Promising New Coronavirus Vaccine

[TechTalk]

However, just as not all vaccinated will get a breakthrough infection, not all unvaccinated are going to get infected either, and even those who do, a good portion will have such small or non-existent symptoms as to not be infectious.

However, the risk of infection remains much higher for unvaccinated than vaccinated people. Studies so far show that vaccinated people are 8 times less likely to be infected and 25 times less likely to experience hospitalization or death.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... anything less than 100 percent efficacy means they don’t work.

In truth, though, medical experts have long said that no vaccine, including the coronavirus vaccines, is 100 percent effective. If “immunity” connotes complete protection, then no vaccine actually provides it.[/i]

Another straw man argument. No one of any significance argued it has to be 100%.

By the same token, I do not recall ever receiving yearly shots for any of the many vaccines I got throughout my life. Except the flu shots. Hence the distinction.

Now correct me if wrong... as for immunity" and "complete protection"... say a (true) vaccine is said to provide 80% protection, which means, to layman like me, that 80% of the recipients will have a complete protection (immunity), while 20% won't have any. It does not mean that every recepient will be 80% protected. Do I get this right?

[TechTalk]

There is a video of him repeatedly stating, numerous times, that there should be no vaccine mandates, up until now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtYEDMy9Bk

Science is rarely, if ever, certain in an absolute sense. It would go against the fundamental principles of science if views didn't change with new evidence or under different conditions. Unfortunately, there is always a portion of the population with an inherent deep seated fear of uncertainty who cannot understand or accept changing ideas and circumstances whether it involves science or anything else.

[Robert Roaldi]

There is a video of him repeatedly stating, numerous times, that there should be no vaccine mandates, up until now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtYEDMy9Bk

Talk about straw-manning. Kills me the way when someone changes their mind about how to handle something, especially something that's still developing, that it is referred to as flip-flopping.  Shitcan the loaded language, please. People change their minds on things when new evidence comes in that warrants it. That is exactly what routinely goes on at the forefront. This is understood and expected.

Besides which, I still don't really understand what flip-flopping you are talking about. From the get-go, maintain hygiene and social distancing and get vaccinated. So you say he changed his mind about mandates. So what. What were his reasons? Unless you present his reasons, your statement holds no real value.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...So what...

That sums it up... when faced with an argument you can't counter 

[Robert Roaldi]

Your verbosity is another example how strawmanning works: you gloriously appear to defeat the argument, although that wasn't the argument.

You talk about being infected, and Alan (and I) about being infectious.

Two short paragraphs is verbosity?

If it was too long for you to read, here's the simple version: Vaccines help to create herd immunity, which helps to reduce the R-naught factor to below 1, which is how you stop a pandemic. This has been understood since forever.

If what you're worried about is that vaccinated people, after having ingested a viral load, could maybe pass it onto others before their immune systems kill the little buggers off, I suppose that could be the case. So what? That's why isolation and hygiene continue to be advised even after being vaccinated. It was never going to be anything other than a multi-tiered solution, this is also nothing new and has been addressed many times here and elsewhere. I don't understand why this needs to be explained over and over again.

[Robert Roaldi]

That sums it up... when faced with an argument you can't counter 

Take a phrase out of context and don't quote the rest of the sentence. Well done.

[TechTalk]

Another straw man argument. No one of any significance argued it has to be 100%.

someone even suggested these (C19 and the flu) shouldn't even be called vaccines, but rather shots, given that they do not create immunity

By the same token, I do not recall ever receiving yearly shots for any of the many vaccines I got throughout my life. Except the flu shots. Hence the distinction.

There are many different vaccines for many different diseases. Influenza, has existed for so long, is so widespread, and is able to mutate so quickly that new vaccine formulations are required for new strains of the disease annually. Different diseases behave differently. Vaccines for some other diseases do not provide lifetime protection and will require booster shots at various times in your life, often years apart.

Now correct me if wrong... as for immunity" and "complete protection"... say a (true) vaccine is said to provide 80% protection, which means, to layman like me, that 80% of the recipients will have a complete protection (immunity), while 20% won't have any. It does not mean that every recepient will be 80% protected. Do I get this right?

I have no idea what you mean by a "(true) vaccine".

As to the rest of it, I don't believe that you have any of it right with regard to any vaccines, or immunity, or protection.

https://www.cdc.gov/ss1978/lesson3/Vaccine efficacy or vaccine effectiveness

Vaccine efficacy and vaccine effectiveness measure the proportionate reduction in cases among vaccinated persons.

