OT Coronavirus: America in chaos, News and Updates. One million Americans dead and counting

One in 5,000

The C.D.C. reported a terrifying fact in July: Vaccinated people with the Delta variant of the Covid virus carried roughly the same viral load in their noses and throats as unvaccinated people.

The news seemed to suggest that even the vaccinated were highly vulnerable to getting infected and passing the virus to others. Sure enough, stories about vaccinated people getting Covid — so-called breakthrough infections — were all around this summer: at a party in Provincetown, Mass.; among the Chicago Cubs; on Capitol Hill. Delta seemed as if it might be changing everything.

In recent weeks, however, more data has become available, and it suggests that the true picture is less alarming. Yes, Delta has increased the chances of getting Covid for almost everyone. But if you’re vaccinated, a Covid infection is still uncommon, and those high viral loads are not as worrisome as they initially sounded.

How small are the chances of the average vaccinated American contracting Covid? Probably about one in 5,000 per day, and even lower for people who take precautions or live in a highly vaccinated community.


Here’s one way to think about a one-in-10,000 daily chance: It would take more than three months for the combined risk to reach just 1 percent.

“There’s been a lot of miscommunication about what the risks really are to vaccinated people, and how vaccinated people should be thinking about their lives,” as Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University told my colleague Tara Parker-Pope. (I recommend Tara’s recent Q. and A. on breakthrough infections.)

For the unvaccinated, of course, the chances of infection are far higher, as Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the top public-health official in Seattle, has noted. Those chances have also risen much more since Delta began spreading:







Another way to understand the situation is to compare each state’s vaccination rate with its recent daily Covid infection rate. The infection rates in the least vaccinated states are about four times as high as in the most vaccinated states:




If the entire country had received shots at the same rate as the Northeast or California, the current Delta wave would be a small fraction of its current size. Delta is a problem. Vaccine hesitancy is a bigger problem.

The science, in brief
These numbers help show why the talking point about viral loads was problematic. It was one of those statements that managed to be both true and misleading. Even when the size of the viral loads are similar, the virus behaves differently in the noses and throats of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

In an unvaccinated person, a viral load is akin to an enemy army facing little resistance. In a vaccinated person, the human immune system launches a powerful response and tends to prevail quickly — often before the host body gets sick or infects others. That the viral loads were initially similar in size can end up being irrelevant.

I will confess to one bit of hesitation about walking you through the data on breakthrough infections: It’s not clear how much we should be worrying about them. For the vaccinated, Covid resembles the flu and usually a mild one. Society does not grind to a halt over the flu.

In Britain, many people have become comfortable with the current Covid risks. The vaccines make serious illness rare in adults, and the risks to young children are so low that Britain may never recommend that most receive the vaccine. Letting the virus continue to dominate life, on the other hand, has large costs.

“There’s a feeling that finally we can breathe; we can start trying to get back what we’ve lost,” Devi Sridhar, the head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh, told The Times.



I know that many Americans feel differently. Our level of Covid anxiety is higher, especially in communities that lean to the left politically. And there is no “correct” response to Covid. Different people respond to risk differently.

But at least one part of the American anxiety does seem to have become disconnected from the facts in recent weeks: the effectiveness of the vaccines. In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, nearly half of adults judged their “risk of getting sick from the coronavirus” as either moderate or high — even though 75 percent of adults have received at least one shot.

In reality, the risks of getting any version of the virus remain small for the vaccinated, and the risks of getting badly sick remain minuscule.

In Seattle on an average recent day, about one out of every one million vaccinated residents have been admitted to a hospital with Covid symptoms. That risk is so close to zero that the human mind can’t easily process it. My best attempt is to say that the Covid risks for most vaccinated people are of the same order of magnitude as risks that people unthinkingly accept every day, like riding in a vehicle.

The bottom line
Delta really has changed the course of the pandemic. It is far more contagious than earlier versions of the virus and calls for precautions that were not necessary a couple of months ago, like wearing masks in some indoor situations.

But even with Delta, the overall risks for the vaccinated remain extremely small. As Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote on Friday, “The messaging over the last month in the U.S. has basically served to terrify the vaccinated and make unvaccinated eligible adults doubt the effectiveness of the vaccines.” Neither of those views is warranted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/...Sk6vFzJvPlxlRcWjeWZErL1P-OIRQVugQrMSgLWPi2xzE

 

I'll merge this in the covid mega thread but there is some really good information in this article.

 

Unredeemable ass-caterpillar is my favorite part:

Hi, if you are reading this essay then congratulations, you are still alive. And if you are alive, then you have either gotten the COVID-19 vaccine, or you still have the opportunity to get the vaccine against COVID-19. And holy fuck, if you aren’t fucking vaccinated against COVID-19, then you need to get fucking vaccinated right now. I mean, what the fuck? Fuck you. Get vaccinated. Fuck.

