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It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you.
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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. |
On December 18 2020 23:26 Vivax wrote:Found this recently posted info , clearly written by an anti-vaxxer conspiracy nutjob. /s (I think you can find his twitter and credentials on your own from here, if you so desire) ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/FzqRSgs.png)
Fortunately, there is a big difference between "can be" and "are likely".
It is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. There are risks with a new vaccine, but after the thousands of tests, I completely support that the virus itself is a lot worse.
The worst thing that can happen is giving the anti-vax movement a solid scandal following the rushed approvals, but I chose to remain hopeful.
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Honestly, pretty much every variation on vaccines looks a lot like "do what a virus does, but do it in a safer way." The mRNA approach is no different in that regard.
My real question is if it's an efficient way to actually make vaccines, rather than merely biotechnology's equivalent of a "new shiny thing." It definitely seems like the wrong choice for a mass market vaccine based on how the logistics for it look compared to the more traditional options. But at this point, any vaccine that works is a good one.
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On December 18 2020 23:26 Vivax wrote:Found this recently posted info , clearly written by an anti-vaxxer conspiracy nutjob. /s (I think you can find his twitter and credentials on your own from here, if you so desire) + Show Spoiler +
If you're so upset about the safety of mRNA vaccines, then just wait several months for the other types of vaccines to come out. Quite frankly, I am gonna call bullshit on several of his claims despite his credentials. A lot of it just goes against what is commonly taught about cellular and genetic functions, and he just makes so many unreasonable assumptions that I can't see happening in vivo.
Just because ERVs and LINEs contain genes for RTs and INTs doesn't mean they're gonna be expressed. A lot of those transposable elements are junk DNA, some of which were viral insertions from ancestral infections that could be the source of the sequences for RTs and INTs. Just because the vaccine mRNA is based on viral mRNA doesn't mean it's gonna promote expression of the RTs and INTs. Even if RTs and INTs are expressed, the mRNA or cDNA have to make their way into the nucleus to have any chance of changing the genome, but the nuclear envelope highly regulates the entry and exit of molecules, so that wouldn't happen spontaneously.
Quite frankly, none of this would happen spontaneously. I fail to see how the vaccine mRNA would have any special element that would trigger and facilitate this cascade of events, since it would imply that any stray viral mRNA could be genotoxic. I certainly don't worry about genotoxicity when I catch the flu or common cold, and those leave way more viral genetic material floating around to be replicated and expressed. It does feel like a lot of fear-mongering that goes against a lot of what is understood about basic gene expression and cell biology.
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RT is always expressed afaik (or we‘d be immune to retroviruses). Dunno about integrase, but given that we have transposons in the sequence it seems logical, unless it‘s induced by the virus.
Crappy phonepost which ill edit later but... What goes against his argument is that covid isn‘t a retrovirus? Unless the spike protein is also expressed by one.
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There's a post on correctiv.org from DEC 14 that adresses the NOT YET completed process of approval by the swiss administrative body.
Which IS NOT a denial of admission but part of being extra careful in a process that has to be as speedy as possible.
The word dangerous is mentioned exactly zero times.
correctiv.org is a factchecking website
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On December 19 2020 02:39 Vivax wrote:
RT is always expressed afaik (or we‘d be immune to retroviruses). Dunno about integrase, but given that we have transposons in the sequence it seems logical, unless it‘s induced by the virus.
Crappy phonepost which ill edit later but... What goes against his argument is that covid isn‘t a retrovirus? Unless the spike protein is also expressed by one.
Nah, afaik retroviruses code for their own RT. Covid isn't a retrovirus. Just the spike protein's synthetic mRNA itself isn't enough to promote or facilitate the whole process for accidental gene editing.
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Even if we were dealing with a retrovirus and there were an mRNA vaccine against it, I would take it without fuss. The chances that development wouldn't take reverse transcription into account and pay special consideration to it would be exactly 0.