Vaccine efficacy/effectiveness is interpreted as the proportionate reduction in disease among the vaccinated group. So a VE of 90% indicates a 90% reduction in disease occurrence among the vaccinated group, or a 90% reduction from the number of cases you would expect if they have not been vaccinated.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/09/vaccine-skeptics-claim-new-cdc-gotcha-moment-they-havent-got-much/

The Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary defines immunity as “a condition of being able to resist a particular disease.” Taber’s Medical Dictionary defines it as, “Protection from diseases, [especially] from infectious diseases.” Harvard’s medical dictionary defines it as, “The body’s ability to resist infection and disease.” The Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary echoes all of them, saying immunity is “the body’s ability to resist infection.”

(These definitions, it bears noting, have not been changed recently.)

The data clearly shows the coronavirus vaccines meet these definitions of providing immunity, as do other vaccines with less than 100 percent efficacy. Those include the flu vaccines, whose efficacy is generally around 40 percent. The flu vaccines are still vaccines and still provide immunity — just not complete immunity.

And to the extent this is some supposed grand conspiracy to move the goal posts on the coronavirus vaccines, it would also be a very incomplete one. Throughout its website, the CDC still refers to the coronavirus vaccines providing immunity.

The irony of all of this is that the theories about what the change really means actually reinforce the idea that it’s probably better to use “protection” than “immunity” — given that people don’t seem to understand what “immunity” actually means.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Now correct me if wrong... as for immunity" and "complete protection"... say a (true) vaccine is said to provide 80% protection, which means, to layman like me, that 80% of the recipients will have a complete protection (immunity), while 20% won't have any. It does not mean that every recepient will be 80% protected. Do I get this right?

You (TechTalk) have not answered this simple question? In other words, explain please to me what an 80% protection means.

[TechTalk]

You (TechTalk) have not answered this simple question? In other words, explain please to me what an 80% protection means.

Vaccine efficacy/effectiveness is interpreted as the proportionate reduction in disease among the vaccinated group. So a VE of 90% indicates a 90% reduction in disease occurrence among the vaccinated group, or a 90% reduction from the number of cases you would expect if they have not been vaccinated.

[Robert Roaldi]

You (TechTalk) have not answered this simple question? In other words, explain please to me what an 80% protection means.

Multi-tiered protection. No one solution is a magic bullet, so you mitigate that by implementing multiple tiers. Good analogy from Michael Lewis's book Premonition: A slice of Swiss cheese does not form a perfect barrier because of the holes. So you layer on several slices such that the holes don't line up and thus a barrier is formed. This has been the medical advice from the start, hygiene, vaccine, distancing..., etc. You put enough of these multiple tiers between enough people and you stop a pandemic.

You are on record saying that you not "believe" in such a thing as "public health". I think you need to give that some more thought. Besides, "belief" has nothing to do with it.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Vaccine efficacy/effectiveness is interpreted as the proportionate reduction in disease among the vaccinated group. So a VE of 90% indicates a 90% reduction in disease occurrence among the vaccinated group, or a 90% reduction from the number of cases you would expect if they have not been vaccinated.

So the answer to my earlier question would be "yes, Slobodan, you got it right." Meaning that 80% (in my question, and 90% in your answer) of vaccinated people would be totally protected.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... hygiene, vaccine, distancing...

But guess what, we do not want to live our lives by permanently socially distancing and being muzzled. We gave you two weeks, you took two years and counting. You promised a true vaccine (permanent immunity), you gave us a semi-annual subscription shots, with which we still have to remain muzzled and distant. Enough!

[TechTalk]

So the answer to my earlier question would be "yes, Slobodan, you got it right." Meaning that 80% (in my question, and 90% in your answer) of vaccinated people would be totally protected.

80% of the recipients will have a complete protection (immunity), while 20% won't have any.

I said in my response I don't "believe" you have it right, I'm not an immunologist. I think that saying one person will have total or "complete protection" and someone else "won't have any" isn't really how vaccines work. Vaccines work by giving your own immune system a head start in attacking a disease, by essentially providing it with a disease sample (which cannot replicate and cause disease) ahead of being infected to provide faster recognition if infected and priming the production of antibodies to attack and destroy it. That's my layman's understanding of how all vaccines of every type work—but I could be wrong or over simplifying.

