faetal on 10/1/2022 at 16:31
French stats from 26th December to today:
(all numbers are per 100,000 people)
Not vaccinated, number of positive tests: 1,306
Vaccinated for more than 6 months and with booster, positive tests: 193
Vaccinated less than 6 months without booster, positive tests: 681
Vaccinated for more than 6 months without booster, positive tests: 678
Not vaccinated, entry into intensive care: 211.07
Vaccinated for more than 6 months with booster, intensive care: 5.25
Vaccinated less than 6 months without booster, intensive care: 11.32
Vaccinated for more than 6 months without booster, intensive care: 31.27
I can't see another way to interpret that other than that the vaccine reduces transmission and severity, exactly what you'd expect from a vaccine basically.
Additional observations:
* Little positive test difference between <6 months and >6 months without a booster, which I take to mean that the effect of higher circulating antibodies accounts for most of the benefit of the booster and does not fall off with time past a certain point (caveat being that the >6 m cohort probably doesn't extend that far yet, so might do over a longer time period)
* Severity seems to be affected by time since last jab in a more time-dependent fashion, but still way below non-vaccinated
faetal on 10/1/2022 at 16:44
Quote Posted by Azaran
Had this conversation with a guy I used to work with, who's still an antivaxxer:
Me: The point of these vaccines is to strengthen your immune system, so the virus won't hit you as hard even if you get infected
Him: Well the point of vaccines is to not get infected in the first place, so they clearly don't work
:erg:
Most people don't think quantitatively, but assume a binary "it works or it doesn't" mindset.
Azaran on 10/1/2022 at 18:17
Quote Posted by faetal
Most people don't think quantitatively, but assume a binary "it works or it doesn't" mindset.
The other binary one I hear a lot is: 1% of infected people die (in reality, more like 4% or so), and the other 99% recover completely with 0 issues
SD on 10/1/2022 at 22:22
Last month our geniuses were informing us there would be up to 6,000 deaths per day in January.
Well I suppose 77 is technically up to 6,000.
If I was as bad at my job as SAGE is I would have lost it a long time ago.
faetal on 10/1/2022 at 23:21
Models can be wrong - if you don't understand that, then you just don't understand how modelling works.
You seem to be under the delusion that it works like clairvoyance.
Here is some more detail on the SAGE advice: (
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-m-o-consensus-statement-on-covid-19-15-december-2021/spi-m-o-consensus-statement-on-covid-19-15-december-2021)
Please detail how you would have done it differently, highlighting each part of their logic you find to be faulty, using your knowledge of epidemiological modelling.
I'm not saying that their model was right or good, just that it's super easy to make the observations in hindsight.
Quote from the page I linked and substitute your own modelling please.
Maybe even give your own prediction for end of March since you seem to think that you can do it better.
Show your working.
(Another thing worth mentioning is that this was published on 15th December and would have required some preparation, so consider how much was known for sure about relative severity of Omicron in late November / early December)
Harvester on 11/1/2022 at 20:55
So, Starker, faetal et al, are you still of the opinion that omicron is not more infectious but makes people less sick? Because that's not at all what I've been hearing from pretty much every news outlet over here and reports coming in from countries like the UK, Denmark and Spain. The overall consensus I keep hearing is that it does spread more quickly but that people get less ill from it. For example that the number of infections rises very quickly, but the number of hospital admissions rises far less quickly, and of the covid patients in the hospital, fewer people have to be moved to the ICU and can instead stay on regular wings until they get better. I bow to the knowledge of people like faetal, but it does look more and more like the early reports of it being more infectious but the infections being less severe are true.
Not being argumentative, but genuinely curious for your opinions. :)
Starker on 11/1/2022 at 23:05
I don't think faetal ever said one way or another, but here's where I'm at...
My opinion is closely tied to the virologists I follow, particularly on TWiV. When people who have had decades of experience in the lab and are keeping up with the literature are claiming something, I can't easily dismiss them over TV pundits, if not for any other reason than I simply don't have the knowhow to refute their arguments. But what they say does make sense to me and it is based on solid reasoning and data.
And it's not like this means the virus is necessarily unchanged in its transmissibility/virulence, it's just that we currently have no reason to believe so, until there's evidence for it. It's not that I trust scientists, necessarily, but I do have a large degree of trust in the scientific process (which is not flawless or infallible by any means).
Also, it's not like it's a dogmatic belief -- they constantly review the evidence for and against and give a honest try to overcome their biases and do change their mind from time to time if there's good reason to believe otherwise, from what I've seen.
Azaran on 11/1/2022 at 23:54
In my area, they're now taxing the willingly unvaccinated. I can't say I'm against it
Starker on 12/1/2022 at 00:03
Oh, sorry, I forgot to actually answer the question. Yes, I still do think that way.
I think the virus causing less severe disease is more easily explained by changes in the host than the virus -- people who have been vaccinated or have been previously infected are having better outcomes, because their immune systems have adapted to the virus, not vice versa. This seems to be supported by the ICU data, where there seems to be a large disparity between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. And (especially unvaccinated) people still do get very ill and die with the Omicron variant, so at the very least it's still fairly dangerous.
And as for the virus not having to become more transmissible to spread better, I think the Dutch viral transmission expert (Ron Fouchier) I (
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-777/) linked to previously made very convincing arguments on TWiV in that regard, especially in comparison with the flu. And I think these arguments are still as valid as they were pre-Omicron.
Azaran on 12/1/2022 at 02:04
Quote Posted by Starker
I think the virus causing less severe disease is more easily explained by changes in the host than the virus -- people who have been vaccinated or have been previously infected are having better outcomes, because their immune systems have adapted to the virus, not vice versa. This seems to be supported by the ICU data, where there seems to be a large disparity between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. And (especially unvaccinated) people still do get very ill and die with the Omicron variant, so at the very least it's still fairly dangerous.
I'm reading it is indeed(
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/is-omicron-really-less-severe-heres-what-the-science-says) less virulent overall
Quote:
A shift in symptoms reflects those trends, del Rio says. In the hospital, patients are showing up less often with pneumonia-like symptoms and hyperactive immune systems, as seen in previous waves. Instead, they're more often presenting with congestion and scratchy throats. “In Omicron, the symptoms are more like a head cold,” he says.
Quote:
Unlike previous variants, Omicron appears unable to infect lung cells as efficiently, which in turn makes it less damaging and the symptoms less severe. Viral loads are significantly lower in the lungs of Omicron-infected rodents in some studies. But in the upper respiratory tract, which includes the nose and sinuses, Omicron seems to replicate more than a hundred times faster than Delta.
That mix of changes—the preference for the upper airway, better immune invasion, and high transmissibility—reflects how evolution pushes the virus to ensure its own future by replicating and spreading even when that does not make individuals sicker.