It's easier than ever to find one scientist that agrees with whatever unfounded hunch or fear you have, there's a good reason we emphasize the consensus in a field rather than the credentials of this one guy that says what I want to hear.
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On December 18 2020 17:56 Magic Powers wrote:
The studies about immunity after infection (which I posted a few pages earlier) support the idea that it's long-lasting for up to 8 months. I wasn't able to find any studies that suggest waning of such immunity after 6 months or 8 months, so the safest assumption would be that it lasts as long as immunities against other viruses (so in this case anything from 8 months up to a lifetime). That's easily as lasting as an immunity that was attained from a vaccine, and potentially even longer.
That's why I'm hoping Nevuk is going to post evidence to the contrary, as that'd be very important information that should inform policy.
The CDC's website also confirms that reinfections have already been reported.
Cases of reinfection with COVID-19 have been reported, but remain rare.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/reinfection.html
It's an extremely low reinfection rate so far(~0.0021% in the only study I found on it) , but it is still a a high enough chance that even those who've had it should get the vaccine, as we don't know how long the immunity lasts.
Here's what I was able to find on my own for a study (I can track down my sister to ask her where she read it, but I'm assuming it's a JAMA article.
Oh, I found it. It was a combination of reports of reinfections and this paper about antibodies dropping massively within 2 months.
Now, the antibody count doesn't immediately mean that immunity is lost, but it does make it more likely for antibody tests to fail to pick up someone who had it a long time ago. (IE, reinfections of asymptomatic people may be more common than we are detecting).
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2773576
Here's another jama article talking about why they aren't sure the antibodies cause immunity. (It also talks about how reinfection is still extremely unlikely. Which is true, but still possible).
And yet, until safe and effective vaccines are available, natural immunity and public health measures are the primary approaches to managing pandemics. Unfortunately, it is not yet known if detection of anti–SARS-CoV-2 antibodies by commercial clinical laboratory assays is associated with protective immunity. It is possible that protection requires achieving a specific quantity of a specific subtype of antibody. It is also possible that to achieve protection, antibodies must bind to specific epitopes on the virus, which may differ from the epitopes that are targeted in the commercial assays. Thus, we simply do not know if the seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 that are detected by commercial assays will ultimately translate into protective herd immunity as the virus continues to spread.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2773575
Here's a more recent study on reinfection, the only one I could find:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.18.20234369v1
Within 6 months, 3/1400 health care workers who had previously had an antibody positive test, tested positive for the virus again. The had no symptoms. This sounds good, right? That's how it was reported in the news. I actually think that's a pretty bad sign : it means that they can probably spread it without being aware of it.
Now, they should definitely be the lowest priority, I do agree with that (unless they're a high spread risk, ie healthcare workers). It's just not "0 priority".
They seem to be a lot less likely to suffer if they get it again, but the US reinfection sufferers have had a bad time apparently. The article also indicates these were all peer reviewed cases (they are published in journals), so false positives are unlikely in these cases.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., a 25-year-old man from Nevada and a 42-year-old man in Virginia experienced second bouts of COVID-19 about 2 months after they tested positive the first time. Gene tests show both men had two slightly different strains of the virus, suggesting that they caught the infection twice. Doctors in Seattle have identified a third-case, involving a man in his 60s who spent 40 days in the hospital after testing positive in March, The Associated Press reported. He was re-infected in July.
Researchers say these are the first documented cases of COVID-19 reinfection in the U.S. About two dozen other cases of COVID-19 reinfection have been reported around the globe, from Hong Kong, Belgium, the Netherlands, India, and Ecuador. A third U.S. case, in a 60-year-old in Washington, has been reported but hasn’t yet been peer reviewed.
Unlike most of those cases, however, the men in Reno, NV, and Virginia, and a 46-year-old man in Ecuador, had more severe symptoms during their second infections, potentially complicating the development and deployment of effective vaccines.