For example, with the current COVID vaccines, some people who are vaccinated may become infected and become sick, but with far less severe symptoms and disease course than an unvaccinated person due to the boost in immune response, from vaccination, prior to infection. So while they may not have had "complete protection" from the disease, they did benefit from some protection in reduction of severity. As others have said, a vaccine isn't a shield that provides a complete barrier to infection. A vaccine isn't like an on/off switch where it's providing ""complete protection" or none at all.

If you really are looking for definitive answers, I would suggest Google. I'm getting worn out as a Google substitute. If it relieves me from more questions, I'll just say "yes, Slobodan, you got it right.", hand you your gold star, and take a nice nap.

https://www.nature.com/articles/A guide to vaccinology: from basic principles to new developments

[Robert Roaldi]

But guess what, we do not want to live our lives by permanently socially distancing and being muzzled. We gave you two weeks, you took two years and counting. You promised a true vaccine (permanent immunity), you gave us a semi-annual subscription shots, with which we still have to remain muzzled and distant. Enough!

What do you mean "Enough!", that's hilarious. Are you going to stamp your feet and hold your breath now? Or are you still clinging to your original idea to let the thing rip through the population and do nothing about it. Do you still think that would work better?

"We gave you two weeks...", now that's precious.

Who exactly promised you a permanent immunity vaccine? Now THERE's a straw man!

The prescribed methods were not universally observed and so the outcomes were kind of predictable, weren't they. It takes all of those measures for a sustained period of time to achieve the desired result. That's just how it is. 

It might be best to think about this as an experiment. What happens if a new virus rips through a population? How should we respond? Did we fail? Are we prepared for the next one?  Was anything learned?

[TechTalk]

You've got to be kidding! I was so busy typing that I missed that beauty!

Who knew, before Slobodan told us, what a "true vaccine" was? Doctors and scientists didn't even know that!

You can have that one Robert! Good luck!

[Robert Roaldi]

You've got to be kidding! I was so busy typing that I missed that beauty!

Who knew, before Slobodan told us, what a "true vaccine" was? Doctors and scientists didn't even know that!

You can have that one Robert! Good luck!

No thanks, time to go prepare supper. It's sad how all the same old arguments keep popping up nearly 2 years later. Well, more boring than sad at this point.

With books like Michael Lewis's Premonition and probably many others to follow, there will soon be a good selection of popular books on the subject for people to pore over in the coming years. I'm pessimistic about us learning anything though, I'm not sure this culture can learn anymore. Even if some of us do learn something, when the next crisis comes along we'll likely repeat the same errors. Not only do we not have institutional or social memory, many don't even think those things are important.

I mean, take a step back, we (meaning the wider culture) turned a fight against a virus into a political argument. That was obviously the wrong thing to do and that's not the virus's fault. There was something wrong in the culture that enabled this.

[Alan Klein]

Great! Then the entire population will soon be vaccinated!

You avoided addressing Slobodan's concern you and didn't address his point.

[Alan Klein]

There is only one Dr. Fauci and I would listen to anything that he has to say regarding infectious diseases. One common ploy used by those that want to dismiss scientific expertise is to point to changes in the advice and opinions of scientists. This is usually done by people that have very rigid views and are extremely reluctant to change them—under any circumstances.

A good example is the video to which you linked. It's eagerly lapped up by those that have a bias against "experts" and their opinions. What those people will willfully ignore and never take into consideration is that what would be recommended by public health officials under normal conditions, a year before a deadly pandemic, are not the same recommendations they would be giving during the ongoing spread and evolution of a deadly pandemic.

While changes in the recommendations under those two very different circumstances are understandable and reasonable to the majority of the population seeking to protect themselves and others during a pandemic; those with a blind spot caused by a deeply ingrained resentment of "experts" who have deep knowledge in areas which they don't posses, will latch on to any excuse not to listen and dismiss their advice as phony.

Science is rarely, if ever, certain in an absolute sense. It would go against the fundamental principles of science if views didn't change with new evidence or under different conditions. Unfortunately, there is always a portion of the population with an inherent deep seated fear of uncertainty who cannot understand or accept changing ideas and circumstances whether it involves science or anything else.

Fauci said early on that masks for the general public were not necessary.  It doesn't matter if his secret and concerned rationale were to protect the small supply left for medical workers.  He lied about it even if his false claim had a noble intent.  His credibility from that point on became doubted by many.  It seemed he was a game player, a politician. 

[Alan Klein]

It was crystal clear who wrote that post because of the very absence of a link.

Many posts quote someone else and no link is provided.  So this one could have been seen as a quote without attribution.