CDC study shows three-fourths of people infected in Massachusetts covid-19 outbreak were vaccinated

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

A sobering scientific analysis published Friday of an explosive Massachusetts covid-19 outbreak fueled by the delta variant found that three-quarters of the people who became infected were fully vaccinated. The report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bolstered the hypothesis that vaccinated people can spread the more transmissible variant and may be a factor in the summer surge of infections. The data, detailed in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, provided key evidence that convinced agency scientists to reverse recommendations on mask-wearing and advise that vaccinated individuals wear masks in indoor public settings in some circumstances.

Critically, the study found that vaccinated individuals carried as much virus in their noses as unvaccinated individuals, and that vaccinated people could spread the virus to each other. The CDC was criticized this week for changing its mask guidance without citing unpublished data. The report released Friday contains that data. "This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC's updated mask recommendation," CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. "The masking recommendation was updated to ensure the vaccinated public would not unknowingly transmit virus to others, including their unvaccinated or immunocompromised loved ones."

Scientists said the Provincetown outbreak and other recent data on breakthrough infections make clear that the vaccines do work, as hoped, against severe illness and death, but do not offer blanket protection against any chance of infection. Only a handful of people in the outbreak were hospitalized, but four of them were fully vaccinated. A CDC internal document obtained by The Washington Post estimated that 35,000 vaccinated people a week are having symptomatic breakthrough infections out of a vaccinated population of more than 162 million. Vaccination coverage is higher than average in Massachusetts, with nearly 70 percent of residents fully vaccinated.

"This shows the delta is formidable," said Larry Corey, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "We can't take one report of packed bars and extrapolate and say the sky is falling. The sky is not falling. But it does say the vaccine is not infallible. "Common sense has to be used," Corey said. "It's a learning moment, it's a teaching moment. You can't overlook the vast data we have on the effectiveness of the vaccine."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/30/provincetown-covid-outbreak-vaccinated/

---

I know there was mention at the CDC telecon presser that the data would be released.

ETA - here is a link to their report - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cidmm7031e2_w

ETA 2 - Here was Fauci discussing the problem with Delta this past Wednesday -

[mucifer]

1. Public Health Officials need to be clear on the message that vaccines stop

severe illness and death in almost all cases AND they need to be clear with the public the vaccine does not stop the delta variant. We will get the variant if we are exposed as easily as the non vaccinated.

[TimeToGo]

38. Maybe, but I think there is a leap in your reasoning

Vaccines don’t always stop the variant.

[mucifer]

39. reread my post I was clear. I said almost always stops severe illness or death with delta

[womanofthehills]

75. Two weeks ago it was reported 79 fully vaccinated died in Mass

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/-fully-vaccinated-massachusetts-residents-have-died--hospitalized-in-very-rare-covid-breakthrough-cases-officials-say/ar-AAM72Eh

[cannabis_flower]

84. Over 4 million fully vaccinated

Only 303 hospitalized and 79 deaths.

That’s less than .0076% hospitalized and .002% who died.

I’d say it shows the vaccines work.

Weren’t they saying before the vaccines that something like.1% of people were dying?

[NH Ethylene]

97. Those percentages would be meaningful if all the vaccinated were infected with the Delta variant.

But only a tiny fraction of the fully vaccinated have had breakthrough infections.

From the Provincetown study: "Overall, 274 (79%) vaccinated patients with breakthrough infection were symptomatic. Among five COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated; no deaths were reported."

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w

So in this small study, 4 out of 274 symptomatic patients were hospitalized and nobody died. Three of them had the Johnson & Johnson, one had the Pfizer vaccine.

That amounts to 1.5 % who became seriously ill. Of course, this is a tiny sample but it does indicate that serious cases are well above the numbers you posted.

[Major Nikon]

85. 0.0019 percent

[mucifer]

87. In Illinois it's a few hundred people. They mostly have pre existing conditions and 6 million

have been vaccinated. About 2 % of those who have died in hospital have been fully vaxxed, again mostly with pre underlying disease.

[TimeToGo]

102. I was going by this line:

"We will get the variant if we are exposed as easily as the non vaccinated." That's just not the case. I do believe we have to be cautious and safe. And it certainly doesn't hurt for us to monitor our activities as if it is the case. But . . .

[agingdem]

82. just like the flu vaccine

impossible to inoculate against an ever changing virus..the vaccinated will contract the virus but will survive it with less severe symptoms...and can we lose the word "breakthrough" because the covid vaccines are not inoculations..the MMR and DPT are inoculations

[wnylib]

89. Fauci clarified this today in an NPR interview.

He said the same thing as mucifer just posted.

Delta is spread by both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Previous variants were spread only by unvaccinated people.