The U.S. cases are detailed in new studies published in The Lancet and the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
“Coronaviruses are known to reinfect people -- the seasonal ones -- and so it’s not very surprising to see reinfections occurring with this particular coronavirus,” said Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, an immunobiologist at Yale University who was not involved in either study. “And the fact that there is more severe disease the second time around. It could a be a one-in-a-million event, we don’t know. We’re just becoming aware of the reinfection cases, and they are just a handful among millions of people infected.”
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201012/first-confirmed-us-case-of-covid-reinfections) .
Anyways, this is pretty long so I'll put a tl;dr; here:
Reinfections appear to be possible but extremely rare. Immunity is expected to naturally last years in most people, but may last significantly less time in a small population (some of the reinfections appear to be due to different strains, which complicates this chance slightly). Generally, reinfections are very mild, but at least one death has occurred in an 84 year old woman. Even if someone has had covid, they should still get the vaccine, in order to prevent the possibility of spreading it asymptomatically. They can be treated as very low priority, however, unless they are healthcare workers or caretakers.
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A lot more nuanced than
On December 18 2020 09:23 Nevuk wrote:
There's pretty good evidence that immunity fades off now
I have to say. Extremely rarely do researchers find events of reinfection, complicated by the failure rate of the antibody tests to identify the first infection. It's enough to falsify someone saying immunity always lasts for every person, but not to say immunity fades. In general, immunity fading over time is not a generally observable trend in any study, and not distinguishable from one-in-a-million events (possibly due to other confounding aspects specific to the small handful of people observed).
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I have to agree with Danglars on this. I very much appreciate your effort @Nevuk but it looks to me that policy should be informed by this. It's important that the vaccines are distributed optimally, and moving those who were previously infected to the end of the line makes perfect sense - exceptions being healthcare workers and people in similar positions.
To Vivax' post: Dr. Yeadon is not a credible source on sars-cov-2. A few weeks ago I visited his website and found that by last May he couldn't understand why death rates would increase after each lockdown, saying that it "goes against conventional wisdom" (which it doesn't). By that time it was very well understood how the virus works and that this pattern was perfectly logical. I didn't look much into Dr. Borger, but the fact that he chose to partner up with Dr. Yeadon out of all people makes me think we shouldn't put much weight on Dr. Borger's words either (at least not without heavy scrutiny).
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On December 19 2020 06:02 Danglars wrote:A lot more nuanced than Show nested quote +On December 18 2020 09:23 Nevuk wrote:
There's pretty good evidence that immunity fades off now I have to say. Extremely rarely do researchers find events of reinfection, complicated by the failure rate of the antibody tests to identify the first infection. It's enough to falsify someone saying immunity always lasts for every person, but not to say immunity fades. In general, immunity fading over time is not a generally observable trend in any study, and not distinguishable from one-in-a-million events (possibly due to other confounding aspects specific to the small handful of people observed).
Right, but that comment was in response to "Those who have had it should never be vaccinated". Neither were exactly in-depth statements.
If you read those articles, many of them suggest that it does fade, but over an extremely long time period, if it is similar to previous respiratory viruses. That's all I was getting at: we know immunity *probably* weakens over time, but it could be 6 months or 6 years or 60 years or 600 years (they note that the 1918 flu survivors were still immune in their 100s), we don't know yet. Vaccinate those who have had it already last, sure, but they should still be *able* to get vaccinated.
The main theoretical implication of reinfection is that it is being used as an additional argument against viability of the herd immunity strategy, as it implies we can't wipe it out without widespread vaccine usage.
(If some strains start mutating enough to reinfect then a vaccine moves up to high priority for even those who've had it before).
I fully agree that it's definitely too soon to know for sure on the fading, other than that it seems like immunity will last at least a couple years.
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On December 19 2020 08:19 Magic Powers wrote:
I have to agree with Danglars on this. I very much appreciate your effort @Nevuk but it looks to me that policy should be informed by this. It's important that the vaccines are distributed optimally, and moving those who were previously infected to the end of the line makes perfect sense - exceptions being healthcare workers and people in similar positions.
