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A few covid things I wanna clear up

Marymoore

I don’t understand something about covid. Basically 3 things

1) if you’re vaccinated, they say your chances of being seriously ill with covid are very little but Can you still suffer long term covid?

2) how will this all end if people can still spread it when they’re vaccinated?

3) lots of people get annoyed at anti vaccination people saying they’re selfish etc but how will someone who’s not vaccinated affect anyone else? Surely those vaccinated will be protected from their own vaccine so why are people against people refusing to be vaccinated

thanks for clarifying these for me

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hatrickpatrick

As far as I can see, the reason people are angry and scared of the anti-vax crowd is because if enough people allow the virus to spread among themselves, the chances of a dangerous mutation which could then overwhelm the vaccinated become a lot greater. In other words, the fewer people get vaccinated, the more likely it is that the unvaccinated cohorts will help to create a dangerous variant.

That's the only explanation I've been able to think of anyway, because I really can't think of anything else that actually makes sense.

ceadaoin.

Vaccinated people are still getting infected, and not in small numbers going by the UK stats. Surely this is what will create mutations to evade the vaccine? Can anyone explain why this isn't the case?

Captain_Crash

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617338#Comment_117617338

I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole but I would imagine that the chances of a mutation grow in line with the number people getting vaccinated. If the virus can circulate freely amongst a small but significant cohort of people, it will have no need to mutate! The intent of the virus is to survive!

hatrickpatrick

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617351#Comment_117617351

I [i]think[/i] the idea is that if enough people are vaccinated and the vaccine is effective against [i]serious[/i] illness among patients, even if not preventing infection, pressure on the health system will be low enough that we'll be able to live with it circulating in the relatively lower levels and certainly causing fewer hospitalisations.

What's really worrying me this week is that apparently we had one patient in the ICU and on a ventilator despite being [i]fully[/i] vaccinated. The report didn't mention which vaccine this person received but that's an incredibly worrying development IMO.

TP_CM

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617351#Comment_117617351

The virus is massively weakened by a person who has had the vaccine. They might still be contagious but not to the same extent. For example they might not be coughing or spluttering as much as a non-vaccinated person. This makes it harder for the virus to move around and mix with other mutations. If you think of the virus as a tiny army which is breeding and growing and which is up against another army of anti bodies, it might help make more sense. If the anti bodies can wipe out 90% of it then only 10% is left to get out there and mutate.

charlietheminxx

For one, people on immunosuppressants don’t develop enough antibodies from the vaccine to be properly protected. What we need is herd immunity, once we have the right ratio of vaccinated people it’ll stop circulating except for smaller outbreaks. The more it circulates, the more variants we end up with and it seems the virus is bettering itself each time.

nomdeboardie

https://boards.ie/discussion/2058199015/a-few-covid-things-i-wanna-clear-up

1) I've wondered this myself. Would imagine it's less likely, but I haven't seen mention of data on this yet; time will tell.

2) It was hoped, and I think there is some data, that those infected after vaccination spread it less. Plus, as hatrickpatrick says, with less virus replicating overall, it's hoped that new variants will pop up less often.

3) Some vaccinated people will still get infected, and while their ilness should be less severe, some will be more susceptible to a bad outcome than average, either because their immune systems may not have mounted a good response, or they have other reasons why the virus affects them more. In addition, some people may have been advised not to take the vaccine because they have a much higher risk of side effects than average.

ETA: Only the first reply was visible to me when I wrote the above

Responder XY

https://boards.ie/discussion/2058199015/a-few-covid-things-i-wanna-clear-up

1) It seems that your chances of suffering from long covid reduce in line with your chances of suffering from Covid - but there is certainly less info on this than on the main bout of illness. Interestingly there have been some indications that the vaccine helps sufferers of long covid get over that.

2) It won't end. Covid will eventually get more benign as people build up natural immunity from infection and vaccination.

There is no prospect that covid will ever disappear. We hope that the rate of new variants will slow as more people are vaccinated which reduces how long the virus lasts in the body and the number of people infected which reduces chances to mutate.

3) Some people can't be vaccinated (too young, immunocompromised, etc...)- they rely on everyone else around them to get vaccinated, so when someone refuses to get vaccinated, they hurt those who can't be vaccinated.

