Recent comments in /f/science

swesley49 t1_j8ef5v2 wrote

Reply to comment by JurassicCotyledon in A study in the US has found, compared to unvaccinated people, protection from the risk of dying from COVID during the six-month omicron wave for folks who had two doses of an mRNA vaccine was 42% for 40- to 59-year-olds; 27% for 60- to 79-year-olds; and 46% for people 80 and older. by Wagamaga

First, yes, AFAIK herd immunity may very well require true immunity. Although I'm also thinking about the possibility of reducing infections by enough that the spread is just too slow to get through our quarantine strategies. In that case, vaccines don't need to provide full immunity.

Second, these vaccines are not and will not ever cause more deaths than covid. I'm not sure what you mean by looking at all causes of death.

1

NaturalisticDualism t1_j8eefz2 wrote

Reply to comment by MpVpRb in The brain can rapidly detect and process fearful faces that are otherwise invisible to the eye. There appears to be a neural pathway for detection of fear, which operates automatically, outside of conscious awareness. by Wagamaga

After all the study itself is on a neurodivergent population. I'm no expert on amygdala activity. But I'm not sure I agree with your hypothesis. Though it's underspecified

3

NaturalisticDualism t1_j8ee7fr wrote

Reply to comment by MpVpRb in The brain can rapidly detect and process fearful faces that are otherwise invisible to the eye. There appears to be a neural pathway for detection of fear, which operates automatically, outside of conscious awareness. by Wagamaga

Among some of the neurodivergent I'm sure. But I'm not sure the high incidence atypical brains autism etc are completely lacking the mechanism. It's probably a highly conserved computation

12

Th3LastRebel t1_j8edu84 wrote

Reply to comment by Generallyawkward1 in A study in the US has found, compared to unvaccinated people, protection from the risk of dying from COVID during the six-month omicron wave for folks who had two doses of an mRNA vaccine was 42% for 40- to 59-year-olds; 27% for 60- to 79-year-olds; and 46% for people 80 and older. by Wagamaga

I don't think it's the immune system itself that is the big problem, The information that we have so far suggests that mitochondrial impact is more significant when it comes to us long haulers. (The immune system is important but doesn't always recognize threats until it is too late and/or can also overreact.) Mitochondrial impact might not be as immediately evident as the symptoms created by the body's immune response.

Covid-19 (which is the name of the initial SARS variant) absolutely wrecked and/or destroyed a notable account of lives and significantly affected a good number of others. (I'm one of them.)

The majority of us who have the worse long haul symptoms appear to have been exposed prior to a vaccination being available. This stands to reason that one of the reasons many of us long haulers catch it even after vaccinated is because our Mitochondria is already impacted and I theorize that it is sort of like having the door kicked in...

For some viruses, the door isn't destroyed and is bolstered in time...so it takes a few hits but is made stronger. Or you have ones like the Measles that essentially removes the entire door AND makes the new doors out of cheaper material...

For Covid 19, its more like that for some of us, the door is still there but was pretty battered and had cracks in it...we can ADD defenses and repair the door after the fact but it won't be as good as that original door was before it got kicked in.

And when it comes to immune response, that repaired door is good at keeping most crap out, but crap that makes its way through anyways heads right for the Mitochondria and continues to screw with us.

7

shiruken t1_j8ecsld wrote

Reply to comment by JurassicCotyledon in A study in the US has found, compared to unvaccinated people, protection from the risk of dying from COVID during the six-month omicron wave for folks who had two doses of an mRNA vaccine was 42% for 40- to 59-year-olds; 27% for 60- to 79-year-olds; and 46% for people 80 and older. by Wagamaga

This is a little tricky since the OP's study was conducted over a long period of time prior to the existence of the bivalent boosters designed for the Omicron variant, which partially evaded the immunity conferred by the original vaccines and/or infection with earlier strains of SARS-CoV-2.

The CDC publishes a tracker that is updated monthly showing the rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths by vaccination status. In December 2022, people aged 5+ who were vaccinated with an updated (bivalent) booster had 3.1x lower risk of testing positive for COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated people. People aged 5+ who were vaccinated without the updated booster only had 2.4x lower risk compared to unvaccinated.

A recent peer-reviewed study by the CDC found that the bivalent boosters from both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were 48% effective against symptomatic infection from the current predominant omicron subvariant. Note that this effectiveness was calculated relative to fully vaccinated individuals without the bivalent booster dose, so the effectiveness relative to unvaccinated individuals would be even higher (but was beyond the scope of the study).

For more information about vaccine effectiveness, see this comprehensive list maintained by the CDC.

13

JurassicCotyledon t1_j8ecai4 wrote

Reply to comment by IzTea_1X in A study in the US has found, compared to unvaccinated people, protection from the risk of dying from COVID during the six-month omicron wave for folks who had two doses of an mRNA vaccine was 42% for 40- to 59-year-olds; 27% for 60- to 79-year-olds; and 46% for people 80 and older. by Wagamaga

From what I’ve read, not effectively. That’s why I’m wondering if anyone has specific data on that, and isolated to identify the transmission rate reduction incurred purely by the vaccine, versus from previous infection.

Pfizer didn’t even test for transmission blocking during their trial prior to the mass vaccine rollout.

8

JurassicCotyledon t1_j8ebvxn wrote

Reply to comment by swesley49 in A study in the US has found, compared to unvaccinated people, protection from the risk of dying from COVID during the six-month omicron wave for folks who had two doses of an mRNA vaccine was 42% for 40- to 59-year-olds; 27% for 60- to 79-year-olds; and 46% for people 80 and older. by Wagamaga

Even as spelled out in your comment, the vaccines do not induce herd immunity. They merely help to reduce death while herd immunity is being developed through natural infection.

Although you cannot qualify the efficacy of a vaccine simply by its ability to reduce severity of infection from the targeted pathogen. You need to look at all cause death over the long term.

2

tiptoeintotown t1_j8ebu25 wrote

Reply to comment by MrGingerlicious in Cultivating a sense of perspective about pet loss can lead to post-traumatic growth after their death by chrisdh79

Agreed.

I can’t even think about my dog that passed or talk about her without getting emotional. Like, really emotional. I used to wake up every night at like 2 and it was always just a matter of time before the dark quiet night ushered in thoughts of her that felt inescapable. I couldn’t even be in my apartment after I had to put her down so I moved.

My dad passed suddenly when I was 19 and this was not that. This was far, far worse.

2