To Vivax' post: Dr. Yeadon is not a credible source on sars-cov-2. A few weeks ago I visited his website and found that by last May he couldn't understand why death rates would increase after each lockdown, saying that it "goes against conventional wisdom" (which it doesn't). By that time it was very well understood how the virus works and that this pattern was perfectly logical. I didn't look much into Dr. Borger, but the fact that he chose to partner up with Dr. Yeadon out of all people makes me think we shouldn't put much weight on Dr. Borger's words either (at least not without heavy scrutiny).
I agree that those who already caught Covid should be moved to the back of the line, but I disagree with wasting tests on them to make the decision. Most countries haven't even hit one test per person yet. Despite how many people have caught it, a majority of people still haven't. Just allow people to volunteer to be moved back or to if there has been prior information on if they caught Covid. If not available, just give them the vaccine.
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On December 12 2020 19:46 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2020 09:29 BlackJack wrote:On December 12 2020 08:53 Vivax wrote:On December 12 2020 08:32 Dan HH wrote:Trust him guys, Vivax always knows what scientists really think but are afraid to tell you cause they don't want to suicide their careers. Here's a pic of where on my country's graph he told me too many people were immune now for a second wave to hit hard and that the disease is overhyped, when I brought up some worrying local trends following the 1st lockdown being lifted: + Show Spoiler + Trust me on what? If you want, you can applaud lockdowns, stay at home, and take the vaccine. That's your choice. Don't try to make it other peoples. I've said a while ago in this thread that the idea you couldn't get immunity after infection was nonsensical. According to my local medical university, that has recently been proven true. Sometimes thinking on your own and not just copypasting versions from the media proves to be the right approach. I could also just bleat the opinion of everyone else in here, then I'd be looking for validation and not a correct approach. "Thinking on your own" is generally very bad advice for a layman. It's not like people have firsthand knowledge regarding COVID-19. Nobody has a lab in their basement that they are using to run experiments on the virus. Everything you know about COVID-19 you've learned from other sources so you're not so much thinking on your own as you are thinking on what information you choose to believe. Sometimes you will see someone against masks say something like "The virus is 0.02 microns, you think a mask is going to be able to stop something that small? Use some common sense and think for yourself." The irony is that they have no way of measuring the virus themselves so they are completely trusting in science to believe how big the virus is but they won't trust in science to believe that masks are effective. People that claim to be thinking for themselves are often just choosing to believe junk science while ignoring real science. I disagree here. Thinking on your own is generally a good thing. Some people are just really bad at it. For example, if you are thinking on your own about something you have no clue about, the only reasonable conclusion is to either trust what people who know more about it say, or to put in a lot more research yourself. The problem with thinking on your own is that a lot of people are utterly untrained in it, and assume that their pathetic attempts at babies first reasoning are the pinnacle of genius thought. Step one of thinking on your own about a topic is getting a good understanding of what the commonly held ideas about that topic are.
Your argument is valid, but I'm not sure if I should agree or disagree. In recent weeks in Austria 2.1 million people (23% of the population) have voluntarily signed up and taken an antigen test (as part of a mass testing campaign before Christmas). Between 57% and 85% of positive results were then confirmed positive by a follow-up PCR test.
In one of the provinces, using this method, between 0.08% and 0.56% of all antigen tests came out with a positive result.
Also, antigen tests were available for all who would sign up, so the capacity was much greater than the 23% participation rate.
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000122556140/gemischte-beteiligung-wenig-positive-die-bilanz-der-massentests-auf-bezirksebene
I believe this shows that we have enough resources to test a very significant quantity of people for immunity and optimize vaccine distribution that way, as this method minimizes the usage of PCR tests. Those who come out negative on the antigen test should get vaccinated. Those with a positive result should get a PCR test and enter quarantine. If the PCR test comes out negative they should be given vaccination. As the results from the mass testing show, only a small fraction of people would fall into the positive PCR group - but a very meaningful number relative to the available vaccines.
