Breakthrough club

[tmm99]

They definitely know a whole lot more now than before. It was like trying to find a lost key in the darkroom before. They hit a lot of obstacles and got snagged in different directions, but overall, I think we came out OK.

If the virus didn't mutate from Alpha into Delta, we would be in much better shape today as the vaccine works so much better against Alpha. We would have also achieved herd immunity with fewer vaxxed folks with Alpha as Alpha is much less contagious than Delta. The emergence of Delta was not fully anticipated or forecasted, although the emergence of something similar was certainly speculated and feared to some extent. The saving grace is that the virus hasn't mutated into something much more deadly.

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmm99 If the virus didn't mutate from Alpha into Delta, we would be in much better shape today as the vaccine works so much better against Alpha. We would have also achieved herd immunity with fewer vaxxed folks with Alpha as Alpha is much less contagious than Delta. The emergence of Delta was not fully anticipated or forecasted, although the emergence of something similar was certainly speculated and feared to some extent. The saving grace is that the virus hasn't mutated into something much more deadly.

+1 on the mutation from Aspha to Delta. Delta raised the stakes big time.

As far as another mutation, the virus has to be careful. If it becomes too harmful, humans will take far more precautions and reduce its opportunity to spread. For example, imagine if most people become very ill withing a few days of being exposed to the virus - high fever, vomiting, very sore joints and muscles, etc. Would they be wandering around infecting others? I doubt it. Would they be bragging about how they got Covid and it's no big deal. I doubt it. My guess is one look at this person would drive most of her friends and relatives to the nearest vaccination site.

Delta seems to have hit a sweet spot. It's very good at infecting people, but it doesn't scare us enough to bring out our most cautious behaviors. Sneaky devil!

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut +1 on the mutation from Aspha to Delta. Delta raised the stakes big time. As far as another mutation, the virus has to be careful. If it become to harmful, humans will take far more precautions and reduce its opportunity to spread. For example, imagine if most people become very ill withing a few days of being exposed to the virus - high fever, vomiting, very sore joints and muscles, etc. Would they be wandering around infecting others. I doubt it. Would they be bragging about how they got Covid and it's no big deal. I doubt it. My guess is one look at this person would drive most of her friends and relatives to the nearest vaccination site. Delta seems to have hit a sweet spot. It's very good at infecting people, but it doesn't scare us enough to bring out our most cautious behaviors. Sneaky devil!

Now that we've lived through a pandemic, I'm watching pandemic related films in a different light. Turns out many of the "wipe out 99.99999% in a month" films are really unrealistic.

[tmm99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut Delta seems to have hit a sweet spot. It's very good at infecting people, but it doesn't scare us enough to bring out our most cautious behaviors. Sneaky devil!

Your logic sounds spot on. If the virus was too deadly too fast to the host, it would have no chance of spreading it to more people. The Delta is highly contagious with a prolonged incubation period but it doesn't kill you (at least not right away) so it has a good chance of spreading it to many more people. Sneaky devil indeed.

[Aerides]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWras Now that we've lived through a pandemic, I'm watching pandemic related films in a different light. Turns out many of the "wipe out 99.99999% in a month" films are really unrealistic.

Contagion, however, gets it really right, with some eerie similarities to today. Granted, it's still a far quicker and more deadly virus (20%, deaths in 1-2 days from exposure), but still.

[Gumby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmm99 ...If the virus was too deadly too fast to the host, it would have no chance of spreading it to more people. ...

That has been the saving grace in Ebola virus outbreaks - too deadly too fast. Because it is incredibly contagious.

[audreyh1]

It’s just evolution though. The virus is not being careful nor plotting any type of strategy.

[tmm99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 It’s just evolution though. The virus is not being careful nor plotting any type of strategy.

No, I think they actually do have evil intentions!

[audreyh1]

Well it’s a parasite and requires a host to replicate. All parasites seem evil if they damage a host.

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aerides Contagion, however, gets it really right, with some eerie similarities to today. Granted, it's still a far quicker and more deadly virus (20%, deaths in 1-2 days from exposure), but still.

Yup, when I rewatched Contagion, it gave me goosebumps with some of the concepts.

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aerides Contagion, however, gets it really right, with some eerie similarities to today. Granted, it's still a far quicker and more deadly virus (20%, deaths in 1-2 days from exposure), but still.

I agree. I didn't give the details, I hoped someone would follow up. Contagion did well. The virus was more aggressive, but there were many survivors and once the population knew what was up, they were "adjusting," albeit in a haphazard way.

What Contagion got wrong was that the CDC would be hero geniuses from day 1. Nope.

---

I was thinking more of Andromeda Strain, I Am Legend, Omega Man, etc. Although I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Andromeda Strain. That movie literally was an influence in my career in technology.

[audreyh1]

Did Contagion anticipate how many people would decide they didn’t need a vaccine? I suppose that if a contagious disease is more overtly deadly, more people would seek protection.

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Did Contagion anticipate how many people would decide they didn’t need a vaccine? I suppose that if a contagious disease is more overtly deadly, more people would seek protection.

I think you are going in the right direction. Let's just say in the movie, even though there are haunting echoes to COVID (bats flying around), they never said: "Most people have mild symptoms." People are dropping dead left and right at 30% rate. 30%. That will wake you up. So despite potential resistance, most would want the vaccine with the Contagion virus.

There are some depictions of pushback, however. Slightly different than what we saw, but echoes of our situation. One guy is trying to convince the world of a 'natural' solution. So, yeah, some of the movie will give you chills, and not in a good way.

[tmm99]

Yep, I rewatched Contagion at the beginning of the pandemic and Jude Law's role gave me the chills.

[tmm99]

Here is a news article that has the link to the report that Public Health Ontario (Canada) has published.

Quote:

TORONTO -- There have been more than 17,000 so-called breakthrough cases of COVID-19 involving fully vaccinated Ontarians over the last year but the number of those people under 60 who eventually ended up in an intensive care unit is only nine.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/only-nine...d-19-1.5681069

I haven't read the full report, but that's astonishingly good IMHO. The numbers do increase with older age groups
60-69 25 (1.2%)
70-79 25 (2.2%)
but still, these numbers are so much better than I thought.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational Vaccine induced and disease induced are different, but it's something I don't think gets as much focus as it deserves. Population studies seemed to indicate being exposed to the whole virus was more protective than just being exposed to the few shapes of the engineered vaccines, which makes sense to me, but most stats I've seen don't cover that.

There was a paper that, as far as I can discern, says immunity from having had the disease is 100 times "better" against severe infection than having no immunity (from disease or vaccine). I didn't get that the paper had a solid take-away for how natural immunity compared to vaccine induced immunity, but I didn't spend too much time with noodling on it. Seems like that info could be teased out of the (population) data.

Quote:

for a person who has already had a primary infection, the risk of having a severe reinfection is only approximately 1% of the risk of a previously uninfected person having a severe primary infection.

With the concept of waning immunity, I'll add that the median time between primary and reinfection was 277 days.

This link is an op-ed in NEJM, but points to the paper from Qatur, where they have some really solid population data.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2108120