So vaccinated people should wear masks to prevent spreading delta to each other and to unvaccinated people, especially to people who cannot get vaccinated or for whom vaccines don't work because of health reasons.

We also want to stop spreading it to ANYONE because as long as it has human hosts, it can continue to mutate.

When vaccinated people get infected, they USUALLY don't have symptoms, or have only mild symptoms. But, if they are over 65, or if they have underlying health problems, or get exposed to a higher viral load, they might get a much worse case. Even for vaccinated people who get symptoms, the vaccine usually prevents serious illness and death, so it is worth getting the shots.

[Ms. Toad]

99. I don't think "only" is accurate as to earlier variants -

but it was certainly a much lower risk of transmision.

[wnylib]

104. I'm pretty sure that, before delta, Fauci

said that vaccinated people were not transmitting the virus. He initially advised people to continue wearing masks after vaccination until they could be sure that vaccinated people were not transmitting the virus. When he approved going maskless around other vaccinated peoole, it was because he believed that vaccinated people did not carry or transmit the virus.

Today on NPR, he said the same thing. He said that the difference between alpha and delta is that vaccinated people did not spread alpha or some other variants, but they do spread delta. He also said that delta is so different from other variants that it is almost like a different virus.

[Ms. Toad]

108. Again. I'm pretty sure transmission is possible in breakthrough cases

regardless of the variant. Too many people are prone to speaking in absolutes, or in exaggeration, without providing the data to back it up.

Heck - just the other day Biden said if you get the vaccine you won't get sick and you won't die.

It is hyprebole like this that increases the risk when vaccinated people treat it as gospel truth,

Delta certainly is much more contagious in vaccinated people than earlier variants - but I am prettysure it is a matter of degree, not binary.

Is a vaccinated person less likely to transmit the virus than one who is unvaccinated? Does viral load play a role?
Studies show that even though vaccinated people can get infected, their viral loads (the amount of virus present), as well as the duration of the viral shedding (how long viral particles are released during daily activities) are much lower compared to individuals without the vaccine. In that regard, the vaccination itself reduces the transmission rate.

Without vaccination, COVID-19 is transmitted largely by asymptomatic people. It’s estimated that between 50% and 60% of transmission is by those who are infected but without symptoms, so they don’t even know they are infected. Because they are unvaccinated, they might have a very high viral load, and that plays a big role in the course of the illness and likelihood of spreading the disease.

After vaccinations, such instances are dramatically reduced and the overall asymptomatic infection rate is much lower. Even if these individuals do become infected without symptoms, the viral load can be lower and the time period of shedding is narrower, so overall the chance of these people spreading the virus is much lower.

https://connect.uclahealth.org/2021/07/22/breakthrough-covid-cases-what-we-know-so-far/

UAB’s Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Michael Saag says fully vaccinated people can become infected asymptotically or with minimal symptoms and still spread COVID-19 to others.

Saag says the situation with the New York Yankees is a good example of where a handful of players who got vaccinated still spread it to others.

https://www.wsfa.com/2021/05/19/can-fully-vaccinated-people-still-spread-virus/

[wnylib]

118. I agree that many people do speak

in absolutes and hyperbole, but I don't think that Tony Fauci is one of them.

[Ms. Toad]

119. You do recall his early statements on masks, don't you?

The data contradicted what he was saying a the time he said it.

[oldsoftie]

69. And that the vaccines were developed for the ORIGINAL strain

Now we've got one thats 1000x more crap in your nostrils, so they cant be expected to be as effective

[SheltieLover]

2. Long haul also can, and often does, occur in fully vaxed folks

Ty for sharing!

😷

[Dream Girl]

5. Really? First I've heard of this. Can you provide a link?

Otherwise could be construed as misinformation. Probably not your intend but you put it out there in a pretty flippant matter.

[SheltieLover]

14. Talk to OhioChick

She and her 2 ER Dr. sons are prime examples.

Also, please check Dr. Ding, Harvard epidemiologist tweets.

Dr. Ding has been spot on with all of this info that is now coming out.

[Dream Girl]

26. Thanks. In order to have "long haul" I'm assuming one would have to be symptomatic and pretty

Sick and that. Is that correct? I’m not being argumentative, just want to understand the long haul thing since my son tested positive after his jab but had no symptoms.

[SheltieLover]

28. The way I understand it,

Even asymptomatic or mild cases can result in long haul.

I'm fully vaxed with both Pfizers since March & will be 1st in line for a booster when available.

The vaccines are a miracle, but they are not a magic shield, unfortunately.

And, really, it makes sense. With delta causing 1,000 times the viral load, damage can happen to organ systems.

My only intention in posting about this is to caution those who are fully vaxed to maintain protocols to ensure they are avoiding infection.