There are also two added benefits to this: In Austria, not only would this move thousands of people with (likely) no immunity to the front, but it would also curb the infection rate by sending thousands of infected people into quarantine - while also being able to track related outbreaks more accurately, all without an invasion of privacy.
Austria will start using the first 10,000 vaccines from Pfizer late December, which are not meant for the general population. In January another 230,000 should arrive from both Pfizer and Biontech. These will be used for people in nursing/retirement homes. Another batch of 200,000 in January should come from Moderna, for healthcare professionals and high-risk groups. A third batch of 2 million from AstraZeneca will be used for people over 65 as well as teachers, police, etc.
Knowing this it seems to me that there will be a constant shortage of vaccines on several fronts for a few months starting now, since the Austrian population is over 9 million.
A major issue is that people in Austria are losing faith/interest in vaccines. 22% want to get vaccinated, 27% "probably" want to get vaccinated (whatever that means). But that same fear does not appear to exist for antigen and PCR tests. I think incentivizing more people to participate in mass testing would help reduce infection rates in spite of the unwillingness by many to get vaccinated.
https://www.vienna.at/10-000-coronavirus-impfstoff-dosen-fuer-oesterreich-start-der-impfung-um-jahreswechsel/6841263
This describes the situation for a wealthy country like Austria. I can only imagine how much more important an optimized strategy will be for other nations. Over half of all vaccines are reserved for only 14% of the world's population. There will be many major shortages in other countries, so I think they will benefit even more from a mass testing strategy.
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On December 19 2020 16:43 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2020 19:46 Simberto wrote:On December 12 2020 09:29 BlackJack wrote:On December 12 2020 08:53 Vivax wrote:On December 12 2020 08:32 Dan HH wrote:Trust him guys, Vivax always knows what scientists really think but are afraid to tell you cause they don't want to suicide their careers. Here's a pic of where on my country's graph he told me too many people were immune now for a second wave to hit hard and that the disease is overhyped, when I brought up some worrying local trends following the 1st lockdown being lifted: + Show Spoiler + Trust me on what? If you want, you can applaud lockdowns, stay at home, and take the vaccine. That's your choice. Don't try to make it other peoples. I've said a while ago in this thread that the idea you couldn't get immunity after infection was nonsensical. According to my local medical university, that has recently been proven true. Sometimes thinking on your own and not just copypasting versions from the media proves to be the right approach. I could also just bleat the opinion of everyone else in here, then I'd be looking for validation and not a correct approach. "Thinking on your own" is generally very bad advice for a layman. It's not like people have firsthand knowledge regarding COVID-19. Nobody has a lab in their basement that they are using to run experiments on the virus. Everything you know about COVID-19 you've learned from other sources so you're not so much thinking on your own as you are thinking on what information you choose to believe. Sometimes you will see someone against masks say something like "The virus is 0.02 microns, you think a mask is going to be able to stop something that small? Use some common sense and think for yourself." The irony is that they have no way of measuring the virus themselves so they are completely trusting in science to believe how big the virus is but they won't trust in science to believe that masks are effective. People that claim to be thinking for themselves are often just choosing to believe junk science while ignoring real science. I disagree here. Thinking on your own is generally a good thing. Some people are just really bad at it. For example, if you are thinking