Fantastic Vaccine Results in US

[audreyh1]

Recent CDC chart of weekly deaths per 100,000 people showing drastic drops in deaths in older age groups since January 2021. For age group 80+, weekly deaths have dropped from 61 per 100,000 to less than 1. For age group 65-79, weekly deaths have dropped from 16 per 100,000 to less than 1.

What a difference!

 

[MichaelB]

As a member of those age groups I couldn’t be happier.

 

[JRon]

Really shows how well the vaccine is working. In our state even though positive cases rise from time to time (although well below previous levels), in addition to deaths hospitalizations are way way down as well.

 

[audreyh1]

Positive cases are apparently rising again overall, but fortunately the most vulnerable groups now have significant protection available.

 

[homestead]

There are 3 lines on the graph, what is the 3rd age group?
64-...?

 

[obsessed]

There are 3 lines on the graph, what is the 3rd age group?
64-...?

Here's a link to the chart. You can hover over the chart to see the data points. The 3rd group is 55-64.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographicsovertime

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

There are 3 lines on the graph, what is the 3rd age group?
64-...?

Believe it or not, I think there are 5 lines on the graph. (Two green ones at the bottom.) I was curious too, but I was not able to track down the exact age groups shown.

 

[harllee]

Just heard on the news that last Friday they gave enough vaccines in the US to vaccinate 1% of the entire US population, just in that one day. I am really impressed how quickly the US is administering the vaccines. I have seen predictions of herd immunity in the US by July, if by then there is a vaccination for kids and if most of the population will show up and get the vaccine. I am feeling more optimistic.

 

[Chuckanut]

Just heard on the news that last Friday they gave enough vaccines in the US to vaccinate 1% of the entire US population, just in that one day. I am really impressed how quickly the US is administering the vaccines. I have seen predictions of herd immunity in the US by July, if by then there is a vaccination for kids and if most of the population will show up and get the vaccine. I am feeling more optimistic.

I hear we have about 30,000,000 doses of the AstroZenica vaccine in storage waiting to be approved. That's enough to fully vaccinate another 15 million people.

 

[flyingaway]

Maybe the weakest are already dead, the ones alive already have immunity. It looks like that the effects of the vaccines are not as good as expected to have dropped infections like a falling-cliff.

 

[RetireeRobert]

As a member of those age groups I couldn’t be happier.

+1

 

[harllee]

Maybe the weakest are already dead, the ones alive already have immunity. It looks like that the effects of the vaccines are not as good as expected to have dropped infections like a falling-cliff.

Why would you say the vaccines are not as good as expected? I know this is anecdotal but in the nursing home portion of my mother's CCRC they were averaging about 5 Covid infections per week before the vaccine. A couple of weeks after all the residents and most of the staff were given the first Pfizer vaccine the infections dropped to zero and have stayed that way. No more Covid infections in the nursing home in 2 months. I would say that is pretty darn good.

 

[Alan]

As a member of those age groups I couldn’t be happier.

Ditto.

https://time.com/5942076/proof-covid-19-vaccines-work/

It’s one thing to test a vaccine, and another to see it in action in the real world. More than two months after the first vaccines were authorized in the U.K. and U.S., strong data have emerged showing that the shots are doing what they are supposed to do: protect people from COVID-19.

In a study published Feb. 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers in Israel and the U.S. report that the vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech was highly effective in protecting against infection with the COVID-19 virus, lowering people’s chances of getting sick with the disease—especially severe disease—and dropping COVID-19 hospitalization rates. The data, says Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and co-author of the paper, are “close to the best possible news.”

In a separate pre-print study published in the Lancet on Feb. 19 that hasn’t yet been peer reviewed, health officials in Scotland also reported that vaccination with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca shot was helping to lower hospitalization rates due to COVID-19 in the country. Those results were especially encouraging, they said, because they showed that even a single dose of either vaccine was 85% to 94% effective in reducing COVID-19 hospitalization within a little more than a month after the first shot (the recommended dose is two shots of either vaccine).

