>Remarkably, neutralization of Omicron was undetectable in most vaccinated individuals.
I'm not sure I understand, are they saying double vaccination had no noticeable effect on Omicron?
I'm not sure I understand, are they saying double vaccination had no noticeable effect on Omicron?
Far too much fear-mongering has happened based on confusion about what different studies are measuring. Measures of "neutralization titer" are pretty much pointless, outside of a lab -- they're a model for immunity with no demonstrated relevance to real-world outcomes.
Studies involving "symptomatic disease" are trying to measure the chance you might get any symptoms at all -- a very low bar. Even the sniffles count here. This is where most of the pro-booster studies have focused, and it's a pretty lame endpoint, unless you continue to harbor the delusion that "zero covid" is a thing that is possible (it is not).
Basically, if you get infected after two doses, you might get cold-like symptoms, unless you're either severely immunocompromised (e.g. on immune suppressants, AIDS, in the middle of a bone marrow transplant, etc.) or so old that your immune system is failing anyway.
That seems to jive with what I have seen on the ground, around here (New York). Dozens of friends and acquaintances are sick. None, severely. I am quarantined through Christmas weekend. Tests (at least accurate ones) are rare as hen’s teeth. The home test kits seem to be absolutely worthless. I have not talked to one single person that got a positive from a home test (some were clearly symptomatic, when they took the test, and still came up negative).
It appears that COVID is a blood disease, as opposed to a pulmonary disease.
I know a 19-year-old girl that had a stroke, as a result of COVID.
I was talking to an acquaintance that is a mortician, a few months ago, and he said they could always tell the people that died of COVID, because their blood had a different consistency.
That was why I framed it as a personal anecdote. It really happened (unlike yours). It is not supposed to be a valid data point. No double-blind scientific analysis. Just a short personal story.
If I don't have anything other than anectdata, I am careful to frame it as personal experience and PoV.
I thought we didn't do stuff like this (sarcastic personal attacks) on HN, but I am often wrong.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
...
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
He said that the home test has two lines in the display (I think it's a piece of paper, but I'm not sure). One is a control, and the other is a result.
He said that the control line is very clear, but that the result line tends to be fairly faint, so it's entirely possible that people are getting positive results, but aren't seeing the line.
Sounds like a UX design flaw.
I was just talking to a friend that is sick with it. He had a negative home test on Monday, and went in for a PCR test, immediately after. That test showed he had a fairly significant viral load. He and his wife are high-risk, and had the monoclonal antibodies treatment. Not sure they will do much good.
Practically, yes. See Figure 2. Recent vax (< 3 mos.) and distant vax (6 to 12 mos.) neutralization is between the first two eighth ticks for omicron. (Distant vax + infection is a bit less effective than distant vax with the wild type variant, which should put to bed the nonsense around prior infection being equivalent to innoculation.)
We need an updated vaccine and/or to refresh the vaccination requirement to including boosters.
Last page specifically. I think the problem with comparing immunity from infection and vaccination is mostly due to how quickly both fade out with time.
You had one job.