on your own about something you have no clue about, the only reasonable conclusion is to either trust what people who know more about it say, or to put in a lot more research yourself. The problem with thinking on your own is that a lot of people are utterly untrained in it, and assume that their pathetic attempts at babies first reasoning are the pinnacle of genius thought. Step one of thinking on your own about a topic is getting a good understanding of what the commonly held ideas about that topic are. Your argument is valid, but I'm not sure if I should agree or disagree. In recent weeks in Austria 2.1 million people (23% of the population) have voluntarily signed up and taken an antigen test (as part of a mass testing campaign before Christmas). Between 57% and 85% of positive results were then confirmed positive by a follow-up PCR test. In one of the provinces, using this method, between 0.08% and 0.56% of all antigen tests came out with a positive result. Also, antigen tests were available for all who would sign up, so the capacity was much greater than the 23% participation rate. https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000122556140/gemischte-beteiligung-wenig-positive-die-bilanz-der-massentests-auf-bezirksebeneI believe this shows that we have enough resources to test a very significant quantity of people for immunity and optimize vaccine distribution that way, as this method minimizes the usage of PCR tests. Those who come out negative on the antigen test should get vaccinated. Those with a positive result should get a PCR test and enter quarantine. If the PCR test comes out negative they should be given vaccination. As the results from the mass testing show, only a small fraction of people would fall into the positive PCR group - but a very meaningful number relative to the available vaccines. There are also two added benefits to this: In Austria, not only would this move thousands of people with (likely) no immunity to the front, but it would also curb the infection rate by sending thousands of infected people into quarantine - while also being able to track related outbreaks more accurately, all without an invasion of privacy. Austria will start using the first 10,000 vaccines from Pfizer late December, which are not meant for the general population. In January another 230,000 should arrive from both Pfizer and Biontech. These will be used for people in nursing/retirement homes. Another batch of 200,000 in January should come from Moderna, for healthcare professionals and high-risk groups. A third batch of 2 million from AstraZeneca will be used for people over 65 as well as teachers, police, etc. Knowing this it seems to me that there will be a constant shortage of vaccines on several fronts for a few months starting now, since the Austrian population is over 9 million. A major issue is that people in Austria are losing faith/interest in vaccines. 22% want to get vaccinated, 27% "probably" want to get vaccinated (whatever that means). But that same fear does not appear to exist for antigen and PCR tests. I think incentivizing more people to participate in mass testing would help reduce infection rates in spite of the unwillingness by many to get vaccinated. https://www.vienna.at/10-000-coronavirus-impfstoff-dosen-fuer-oesterreich-start-der-impfung-um-jahreswechsel/6841263This describes the situation for a wealthy country like Austria. I can only imagine how much more important an optimized strategy will be for other nations. Over half of all vaccines are reserved for only 14% of the world's population. There will be many major shortages in other countries, so I think they will benefit even more from a mass testing strategy.
Even at your high number of 0.56% positive tests, and then 85% confirmed, that's saving 1 dose per 200 people. Seems like an exorbitant amount of work to save one vaccine dose.
By comparison, assuming there's a national covid registry of some sort, that's one dose per 27 people, for the cost of whatever developing a secure lookup would be. While I would still vaccinate healthcare workers irrespective of prior status, general public doses can be delayed a lot more.
