Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This has been the commonly reported number for quite some time. This paper is literally just repeating a number that's been widely reported for months.

The way its been reported for some time is that vaccines provide moderate reduction in transmissibility, but significant reduction in hospitalization or death (severe infection).

Also wow this is misleading:

> Of the top 5 counties that have the highest percentage of population fully vaccinated (99.9–84.3%), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifes 4 of them as “High” Transmission counties. Chattahoochee (Georgia), McKinley (New Mexico), and Arecibo (Puerto Rico) counties have above 90% of their population fully vaccinated with all three being classifed as “High” transmission. Conversely, of the 57 counties that have been classifed as “low” transmission counties by the CDC, 26.3% (15) have percentage of population fully vaccinated below 20%.

You can't compare things in this way. When you do it the "right way", you'll see a correlation, weak but extant (much as you see in their diagrams) which contradicts the central claim of the paper.

It's funny how they stopped putting precise numbers on it once it shifted from 95% to "moderate."

No, they've been putting precise numbers on it for a while:

- https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/22/health/cdc-vaccine-advisers-b...

- https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday...

- https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-well-covid-...

- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02261-8

- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/04/pfizer-covid-vaccine-protect...

- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/04/pfizer-covid-vaccine-protect...

What you're seeing is two factors combined, first delta being more infectious. But delta only became widespread in many places in ~July, so solid data on how it affected infectiousness took until August or September. And second, the vaccine's effectiveness wanes over time, but again, this takes time to detect. So it is simultaneously true that in January of this year, the vaccines were in some cases 90% effective at reducing infection, but are now 40-60% effective (note that this still *halves the r0, which is significant).

And those numbers have been communicated in the mainstream media and via official channels like the CDC (although the CDC has never posted efficiency numbers: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective..., see that this was last updated in May). Perhaps you weren't paying attention though.

"this takes time to detect" -- It's almost like these vaccines were experimental from the jump despite all the protestation and insistence to the contrary.

Aside from that the main problem is that the vaccines were rendered far less effective by a variant which appeared on the scene around the same time they were being rolled out. Check out the more recent article from Nature I posted in another comment, for Pfizer it suggests a peak effectiveness against transmission of Delta of 39% which falls to 13% after 3 months. Why we are continuing to boost with these shots targeting the original wild-type spike protein is beyond me.

> "this takes time to detect" -- It's almost like these vaccines were experimental from the jump despite all the protestation and insistence to the contrary.

No more than the flu vaccine for any given year (which also wanes over time and requires boosters).

> Why we are continuing to boost with these shots targeting the original wild-type spike protein is beyond me.

They continue to have 70-95% efficacy in reducing severe (hospitalization/death) covid, which is the priority, and importantly, they can do that now without additional approvals. But both Pfizer and Moderna have delta specific boosters in clinical trials, which reduce transmission more effectively.

> No more than the flu vaccine for any given year (which also wanes over time and requires boosters).

This gaslighting is silly. Did public health officials not disclose during the initial rollout that the vaccines would wane over time because they were telling yet another noble lie, or because they simply didn't know because their effects had not yet been observed in people for that length of time?

> Did public health officials not disclose during the initial rollout that the vaccines would wane over time

I mean I'm not quite sure what you're getting at discussions about the possible need for covid boosters were happening before I was able to get my first dose. (all of these are from January or February):

- https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/do-covid-19-variants-mean-...

- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/14/moderna-looks-to-test-covid-...

- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/booster-shots-aga...

- https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

> because they simply didn't know because their effects had not yet been observed in people for that length of time?

You're doing a subtle rhetorical badness here. It's worth clarifying that there are two distinct things that we care about with a vaccine: efficacy and safety. Due to the vaccine mechanisms, we had and continue to have fairly high confidence that they don't have negative side effects. They're safe. So when you say "their effects", you could mean "both their efficacy and safety" or just "their efficacy". But saying

> Did public health officials not disclose during the initial rollout that the vaccines would wane over time...because they simply didn't know [they would get weaker over time]"

is far less ominous, and honestly I don't see a reason to worry about that. Especially given that they were straightforward that there might be decreases in efficacy, but that none had been seen so far. I'd appreciate it if you were precise with your complaint, because I'm having a difficult time telling if you actually have one, or if you're being vaguely contrarian.

Since we have two different types of immunity, natural and vaccine, we can compare. Natural immunity is still 99% against all variants even for those infected early with the Wuhan variant. So we have a standard that vaccine efficacy should be compared to, 99% efficacy. That´s where we see how badly these vaccines perform. If natural immunity is 99% over 18 months in, and ongoing, then vaccines are really bad in comparison.

Does anyone think it´s a coincidence? The vaccine manufacturers have studied coronaviruses and corona-vaccines for decades, it´s extremely unlikely that they didn´t know exactly how this would play out. 1-2 boosters yearly forever was the plan, and covid is the storm. Trump made the vaccines possible with operation warp speed, Fauci restarted gain of function research under his watch and the virus "escaped", and now Biden the tyrant enforces mass vaccination by excluding everyone from the economy who doesn´t comply. Biden and Trump are not enemies, they´re two vaccine salesmen working together. Welcome to the future, medical apartheid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com