The findings are a real-world harbinger of what the world can expect as more people get vaccinated and throw up a wall of immunity against the virus.

 

[ivinsfan]

Maybe the weakest are already dead, the ones alive already have immunity. It looks like that the effects of the vaccines are not as good as expected to have dropped infections like a falling-cliff.

I don't understand what you are saying..

 

[Gumby]

Maybe the weakest are already dead, the ones alive already have immunity. It looks like that the effects of the vaccines are not as good as expected to have dropped infections like a falling-cliff.

Here in Connecticut, which primarily has followed an age based vaccination schedule, the recent rise in cases is driven almost entirely by younger age groups. Many of the restrictions have been lifted and people are tired after a year of lockdown, so they neglect precautions. The older demographic, who are the ones most likely to already have been vaccinated, have seen a precipitous decline in cases and that number is staying down. The state keeps data by age group and you can clearly see the effect of this in the graphs. You can also see it in the fact that even as cases increase, hospitalization is steady and deaths are down, because young people are less likely to be hospitalized or die when they catch COVID.

In my view, without the vaccines, we would be seeing another spike like the one in late December/early January. So I think it is mistake to say that the vaccines are not working as expected. They are.

 

[JoeWras]

The vaccine is crucial.

That CDC pointer above has more than case and death rates. CDC is also doing seroprevalence studies and the results are posted on that same page. For example: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab

Seroprevalence looks for antibodies in bloodwork submitted for something unrelated to covid. For most states, the current number is in the high teens. That's not the optimistic "50%" some are hoping for. It is more like 1 out of 6 have antibodies after a year of pandemic. We need antibodies in 5 out 6, so the vaccines are crucial.

 

[flyingaway]

Here in Connecticut, which primarily has followed an age based vaccination schedule, the recent rise in cases is driven almost entirely by younger age groups. Many of the restrictions have been lifted and people are tired after a year of lockdown, so they neglect precautions. The older demographic, who are the ones most likely to already have been vaccinated, have seen a precipitous decline in cases and that number is staying down. The state keeps data by age group and you can clearly see the effect of this in the graphs. You can also see it in the fact that even as cases increase, hospitalization is steady and deaths are down, because young people are less likely to be hospitalized or die when they catch COVID.

In my view, without the vaccines, we would be seeing another spike like the one in late December/early January. So I think it is mistake to say that the vaccines are not working as expected. They are.

I did not say that the vaccines are not working. I was just saying that they are not as good as I expected, i.e., completely stop infections. I have no problem with the vaccines and I am fully vaccinated if that matters.

 

[JoeWras]

I did not say that the vaccines are not working. I was just saying that they are not as good as I expected, i.e., completely stop infections. I have no problem with the vaccines and I am fully vaccinated if that matters.

Among our population here, the vaccination rate is high.

It is easy to lose track of the fact that it is still low for the total population, mostly due to people still waiting for their turn. And nobody under 16 is authorized yet.

According to the CDC, 16% of the entire USA population is fully vaccinated, 28% partially.

That will make a difference, but no way will it stop transmission.

 

[audreyh1]

Here's a link to the chart. You can hover over the chart to see the data points. The 3rd group is 55-64.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographicsovertime

Thanks for that link. You have to click on age. I was trying to track it down but their graphs were taking way too long to load.

 

[audreyh1]

Maybe the weakest are already dead, the ones alive already have immunity. It looks like that the effects of the vaccines are not as good as expected to have dropped infections like a falling-cliff.

Huh? It’s the dramatic drop in serious disease and death that we hoped for.

 

[Gumby]

Among our population here, the vaccination rate is high.

It is easy to lose track of the fact that it is still low for the total population, mostly due to people still waiting for their turn. And nobody under 16 is authorized yet.

According to the CDC, 16% of the entire USA population is fully vaccinated, 28% partially.

That will make a difference, but no way will it stop transmission.