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On December 19 2020 17:52 Amui wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 16:43 Magic Powers wrote:On December 12 2020 19:46 Simberto wrote:On December 12 2020 09:29 BlackJack wrote:On December 12 2020 08:53 Vivax wrote:On December 12 2020 08:32 Dan HH wrote:Trust him guys, Vivax always knows what scientists really think but are afraid to tell you cause they don't want to suicide their careers. Here's a pic of where on my country's graph he told me too many people were immune now for a second wave to hit hard and that the disease is overhyped, when I brought up some worrying local trends following the 1st lockdown being lifted: + Show Spoiler + Trust me on what? If you want, you can applaud lockdowns, stay at home, and take the vaccine. That's your choice. Don't try to make it other peoples. I've said a while ago in this thread that the idea you couldn't get immunity after infection was nonsensical. According to my local medical university, that has recently been proven true. Sometimes thinking on your own and not just copypasting versions from the media proves to be the right approach. I could also just bleat the opinion of everyone else in here, then I'd be looking for validation and not a correct approach. "Thinking on your own" is generally very bad advice for a layman. It's not like people have firsthand knowledge regarding COVID-19. Nobody has a lab in their basement that they are using to run experiments on the virus. Everything you know about COVID-19 you've learned from other sources so you're not so much thinking on your own as you are thinking on what information you choose to believe. Sometimes you will see someone against masks say something like "The virus is 0.02 microns, you think a mask is going to be able to stop something that small? Use some common sense and think for yourself." The irony is that they have no way of measuring the virus themselves so they are completely trusting in science to believe how big the virus is but they won't trust in science to believe that masks are effective. People that claim to be thinking for themselves are often just choosing to believe junk science while ignoring real science. I disagree here. Thinking on your own is generally a good thing. Some people are just really bad at it. For example, if you are thinking on your own about something you have no clue about, the only reasonable conclusion is to either trust what people who know more about it say, or to put in a lot more research yourself. The problem with thinking on your own is that a lot of people are utterly untrained in it, and assume that their pathetic attempts at babies first reasoning are the pinnacle of genius thought. Step one of thinking on your own about a topic is getting a good understanding of what the commonly held ideas about that topic are. Your argument is valid, but I'm not sure if I should agree or disagree. In recent weeks in Austria 2.1 million people (23% of the population) have voluntarily signed up and taken an antigen test (as part of a mass testing campaign before Christmas). Between 57% and 85% of positive results were then confirmed positive by a follow-up PCR test. In one of the provinces, using this method, between 0.08% and 0.56% of all antigen tests came out with a positive result. Also, antigen tests were available for all who would sign up, so the capacity was much greater than the 23% participation rate. https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000122556140/gemischte-beteiligung-wenig-positive-die-bilanz-der-massentests-auf-bezirksebeneI believe this shows that we have enough resources to test a very significant quantity of people for immunity and optimize vaccine distribution that way, as this method minimizes the usage of PCR tests. Those who come out negative on the antigen test should get vaccinated. Those with a positive result should get a PCR test and enter quarantine. If the PCR test comes out negative they should be given vaccination. As the results from the mass testing show, only a small fraction of people would fall into the positive PCR group - but a very meaningful number relative to the available vaccines. There are also two added benefits to this: In Austria, not only would this move thousands of people with (likely) no immunity to the front, but it would also curb the infection rate by sending thousands of infected people into quarantine - while also being able to track related outbreaks more accurately, all without an invasion of privacy. Austria will start using the first 10,000 vaccines from Pfizer late December, which are not meant for the general population. In January another 230,000 should arrive from both Pfizer and Biontech. These will be used for people in nursing/retirement homes. Another batch of 200,000 in January should come from Moderna, for healthcare professionals and high-risk groups. A third batch of 2 million from AstraZeneca will be used for people over 65 as well as teachers, police, etc. Knowing this it seems to me that there will be a constant shortage of vaccines on several fronts for a few months starting now, since the Austrian population is over 9 million. A major issue is that people in Austria are losing faith/interest in vaccines. 22% want to get vaccinated, 27% "probably" want to get vaccinated (whatever that means). But that same fear does not appear to exist for antigen and PCR tests. I think incentivizing more people to participate in mass testing would help reduce infection rates in spite of the unwillingness by many to get vaccinated. https://www.vienna.at/10-000-coronavirus-impfstoff-dosen-fuer-oesterreich-start-der-impfung-um-jahreswechsel/6841263This describes the situation for a wealthy country like Austria. I can only imagine how much more important an optimized strategy will be for other nations. Over half of all vaccines are reserved for only 14% of the world's population. There will be many major shortages in other countries, so I think they will benefit even more from a mass testing strategy. Even at your high number of 0.56% positive tests, and then 85% confirmed, that's saving 1 dose per 200 people. Seems like an exorbitant amount of work to save one vaccine dose. By comparison, assuming there's a national covid registry of some sort, that's one dose per 27 people, for the cost of whatever developing a secure lookup would be. While I would still vaccinate healthcare workers irrespective of prior status, general public doses can be delayed a lot more.