The fucking vaccine will not make you magnetic. Are you fucking kidding me? It just fucking won’t. That’s not even a fucking thing, and that lady who tried to pretend the vaccine made her fucking magnetic looked like a real fucking fuckwad and a fucking idiot, so get fucking vaccinated. Jesus. Fuck.

The vaccine also doesn’t have a fucking 5G chip in it. What the fuck do you think a fucking 5G chip is, fucknuts? You think it’s like some invisible nanotechnology they can suspend in a liquid and then just put in your fucking blood and then it what, exactly? Fucking floats around in your body going on Instagram and telling the government you went to the grocery store? No one fucking cares where you go, you absolute fucking fuck-barf. Fuck off with that. Fuck.

Oh, you’re afraid of fucking side effects? Fuck you. You know what has fucking side effects? Fucking aspirin, fucking Tylenol. You could be fucking allergic to pineapple, you fucking fuckwit. Everything has side effects. You’re being a big fucking baby with a huge diaper full of fucking diarrhea, complaining about maybe feeling slightly tired for a day or two while your asymptomatic COVID case you get and pass to some innocent fucking kid could wind up killing them or someone else. Fuck you, you fucking selfish fucking shit-banana, you unredeemable ass-caterpillar, you fucking fuck-knob with two fucks for eyes and a literal poop where your heart should be. You want a two-month-old to wind up on a fucking ventilator instead of you, a fucking adult, getting a fucking sore arm for a day? What are you, a pitcher for the Yankees? A fucking concert pianist? An arm model? Get the fuck out of here! Fuck you. Get vaccinated. Fuck. Fuck you!

You think vaccines don’t fucking work? Oh, fuck off into the trash, you attention-seeking fuckworm-faced shitbutt. This isn’t even a point worth discussing, you fuck-o-rama fuck-stival of ignorance. Vaccines got rid of smallpox and polio and all the other disgusting diseases that used to kill off little fucks like you en masse. Your relatives got fucking vaccinated and let you live, and now here you are signing up to be killed by a fucking disease against which there is a ninety-nine-percent effective vaccine. You fucking moron. Go in the fucking ocean and fuck a piranha. Fuck. Fuck that. Fuck you. Get vaccinated.

Oh, you say you have a genuine allergy or medical condition that prevents you from receiving a fucking vaccine? That’s fine. I’m clearly not talking to you. I fucking love you. Fuck.

Look, if you have been forwarded this essay from a friend or loved one, then there are two possibilities. Either you are a normal, regular, sensible fucking person like me who got fucking vaccinated at the first possible moment, and this essay channels all your fucking rage and sadness and is therefore cathartic OR, and I really hope this isn’t the fucking case, you AREN’T fucking vaccinated, and someone sent it to you because you fucking fucking fuck, you need to get fucking vaccinated. And rather than being fucking offended that someone is trying yet again to get you to take the fucking vaccine, you should understand that someone fucking loves you enough to try one last motherfucking time to get you to take the fucking vaccine before you fuck off to heaven, or hell, or some in-between place that’s just like a fucking mall or something where everything is free, including and especially the soft pretzels. So, congratulations! There is ONE person remaining in your life who wants to fucking save you from drowning in your own fucking lungs, you fucking fuckshit fuckdick, so for god’s sake, get your fucking ass out of your chair, go to the fucking pharmacy, and get a fucking vaccine, you absolute conscienceless fucking fuck fuck fuck. Get it. Get the fucking vaccine. Fuck you. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck!

 

I'm fine with no mandate as long as those who choose not to get the shot are excluded from work, travel, stores, etc. If they want to live in a cabin in the woods and eat squirrels, good on them! If they are seen in town, forcibly vaccinate them.

barfo

 

They can take my squirrels when they pry them from my cold dead hands.

barfo

 

Apparently written by Wendy Molyneux, whoever that is.

barfo

 

From a link in the article:

Age-adjusted CoV-19 rates for past 30 days in King County, WA: Compared to fully-vaccinated people, those not fully vaccinated are:
- 6 X more likely to test + for CoV-19
- 37 X more likely to be hospitalized for CoV-19
- 67 X more likely to die due to CoV-19 related illness

barfo

 

Yes, that's correct. Alternatively, the graph in the article suggests a factor of 10, so 1/500 for the unvaccinated.

barfo

 

By the way, I think a lot of people aren't reading this carefully - it's 1 in 5000 PER DAY, not ever.

barfo