[Ms. Toad]

33. Long haul COVID does occur in mild, even asymptomatic, cases.

Why can asymptomatic people get long-haul symptoms?
It’s not entirely known why asymptomatic people can have long-haul symptoms. But even if you don’t experience noticeable side effects, it doesn’t mean COVID-19 isn’t taxing on your body: your immune system could still be going into overdrive and the virus could still be causing damage throughout your body.

https://www.henryford.com/blog/2021/05/asymptomatic-long-haulers#:~:text=But%20now%2C%20research%20is%20showing,after%20they've%20tested%20negative.

Many people who experience long-term symptoms from the coronavirus did not feel sick at all when they were initially infected, according to a new study that adds compelling information to the increasingly important issue of the lasting health impact of Covid-19.

The study, one of the first to focus exclusively on people who never needed to be hospitalized when they were infected, analyzed electronic medical records of 1,407 people in California who tested positive for the coronavirus. More than 60 days after their infection, 27 percent, or 382 people, were struggling with post-Covid symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain, cough or abdominal pain.

Nearly a third of the patients with such long-term problems had not had any symptoms from their initial coronavirus infection through the 10 days after they tested positive, the researchers found.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/health/long-covid-asymptomatic.html

It's one of many reasons treating COVID 19 so cavalierly - as if death is the only thing to worry about - makes me so angry. We should be trying to prevent COVID (by layers of protection), not just saying if it doesn't kill me the vaccine was a success so I don't have to worry about myself (guess that's their choice) or anyone else (that's damn selfish).

[Tadpole Raisin]

58. You are so right!

I know they don’t want to create a panic and thank goodness we have the vaccine but indifference and carelessness have allowed this virus to mutate so much that we are now facing an increasingly deadly strain and it didn’t have to be this way.

I’m also tired of having every case of COVID not in the hospital be called mild. I’ve heard of too many cases where people said it was worse than the worst flu they ever had. That ain’t mild - but that’s just my opinion!

[Ms. Toad]

66. One of my friends in Provincetown, and a friend of his

were extremely shocked by how sick their friends got.

They figured they were vaccinated - so no big deal. It would be like a cold. People who should know better bought into the righ wing it's just a cold and paid no attention to the devastating consequences short of hosptalization. That garbage is being spewed here on DU, as well.

[wnylib]

100. Totally agree that people on DU are buying into

the RW talking points when they downplay the "mild" cases. It's very annoying because even people who are not hospitalized can get very sick for weeks, suffer organ damage, and have long covid symptoms for months.

Post viral, long term symptoms are not new to covid. They can occur with other viruses. Polio is one example. About 6years ago, I had 4 back to back bouts of viral bronchitis due to reinfections at work. I was not hospitalized, but got very sick. When it cleared up, I had polymyalgia rheumatica which was crippling and took two years of Prednisone to recover from.

[Rebl2]

95. They don't

want to create panic. Seems like trump said the same thing.

[wnylib]

98. Thanks. You beat me to it, and from the same sources.

[Dream Girl]

106. They seem to conflate people who were not hospitalized with "asymptotic" people, then they drag in

In people with mild symptoms experiencing long haul.These snippets and links are kind of all ove4 the place. My question is if someone is without symptoms, how to they then suffer from long haul symptoms?

[wnylib]

122. Check out the link at post #33 for the

Henry Ford Health center. Their director of infectious contagion and prevention, Dr. Dennis Cunningham, states that asymptomatic people develop long haul covid symptoms months after infection.

The article says that it definitely does happen, but that no one knows why yet. One suggestion in the article is that, just like people with symptoms, the immune systems of the asymptomatic people also go into "overdrive" in reaction to the covid virus. They don't produce visible, noticeable symptoms, but the immune reaction causes internal organ and tissue inflammation that is not discovered until they get long covid symptoms from it months later, when the internal damage builds up.

The article says that this is a possible explanation for how it happens, but that studies are needed to confirm it. So they don't know exactly how, but they do know that it definitely happens.

[hueymahl]

27. I appreciate the info

I did a google search, and could not find any studies supporting the anecdotal evidence you provided. Do you happen to have any links?

[SheltieLover]

29. Pls talk to OhioChick

She & her 2 ER Dr. Sons are all suffering long haul after being fully vaxed.

Also, pls check Dr. Ding's twitter. He is a Harvard epidemiologist who has been well ahead of the curve on delta.

[hueymahl]

31. So, no links?

I don't know Ohio Chick. And I don't have twitter.

Sounds a lot like the mythical friend of a friend's brother actually saw Sasquatch.

[BigmanPigman]

88. OhioChick was very helpful with me when

I had tons of questions about masks in March 2020. I contacted her through DU mail. Have you ever done that? Go to your DU Inbox and the first thing says "send mail to Du member" and you just type in their name.

