vaccinated or not.

[andrewfi]

And, of course it may just be a cold.
Isolation has severely reduced community exposure to respiratory infections and it seems that folks in the UK have been getting TMOAC.

It's going to be a a bad flu season this time round! Even I am considering getting a flu jab for the first time.

[TomT]

It seems to be the case here that now most adults have had the vaccine, they're still catching Covid afterwards but it's exhibiting as a cold/flu type illness lasting about five days, with another week or two of a residual cough, headaches and loss of smell.

As of 4 October, there have been 6,617 fully vaccinated breakthrough deaths reported in the United States. Since the vaccine rollout, there have been 357,000 total deaths so the percentage appears to be very small. It's misleading, however, because 50% vaccination wasn't reached until 3 August. To add to the confusion, the Delta variant wasn't predominant until early July. Worse yet, data from half of the states is incomplete and shit-hole states like Florida are actively falsifying it.

This month, the percentage of breakthrough deaths will likely exceed 20% but we won't know until future studies are published. By that time, hundreds of thousands more Americans will have died.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html