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Posts posted by Dontshootrude
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1 hour ago, berlinerbaer said:
Random immunology questions... Can someone explain why people are fretting so much about antibody levels when the B cells responsible for making them last the rest of your life? Is the concern that low initial levels during infection would allow the virus to gain a foothold before antibody levels rebound? Can the virus suppress antibody production?
Your antibody level will determine how likely you are to become infected and also, to a lesser extent, how likely you are to have a severe case. Keep in mind you need a lot more antibodies to prevent infection than you do to prevent severe disease. Unfortunately we now know protection against infection is short lived after vaccination (a couple of months) whence why people are concerned about the numbers. However, protection against severe disease and death are certainly going to last significantly longer and I think this protection is being undersold.
The question is how long the B cells (and don't forget T cells!) will last to protect against severe disease. They certainly will last more than a year, but we don't know if there will be appreciable numbers at 5, 10, 20 years or longer to protect against severe disease. That's why some vaccines require regular boosters (like the Tdap that is given every ten years or after exposure) to replenish the B cell and T cell populations that normally die off. It is too early to say what time periods COVID vaccines will be necessary going forward, and what the vaccination schedule will look like for optimal results. I wouldn't be surprised if we see recommendations that mix different vaccine technologies like adenovirus vector (J&J), mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna), subunit (Novavax) and perhaps other technologies that are currently being explored (DNA vaccines, for example) and hammer down scheduling when the shots should be given. We are a long way away from knowing what the optimal solution is here, and we are years, perhaps decades away from fully understanding it unfortunately.
On 12/16/2021 at 11:51 PM, Anastasis said:Click through to the thread for interpretation...
Affinity maturation doing work.
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13 minutes ago, Bevo said:
Didn't you post an article awhile back on the subject? I think it was when you first started posting on COVID.
The vaccines are not directly responsible for the mutations occurring in SAS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Viruses mutate at a predictable frequency. We use that predictable mutation rate to determine where a virus came from, and how long ago it emerged.
The ability of the SARs-CoV-2 virus to mutate and create new variants is mostly dependent on the amount of virus replicating. In other words, when there are more people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, there is more possibility for mutations to occur and new variants to arise.
The timeline for this claim also doesn't add up. The most problematic variant we've dealt with so far, the delta variant, was first isolated in October 2020 in India, from a sample collected in September 2020. India didn't begin a public vaccination campaign until Jan. 16, 2021.
Below I've outlined all the variants of concern currently in the U.S., along with their country of origin, earliest sample date and when public vaccination began in each country.
Alpha
- Location first detected: United Kingdom
- Earliest sample date: Sept. 3, 2020
- The U.K.'s vaccination efforts began Dec. 8, 2020
Beta
- Location first detected: South Africa
- Earliest sample date: Sept. 1, 2020
- South Africa's vaccination efforts began Feb. 17, 2021
Gamma
- Location first detected: Brazil
- Earliest sample date: Oct. 1, 2020
- Brazil's vaccination efforts began Jan. 18, 2021
Delta
- Location first detected: India
- Earliest sample date: Sept. 22, 2020
- India's vaccination efforts began Jan. 16, 2021
As you can see, all of the mutations we're currently dealing with emerged well before the COVID-19 vaccines were publicly available. Learn more about the variants of concern in the U.S.
Vaccinating a large portion of the population will reduce the overall number of infections. Reducing the number of infections reduces the opportunities the virus has to mutate into new variants.
Getting vaccinated, and encouraging your loved ones to get vaccinated, is the best way to prevent more dangerous future mutations.
https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/are-leaky-vaccines-causing-the-new-covid-19-mutations
Probably? It is hard to keep track. There have been a few interesting manuscripts on the subject. This one comes to mind where they saw COVID evolution in a single immunocompromised patient receiving convalescent plasma treatment:
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1 hour ago, RollLeft said:
Moderna vaxxed x2
Last Friday i was on a flight with a dude coughing his lungs out...(My gut tells me it was his inconsiderate ass)
This past Wednesday i had symptoms of what I thought was a cold...
Thursday had a terrible cough...fever wanted to hit but never did, i felt my body fight it off...
Friday a bit of daria(sic) and lost sense of smell....
Today i tested positive...I took 5000u/i of vitamin D and shit ton of C and few of zinc...I'm drinking plenty of water
What else do you opinionated assholes know that i should do....thanks i'll hang up and listen.