The 0.58% is in regards to the portion of positive PCR tests among all antigen tests (from that one province). The 85% is in regards to positive PCR tests among positive antigen tests (from that one province).
So the 0.58% is the total (highest) portion of all people who did an antigen test and were found positive, including the PCR test. It describes the entirety of both tests.
However, as you correctly point out this is the highest known portion. The mean could perhaps be somewhere around 0.27% (taken from the available numbers. To find the true mean I'd need all the numbers, but it might be in that neighborhood). That would then be 1 in 370 people who'd test positive from mass testing.
But as I explained, I think this method would be helpful despite the low rate of positives. Bare in mind the report only mentions recent infections, it doesn't state how many people were discovered having antibodies.
22% of the Austrian population (those who say they plan on getting vaccinated) would be around 2 million people. Add to that those who are "probably" going to get vaccinated, that's another 2.4 million people or so. Tens of thousands of those people have likely been infected already, and until the first of them receive a vaccine this number will keep going up. Freeing up thousands of vaccines for other people would be helpful.
Add to that the opportunity to find and quarantine many people who are infected at the time of mass testing and also while going to get their vaccine.
But perhaps we won't even have to dig so wide, with so little accuracy. There are antigen tests in development that can detect immunity very accurately. If they work as promised we could fight the virus far more effectively, as we could tell with a very high likelihood whether or not people are (still) immune.
https://www.startribune.com/new-test-by-minnesota-biotech-firm-can-read-covid-antibody-levels/573312841/
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/19/new-coronavirus-strain-in-south-east-england-prompts-fears-of-third-lockdown
This situation is very serious and i recommand reading up on this. It is probably also the reason why in the netherlands we now have measures that go beyond the measures we had in march (shops are also closed now,contrary to march).
Oddly enough this has not made the news at all in the netherlands and as a result the majority of the population doesnt feel any urgency nor worries about the current situation but the uk press has been all over it.
In another article it was reported that this strain could spread 50% faster then any previous strain which could indicate a different means of transmission.
Currently their are no indications that this strain would have an impact on the effectiveness of vaccins or the severity of an infection though research is still beeing done.
This latest mutation might be a storm in a glass of water in the end as much has still to be learned about it but the early signs are not good.
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On December 19 2020 23:09 pmh wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/19/new-coronavirus-strain-in-south-east-england-prompts-fears-of-third-lockdownThis situation is very serious and i recommand reading up on this. It is probably also the reason why in the netherlands we now have measures that go beyond the measures we had in march (shops are also closed now,contrary to march). Oddly enough this has not made the news at all in the netherlands and as a result the majority of the population doesnt feel any urgency nor worries about the current situation but the uk press has been all over it. In another article it was reported that this strain could spread 50% faster then any previous strain which could indicate a different means of transmission. Currently their are no indications that this strain would have an impact on the effectiveness of vaccins or the severity of an infection though research is still beeing done. This latest mutation might be a storm in a glass of water in the end as much has still to be learned about it but the early signs are not good.
If we are lucky that mutation is also less damaging, so it trends towards the normal flu through mutations. If it doesn't trend that way but only get more virulent we might have an issue. If it becomes much worse we could have full lockdowns in places that havn't considered it before.
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Aaand switzerland approve the Biontech vaccine.
idk if we ever get vivax back in the thread, just felt like following up on the geneticist's twitter thread he posted.
Thanks to the rolling procedure and our flexibly organised teams, we nevertheless managed to reach a decision quickly – while also fully satisfying the three most important requirements of safety, efficacy and quality.
Source
I have to say that this is entirely out of my field and this is not intended as a gotcha in any sort of way.
I fully condone scientific discourse and disagreement. It should serve as an incentive to communicate accurately and as simple as possible.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/dfNEhGY.png)