Additionally, if not vaccinated it dramatically increases the possibility of mutations and creates a new variant that will evade vaccines in future. That in addition to more people getting covid if not vaccinated which further increases the possibility of mutation.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617393#Comment_117617393

This really isn't that worrying - even with the most effective vaccine, it was never expected that nobody would get sick/die, it would just reduce the amount who did. That from all the 100's of people hospitalised and having gone through ICUs since we since we started vaccinating shows that they work exceptionally well

Nozebleed

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617553#Comment_117617553

"Additionally, if not vaccinated it dramatically increases the possibility of mutations and creates a new variant that will evade vaccines in future. That in addition to more people getting covid if not vaccinated which further increases the possibility of mutation"

This quote from the above post is complete nonsense. shameful post

Responder XY

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617617#Comment_117617617

Well this is just wrong. Obviously if the virus' spread is inhibited, it's opportunity to mutate is reduced. the WHO agree with this https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-effects-of-virus-variants-on-covid-19-vaccines

nomdeboardie

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617351#Comment_117617351

It probably indeed is the case that the variants which the vaccines are less effective against may form a higher progressively proportion of the viral population. However, if the vaccine is at least partialy effective against them, as seems to be the case so far, they are still better than nothing. If variants arise that completely evade the current vaccines, I'd imagine we should still be no worse off, as, on average, they probably won't be more severe. These could then be targeted with tweaked vaccines, and I assume there's a good chance this virus would eventually run out of variations that would 'work'. I'd imagine the vaccine versions could be mixed together to target several variants together, (though I'd think it safer not to do that with DNA or RNA-containing vaccines, to reduce the chance of recombinant sequences popping up and maybe being incorporated into co-'infecting' virus etc)

FishOnABike

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617351#Comment_117617351

Vaccines prime our immune system to deal with a virus and eliminate it more quickly than we would if we weren't vaccinated. This reduces how much the virus can multiply, reducing both the severity and duration of any associated illness.

Vaccination therefore results in fewer virus particles being produced and a shorter illness / shorter infectious period, all which reduce the opportunity for mutation.

Standard childhood vaccinations e.g. measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, polio, tuberculosis haven't caused mutations that evade vaccines, they have practically elimated what were once common illnesses.

[Deleted User]

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617393#Comment_117617393

1 of the last 200 people admitted to icu here has been fully vaccinated. 1. Out of 200. Rather than being worrying it’s rather positive news.

The Mighty Quinn

The high numbers released yesterday, 900 or so, stated that 5% of cases were fully vaccinated people.

Some are getting alarmed at that, but if people had listened to the vaccine efficacy rates then these numbers if anything should be a comfort. Moderna is supposed to be 94% effective and Pfizer 95%. This is being borne out and confirmed in the case numbers.

SaltyJohn

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57610998

This may help explain things.

Also worth pointing out that vaccines are reducing transmission. Not fully but quite effectively at a minimum. But we need to be careful until we see how this plays out in the real world (which takes time).

Sky King

https://boards.ie/discussion/2058199015/a-few-covid-things-i-wanna-clear-up

Well I can only speak for myself, but anti vaxxers annoy me for the following reasons.

1. They can only choose to be anti vax because almost everyone else gets vaccinated. They will never have to live in a world where smallpox comes to town and kills 25% of those go get infected because smallpox was eradicated using vaccines.

Vaccines are what allow them to be anti vax.

2. Aside from vaccines, there is no other way out of this pandemic other than either having lockdowns ad infinitum (no thanks) or letting the virus run rampant, killing tens of thousands of people in Ireland, leaving a few hundred thousand with long covid and putting monumental and totally unfair levels of pressure on our health care workers. I think promoting this approach as a healthy person with the best chance is selfish.

3. Anti vax people are wilfully ignorant. That's what is most annoying of all. They are choosing to believe pseudo science peddlers and Facebook nuts over those who are clearly well qualified to have an opinion on vaccines. Vaccines are one of the safest forms of medical intervention. They are far far safer in this case than getting covid, by a couple of orders of magnitude. It takes 2 minutes to look this up from a reputable source.

shesty

Can I add to the OP question?Been reading lately that the Delta variant presents similar to a common cold.Is that not a good thing -is that not what we want basically?If and when we are all vaccinated (or as many as needed for herd immunity) and IF it is spreading as a similar to a common cold essentially, then is that not the point where we have to live with it?

[Deleted User]

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117618190#Comment_117618190

You have been reading that it has been presenting with initial symptoms more like the regular common cold, not that it is less serious overall.

All of the symptoms associated with Covid also present to some extent with colds. The relative frequency of the runny nose / sore throat type symptoms has increased with the Delta variant and the shortness of breath etc decreased. But all of those symptoms always occurred to some degree in covid. Looking at what happened in India earlier on this year does not suggest Delta is any weaker. Its more likely down to the fact that delta is now infecting mostly the young and previously vaccinated so on average the symptoms are milder, as there are relatively few of the older unvaccinated in the populations being detected

Responder XY

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117618215#Comment_117618215

In a way - that's herd immunity starting to kick in. I'm sure if the coronavirus strain that currently causes common cold had never existed, but just appeared suddenly in the way Covid-19 did, it would be just as impactful as Covid-19 was.

The reason common cold doesn't do much harm is that most of us get it very young, where it can't really harm us and we build up a strong level of immunity so that even though we get it repeatedly during our life, our bodies know how to deal with it,

Former Former Former

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117618190#Comment_117618190

No - this is a really common misconception.