If you are in a higher risk category you can try to get a monoclonal antibody infusion, but if you are healthy you should clear the infection in a couple of days thanks to your prior vaccination.
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On 12/17/2021 at 4:10 PM, burdine said:
Mutations can occur in vaxxed of course HOWEVER
the more the virus spreads and the longer it persists in an individual likely increases the opportunity for mutation.
Thus, a vaxxed population should slow the rate of mutation down considerably but not completely.
Not much about covid is black and white.
This is correct. The thought is a lot of these variants are coming from unvaxxed immunocompromised individuals that have persistent long lasting infections. This allows the virus to have a huge number of replication cycles thus increasing the odds a random mutation will occur which leads to a competitive benefit.
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25 minutes ago, G650 said:
Dollar per content is worse than other services, and I have been in a battle with them for over 2 years trying to cancel them.
I just updated my saved credit card with one from my Privacy account and set the spend limit to $1. So fuck them they won't be scamming me too. Thanks for the heads up.
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7 minutes ago, G650 said:
Dollar per content is worse than other services, and I have been in a battle with them for over 2 years trying to cancel them.
Oh shit. Well that doesn't bode well. I'll definitely be cancelling before the free trial period is over.
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34 minutes ago, G650 said:
Fubo is fucking awful and borderline criminal syndicate
I just signed up for the free trial. What's wrong with it?
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21 minutes ago, Caponata said:
Yeah he said him and his family have had all of the required vaccinations including for Covid. Seems like he wants vaccinations as well as treatments. I don't get the pushback against treatments but whatever.. I got vaccinated and if I were somehow to be hospitalized I would want access to the current available treatments.
Which treatments was he referring to? I have a big problem with the meme treatments that became political we've seen throughout the pandemic. Hydroxychloroquine, for example, had little evidence to support it and only became a thing when President Idiot said it worked in a press conference. Ivermectin quickly turned into a political symbol as well.
There has been an impressive push to get proven treatments (corticosteroids, monoclonal antibodies) to the people who need them. Pfizer's rapid development of its COVID specific protease inhibitor is unprecedented as well.
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23 hours ago, Anastasis said:
Legit reason why stuff like ivermectin and HCQ could impact the mortality numbers in third world countries.
Scott Alexander did a great job breaking down the evidence on his blog.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted
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2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:
I'd be curious about a theoretical explanation of how two doses could confer little protection and yet a third dose could confer a fairly high degree of protection. I know dose response is a thing, but that seems a little too much all or nothing. I assume it is partly because we have limited data. But assuming the observations are somewhat real, what is the best explanation for the results?
There is going to be little protection from becoming infected, but protection from severe disease/hospitalization/death is going to remain very high. This aligns with what we are seeing on the ground as omicron is resulting in very few hospitalizations and deaths.
To reinforce this, T cell data was released examining how well they should recognize omicron. TL;DR, the T cell epitopes are largely conserved. T cells recognize more of the protein than B cells/antibodies, so it makes sense that they should be harder for the variants to escape. This will allow our immune systems to rapidly recognize, respond, and adapt to this variant.
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Just now, Bevo said:
Ha, I traveled to Cancun during the ice storm earlier in the year. The government required proof that you had COVID previously along with a letter from a physician stating that you were no longer contagious or a negative PCR test within a few days of travel, regardless of vaccination status. That policy later changed. But the point remains, for a long time public health basically only recognized natural immunity and did not recognize the vaccine. I bitched about it on this thread because I was fearful that someone in my group would get a false positive PCR result that would lead in us getting stuck in Mexico.
Along the same lines, why does a US citizen need a negative test to reenter the country if they are fully vaxxed AND boosted? The policies are way out of line.
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15 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:
I have seen studies and "experts" say both it is superior and inferior to unnatural immunity. There does not seem to be a clear consensus, at least in the US.
When I see people discussing vaccination vs natural immunity, I often feel like people are treating the argument like a sporting event or a race. I believe the entire argument should be reframed. We don’t need to know which one is better, we need to know if they are adequate, and at this point we can conclusively say that both are adequate and are roughly equivalent for our end goals. We know the vaccines are generating good long-term immunity. We see that with the clinical, immune response, and booster studies. Natural immunity is producing similar results, but like the vaccines, it isn't some magic shield that will protect you from getting COVID forever. I'm certain we will see reinfections in recovered individuals as well because antibody response/immunity wanes after an infection is cleared just like after vaccination. And I think natural immunity is a lot harder to study clinically, because enrollment of applicable patient groups, selecting controls, etc is much more challenging compared to designing the same studies looking at vaccine efficacy. As such we don't have the same data that shows reinfection rate vs time from recovery like we do with the vaccines, and that might be muddling the message some.