We have discussed herd immunity here before. It actually depends on the native reproduction rate of the virus in a never exposed population (Ro), which is generally only known ex post facto, but the basic equation is x = 1- (1/Ro), where x is the percentage of people who need to have antibodies either by vaccination or prior exposure. Assume Ro is 3 (which is within the range of estimates I have seen), then x = 1 - (1/3) = 0.67. So you need 67% of the population to have antibodies in order for herd immunity to occur. As JoeWras notes, only about 28% of the population has even received one shot. If we assume that another 25% have immunity in response to a prior infection (and that none of them are among the people being vaccinated), then we're only up to about 53% - still short of the herd immunity necessary for infection rates to "fall off a cliff". If there is duplication in vaccination such that some previously infected are among the vaccinated, then you need even more people to be vaccinated. And you also need to adjust for efficacy of the vaccines. Less efficacy requires more vaccinations, so it is more accurate to only count those who have received 2 doses.

 

[audreyh1]

I did not say that the vaccines are not working. I was just saying that they are not as good as I expected, i.e., completely stop infections. I have no problem with the vaccines and I am fully vaccinated if that matters.

Not nearly enough people are vaccinated yet, especially among the less vulnerable age groups. Besides we know that the vaccines do not completely stop infections, they severely reduce them, and protect the individual from bad disease and death. IMO they are working better than I had hoped considering that only 69% of the 65+ group have had at least one vaccine dose.

 

[RAE]

Maybe the weakest are already dead, the ones alive already have immunity. It looks like that the effects of the vaccines are not as good as expected to have dropped infections like a falling-cliff.

Personally, I do believe that there are LOTS of people out there who have had COVID, but were never diagnosed, for whatever reason (I include myself in that group). We will never know for sure how many people are now in this category, but my guess is that the number is pretty high. And if that is true, then it's very possible that most of those people now have the T cells in their blood, giving them a significant degree of immunity to the virus. So yeah, the rapid increase in vaccinations certainly helps a lot, but I think the growing number of people who have some natural immunity to the virus (due to prior infection) is also a big contributing factor.

 

[RAE]

The vaccine is crucial.

That CDC pointer above has more than case and death rates. CDC is also doing seroprevalence studies and the results are posted on that same page. For example: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab

Seroprevalence looks for antibodies in bloodwork submitted for something unrelated to covid. For most states, the current number is in the high teens. That's not the optimistic "50%" some are hoping for. It is more like 1 out of 6 have antibodies after a year of pandemic. We need antibodies in 5 out 6, so the vaccines are crucial.

Actually, from what I have read, after you become infected with COVID, you do typically have the antibodies for a while, but not all that long (maybe 3-4 months). But that is misleading, because the immune system is complex, and people who have been infected likely have both T cells and B cells in their blood that provide a signficant degree of immunity against another infection. I just read a study this morning which found that even people who have merely been exposed to the virus typically have the protective T cells in their blood, even if they never showed any symptoms of the disease. Here is the link to that study:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22036-z


I am not saying that vaccines are not crucial, but you can't just look at info. on antibodies to determine who has some degree of immunity against COVID, and who doesn't. You have to look at the other components of the immune system, specifically the T cells and B cells. My guess is that way more than 1 out of 6 people currently have some degree of protective immunity. Nobody is doing widespread testing for T cells and B cells (there is a test out now, but it's fairly expensive, and not widely available), so we simply do not know for sure.

 

[RAE]

So you need 67% of the population to have antibodies in order for herd immunity to occur. As JoeWras notes, only about 28% of the population has even received one shot. If we assume that another 25% have immunity in response to a prior infection (and that none of them are among the people being vaccinated), then we're only up to about 53% - still short of the herd immunity necessary for infection rates to "fall off a cliff".

Based on the studies I've seen (that looked at whether those infected with COVID had any degree of durable immunity against being infected again), I think your estimate of 25% is way too low. You have to look at more than antibodies to determine immunity - antibodies typically fade after a few months. You have to also look at the T cells and B cells, which are much longer-lasting. Here is a link to a recent study that goes into more detail about that:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6529/eabf4063