The Delta variant is NOT any less severe than previous variants and in fact the evidence is the opposite.

The difference is that the SYMPTOMS of MILD disease are more like a cold than the previous variants which resemebled flu. It's like saying the Wuhan virus caused a loss of taste and smell - it did, but it also killed a lot of people. The Delta variant is exactly the same; you may get no symptoms, you may get mild cold-like symptoms, or you may get a really severe respiratory infection that puts you in hospital.

It is absolutely not an indication that humans have adapted to the virus. We are not remotely near herd immunity in unvaccinated settings.

TomSweeney

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617393#Comment_117617393

Very worrying and concerning indeed.

The next 2 weeks are crucial.

cooperguy

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117617617#Comment_117617617

This is entirely true, the more chances a virus has to replicate the more chances there are for a mutation to develop. The larger the unvaccinated population and the more it spreads, the higher the likelihood of a new dangerous variant

Bit cynical

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117624855#Comment_117624855

Though it has also to be said that a more lethal variant may not be the fittest and so may end up being selected out if sufferers are too debilitated to pass it on.

Former Former Former

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117625908#Comment_117625908

That's the problem with Covid.

People may be infectious for days before they become symptomatic so the old theory about the less deadly variant becoming dominant does not hold.

The more virulent variants will dominate. It will be sheer luck if they are more or less severe.

nomdeboardie

Re Q1 of the OP: "... the evidence does not support that fully vaccinated people who develop a "breakthrough infection" are at risk for long COVID illness" according to the epidemiologist interviewed in

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/955034

(page 2) (though I don't know what the data is)

grofus2

I'm looking at this from another angle.

Why, have Dr's that have developed effective protocols using Ivernectin, hydroxychloroquin etc been warned of being struck off if they continued.

These medicines are safe, tried and tested for decades and have shown benefits for Covid patients.

Instead its Vaccine, Vaccine, vaccine. For a disease that has a mortality rate of between 0.003% for kids to 0.5% for the extremely frail. Most people's

risk of death is less than 0.2%. So, I personally have yet to see any real evidence of a pandemic, dont agree the government figures show we are in an emergency, though perhaps initially fora few months it could be argued that we were.

The media have whipped up such fear around a virus that is no more deadly than a virulent flu strain in order to get people desperate enough to get a vaccine they don't need. As has already been pointed out, variant strains occur because a virus is trying to survive the vaccines being thrown at it.

These vaccines have been approved on emergency licence only. That's it. How on earth can a child with a mortality rate of 0,003% be an emergency risk. Those figures simply do not support the government claims and they are breaking the law in administering them to kids.

I urge folk to research Dr Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA delivery technology, who is seriously concerned about the roll out of these "gene therapy" vaccines.

I believe these vaccines are just one facet of an overall agenda, just my conclusion from everything I've read. in my opinion it ties in nicely with the WEF (World Economic Forum) and their Great Reset. Go onto the webpage and see for yourself.

I know this has gone off topic but its a case of joining the dots to see the full picture.

grofus2

Here

https://mobile.twitter.com/rwmalonemd/status/1417127571179909125

2ndcoming

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117636654#Comment_117636654

This ticks most of the boxes of the issues we all face in dealing with people completely hooked on misinformation. It's like covid misinformation bingo. I'm not going to bother contradicting any of the wild claims because we're a year and a half into this nearly and there's just no point as you're unlikely to accept any contradiction anyway, it's just a sad, sad indictment of modern society that this horsesh1t is so prevalent. Twisted people creating and spreading it and mentally unwell people lapping it up.

cooperguy

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117636654#Comment_117636654

There's a lot of inaccuracies here. I'll answer some of them. To start with Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquin have mixed results to date. They are far from cures. Hydroxychloroquin is a great example of something that early on in the pandemic showed [i]some[/i] promise and was immediately jumped on by some sections of the internet, but has since not really delivered on the promise and has been linked with serious heart rhythm problems and other issues like blood and lymph system disorders. Ivermectin, now has some promise, and there is studies ongoing, but antiparisitics arent without their downsides and the data isnt in yet. I dont get why people want to jump on drugs with really small amounts of mixed data while ignoring lots of high quality vaccine data.

Second, death is only one thing we are worried about with Covid. A concern that's nearly as big is the hospitalisation and ICU admission rates which are high enough to swamp most health systems if left unchecked. This means people end up dying from all sorts of issues as hospitals arent able to treat all the other issues they deal with day to day. The death rate from covid itself also rises as ICU and hospitals go beyond capacity. That's before we begin to talk about Long Covid.

Finally, variants dont occur because vaccines are being thrown at it. For example the Delta variant was found in India last October. It's a product of natural mutations through millions of reproduction cycles.

francogarbanzo

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117639324#Comment_117639324

If you’re interested in the position of possibly the worlds most credible person on the subject: https://vimeo.com/553518199