The example I like to give is to pretend there are two firing squads. In one firing squad you put 12 soldiers on the firing line, and in the second you put ten. Are the outcomes appreciably different? This is closer to the reality of the differences between vaccinated and natural immunity.
Why our public health officials don’t recognize natural immunity is beyond me. The data is there to support that decision, and several other countries around the world are doing so. In the European Union, for example, their COVID digital certificate allows for travel and access to public places and it can be obtained from infection recovery. At the very least, people in this category should only be required to receive one mRNA shot as there has been almost no documented benefit from getting a second shot that close after the first when recovered from infection. And again, many countries around the world have adopted this policy. I think we should too, especially now that people's jobs are on the line and we are already facing significant labor and supply chain issues.
With all that being said, if you haven't had the infection and are left with the choice of the vaccine or infection, the choice clearly favors vaccination. The small added benefit from natural immunity is not worth the substantially increased risk and unknown long term effects of the actual infection.
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1 hour ago, Harrison Bergeron said:
I wish we had a clearer picture on natural immunity. Like everything with SARS-CoV-2, it seems like the studies and "experts" say polar opposite things. I realize scientific examination is not always clean, but this feels like something that we should have a pretty clear and aligned POV at least directionally.
What's not clear? Serious question.
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14 hours ago, Anastasis said:
Is it a correct understanding that their are three channels? S, N, and control?
My understanding is that the omicron is easily picked up by PCR with the S drops.
Which might explain some curious trends in S dropped PCR results in UK and US even prior to SA identifying omicron...broad circulation of omicron before SA picked up on it.
There are actually 4 targets in the Thermofisher kit which is used by a large number of labs in the US and Europe.
The PCR amplifies separate targets in the ORF1ab, S, and N genes, along with a control (MS2).
The S gene drops because of a deletion in the region targeted by the TaqMan probe that coincidentally was also in the UK (alpha) variant. The N and ORF1ab targets are conserved and therefore will amplify when omicron is present.
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On 12/7/2021 at 8:10 PM, Newdoc said:
Early data shows some protection against Omicron with previous infection but not a lot, vaccination alone seems to be better and previous variant infection and vaccination even better. There are so many variables within individuals as well. Omicron is going to spread very quickly with short doubling times. Cross fingers this doesn't end with serious disease for any percentage of the population. This could be more of an economic disrupter than serious hospital strain if large swaths of our population is at home on quarantine for 10 days at a time (even with mild illness). Outpatient clinics are going to potentially get overwhelmed.
There are only preprint in vitro studies for immune protection as well and the media is going to FUBAR the results and get everyone in a panic regardless if needed. Horse is out of the barn now. Best thing to do is get immunized, get boosted if due and stay healthy.
Oh, and there is some concern Omicron is mutated enough to avoid certain PCR testing because the genetic markers PCR test for have changed. Rapid testing could be more accurate in some situations. Strange times.
FYI: the S gene PCR is never run in isolation. The N gene is the major target of every assay I can think of, including the CDC and WHO tests, and those targets are conserved among all the variants seen thus far. I don't worry very much about false negatives from mutations at this point, and PCR is still far more accurate than the antigen tests.
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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/covid-test-false-positive-failure-cdc-documentsBuzzfeed is normally trash, but this article is by far the most comprehensive and accurate description of the testing disaster in early 2020. Really good read.
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welandedonthemoon.jpg
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2 minutes ago, Burnt Orange in OC said:
Ahhh.... that's cute. Someone who thinks Magic Johnson got AIDS through heterosexual contact.
Did he get it from you?
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New rock bottom? Losing to a 1-8 Kansas a home.....Jesus Christ.
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Just now, You don't know me said:
So the original image was altered. Does that about sum it up?
The zoomed in picture is not reliable. That is my take away.
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1 minute ago, JBJ said:
The state's photo enhancement expert witness doesn't know how the sampling algorithms work....
This is so painful.
COVID-19 vaccine discussion
in Daily Texan
Posted · Edited by Dontshootrude
The single shot she got from Moderna should have provided her with a substantial boost and will bring her up to roughly the same level of protection as someone who had 3 mRNA shots. And I'm only talking about antibody response here.....her T cell immunity might be preferable, but we don't have solid data to know this for sure right now.
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