mopgoblin on 27/5/2022 at 23:48
Quote Posted by Azaran
Vaccines reduce the chance of a severe case.
Long Covid is tied to severity: the more severe the case, the more likely you are to develop it. The reason most Long Covid cases are from 'mild' infections, is because most Covid infections are 'mild'.
Yet vaccines, which reduce the severity, and help clear the virus out of your system quicker, barely make a dent in Long Covid
It's like simply having the virus in your body, for any length of time, can cause immediate damage.
Well, the spike proteins function by dicking around with an enzyme system that regulates blood pressure and vasoconstriction/vasodilation. I'm no expert, but that doesn't sound like a great time even if your immune system manages to give the virus a relatively swift punching. Also, if some of the damage is permanent, or even if it just takes a good while to repair, then re-infections can reasonably be expected to cause cumulative harm.
I think I said it a while ago in here, that vaccines are good but that they weren't going to be enough on their own, and that seeing them as a silver bullet is dangerous. They would have done their best work in conjunction with masks and lockdowns and such, getting the R-value low enough for long enough that we could had a proper shot at wiping out the virus entirely. They're still a good idea now (and so are masks and minimising contact with others!), and the work on updating them needs to continue, but the coronavirus is still plenty dangerous.
Pyrian on 28/5/2022 at 00:31
Quote Posted by Renzatic
You can't prove it's not!
"Well, the long covid caused brain fog, which caused me to injure myself!"
Renzatic on 28/5/2022 at 13:28
Quote Posted by Pyrian
"Well, the long covid caused brain fog, which caused me to injure myself!"
Covid gave me gout, cuz it made me hungry for liver!
lowenz on 28/5/2022 at 13:57
Quote Posted by Azaran
Looks like every new thing about this virus is counterintuitive.
Vaccines reduce the chance of a severe case.
Long Covid is tied to severity: the more severe the case, the more likely you are to develop it. The reason most Long Covid cases are from 'mild' infections, is because most Covid infections are 'mild'.
Yet vaccines, which reduce the severity, and help clear the virus out of your system quicker, barely make a dent in Long Covid
It's like simply having the virus in your body, for any length of time, can cause immediate damage.
Maybe someone who knows more about virology can chime in, because this virus is looking more and more like some horrible practical joke.
And no, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, just saying, the virus' behaviour makes absolutely 0 sense in light of the little I know about illnesses and immunity.
Because there's a lot of interaction between the vessel dynamics (blood pressure / blood coagulation state) and the virus presence in the bloodstream even without counting the "infection" target cells/tissues.
Plus this virus can bring havoc to the inflammatory component of the immune response.
Consider these 2 "indirect" aspects of the disease for MONTHS
after the acute phase.....
COVID is really similar to the Kawasaki syndrome: (
https://www.msdmanuals.com/home/children-s-health-issues/miscellaneous-disorders-in-infants-and-young-children/kawasaki-disease)
faetal on 29/5/2022 at 22:39
Also, it is not often that a novel virus gets studied like this, in the constant spotlight, alongside new variant emergence, with widespread confirmation of cases by frequent testing, and several types of vaccine in the mix.
The level of detail we have on this one virus and its real-time effects on humans is unprecedented. It may well be decades until the scientific consensus starts to settle.
Most people can't get their head round it because they don't really under stand how science works as a discipline - it's about refining models, not about there being one journal article which spells out How Shit Be.
A lot of cutting edge science is about arguing the relative merits of opposing ideas on certain aspects of a phenomenon, not about saying X is true because [reference 1], and Y is false because [reference 2], but about digging into the assumptions, limitations, design, etc of various pieces of research to try to find the lowest point of logic entropy at a certain point in time.
Looking at the macro metrics is pretty illuminating though. If you are vaccinated (at all), you have a much lower chance to end up in ICU. If you have been vaccinated recently (<3-6m), you also have moderately lower chance of testing positive (likely due to higher circulating antibody titre eliminating virus prioir to cell infection and reducing the window where symptoms + test results in detectable virus load). The vaccines work better than immunity acquired by infection (probably due to mechanisms via which the virus inhibits useful acquired immune response) and reduce the risk of severe illness.
Long COVID seems to be a pretty tough thing to nail in terms of definitive research, but I expect we'll figure a lot of it out over time.
mopgoblin on 30/5/2022 at 02:24
If you have been vaccinated (whether recently or at all) you're presumably less likely to be an anti-mask weirdo, though. I do agree that vaccination probably helps reduce the chance of the virus getting a proper foothold in your body if you're exposed to it, but it's hard to get an idea of how much of the observed effect is from that, versus how much is the people who are keen to get the vaccine (including boosters) being people who also make other sensible choices when there's a plague on.
Thor on 30/5/2022 at 10:01
Quote Posted by faetal
The vaccines work better than immunity acquired by infection [..]
Lmao where did you hear that, selective science scientist of house "consensus"? From when I still followed this bs a few months ago, studies showed quite the opposite.
Quote Posted by mopgoblin
If you have been vaccinated (whether recently or at all) you're presumably less likely to be an anti-mask weirdo, though.
Masks being nearly useless aside, I consistently heard from many people how they somehow got covid (within weeks after proudly telling the world of their vaccination). Multiple times too (1 after original, 1 after booster).
faetal on 30/5/2022 at 10:17
Don't mention studies if you don't link them.
I have a PhD in immunology and several years in immunological research, so if you have anything beyond standard keyboard warrior incredulity, I'm all ears.
Before I waste any keystrokes on someone who starts their arguments with "lmao" - is this to be a discussion about peer-reviewed scientific research and consensus (i.e. not cherry-picking specific studies and conclusion shopping on google), or are you coming at this from an ideological angle? If the latter, I will probably just ignore you for this discussion.
mopgoblin on 30/5/2022 at 12:20
Quote Posted by Thor
Masks being nearly useless aside, I consistently heard from many people how they somehow got covid (within weeks after proudly telling the world of their vaccination). Multiple times too (1 after original, 1 after booster).
I've got me a new hypothesis, people who hang out with this guy are prone to making bad decisions.
Seriously though, I said just a couple of posts ago that it's dangerous to see vaccines as a silver bullet. Some people think all vaccines are supposed to make you absolutely immune to a disease, and I do get where that idea comes from, because we're used to thinking of the huge successes against smallpox, polio, measles and so on. It doesn't work that way though, viruses come a wide range of types, many of which differ hugely from one another (and coronaviruses have always been fuckers in terms of trying to create effective vaccines) and the human immune system is extremely complex. Plus it's easy to forget that these vaccines take a couple of weeks to properly kick in, so depending on how short that "within weeks" was they could have caught it before the vaccine was really up to much.
Also masks are pretty good (though they too don't make you bulletproof). Your mates probably suck at picking them, fitting them, or wearing them consistently. It's also easy to forget that for the best protection you need others in the same space to be wearing them too.
Azaran on 30/5/2022 at 14:34
Quote Posted by Thor
Masks being nearly useless aside, I consistently heard from many people how they somehow got covid (within weeks after proudly telling the world of their vaccination). Multiple times too (1 after original, 1 after booster).
Masks help by reducing the particles that go in and out, but if most people aren't wearing them (9/10 people won't wear them unless they're forced to), then they won't help much.
I've also heard of far more people ending up in the hospital or dying after proudly telling the world that they won't get vaccinated, their natural immunity is strong, or they won't comply with Covid rules because their 'freedom' is more important.