[SheltieLover]

111. Yes

She has been very helpful to me, too.

My biggest concern has been what the effects of infection can be for fully vaxed, especially long-term.

She is suffering terribly.

[BigmanPigman]

121. Oh no, I had no idea.

I didn't even know her sons got it too until I read your post. They all got it even though they mask up and are super careful...that is the story of Delta in a nutshell.

[SheltieLover]

126. Yes.

I don't feel at liberty to share what she is experiencing but, suffice to say, she quit posting about her experiences & those of her sons & other healthcare providers because she was tired of being attacked when she was only trying to caution people about the dangers.

Ridiculous, really, especially where long-haul is concerned because the disease is so new, the CDC has chosen to only report on hospitalizations & deaths of fully vaxed people, & many docs are in denial, telling people "it's all in your head."

[BigmanPigman]

129. People should listen to her experiences

and learn from them. That's what it's all about...sharing knowledge and first hand experiences.

[SheltieLover]

130. Read some of the pushback I've gotten on this thread.

I don't get it.

[SayitAintSo]

149. I appreciate your message and your efforts here

Unfortunately we are forced to do our own research, we have to be careful about drinking the Kool-Aid and just listening to the talking points. This is a very complex issue and I'm still waiting for our medical community to take a multi-pronged approach to eliminating covid or at least helping us learn to live with it without the tragic consequences via improved treatment modalities and lifestyle changes.

I think another huge problem that needs to be tackled and especially here at DU is the censorship issues that many medical professionals are dealing with right now, raising their concerns about treatment modalities, vaccine side effects, monkeying with the baseline of statistics that keeps us from understanding what's really going on with the spread of this disease.

Fauci is not the sole authority on this topic, there are a lot of smart people out there doing independent research that have a lot to offer and they're not being utilized but rather politicized

[Ms. Toad]

34. It's actually pretty easy to find doing a google search.

See my post above. Anyone who gets COVID (vaccinated or not) can get long-COVID.

Also (specific to vaccinated individuals):

Six weeks after their diagnosis, 19% reported they still had at least one symptom: loss of smell, cough, fatigue, weakness, difficulty breathing, or muscle pain. Nine employees – 23% – weren't healthy enough to return to work after 10 days of required quarantine. One hadn't gone back after six weeks.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/07/28/breakthrough-covid-19-infections-can-lead-long-term-symptoms-study/5399083001/

Ohio Chick (with 3 breakthrough case, including 2 long COVID cases, is a long-term member of DU.

[hueymahl]

35. Thank you!!!

I actually saw this link when I did my search, but discounted it because it did not deal with the delta variant. And it was a tiny study that ended up with only seven patients who had VERY mild symptoms after six weeks. Not a whole lot of statistical significance here. Better than anecdotal, but not much.

[Fiendish Thingy]

43. This is a limited sub sample (nine cases) that can't be generalized without further research

It certainly doesn’t meet the criteria for “often”, as in “Fully vaxed people often get long haul COVID” as claimed by Sheltielover above.

[LymphocyteLover]

54. Yes, in the Israel study, it seems like only 2 out of orginal 39 people developed true long COVID

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072?query=featured_home

[Ms. Toad]

70. I didn't make the claim it was often.

You seemed to be questioning that it happens at all.

Since it happens in asymptomatic people (which the CDC has stopped trackng - and aren't being caught because the advice has been don't even bother with testing if you've been vaccinated), the numbers being reported are almost certainly a significant undercoung. It also occurs with mild cases - which are more likely to be reported since vaccinated people are encouraged to be tested if they are symptomatic.

We do know long COVID exists, and there is no reason to believe that its prevalence in asymptomatic and mild cases in vaccinated individuals is significantly different from those in the unvaccinated population

[oldsoftie]

71. I heard a story on NPR the other dasy regarding this

Although they didnt mention case numbers.

[wnylib]

115. Read mstoad's #33. She cites the

Henry Ford Health Center on asymptomattic people getting long haul symptoms months after testing positive with no symptoms.

Another source is Pharmaceutical Times, March, 2021. It cites an electronic analysis of records in California that indicated that 32% of people with long covid complications had asymptomatic infections.

[SheltieLover]

127. Thx Wyn.

Yikes. That's really scary!

Someone posted about covid possibly being like chicken pox with shingles later in life. I do not have a link. It's here somewhere on DU.

[wnylib]

135. I didn't see that post. I don't know what that

possibility would be based on. The reason that shingles can occur later in life for some people is that the chicken pox virus goes dormant instead of dying out completely. I don't know what causes it to reactivate in some people and not in others and I'm not sure if medical science knows. My husband had shingles in his mid 30s. I am 71 and have not had it.

I don't know of any info on covid going dormant and then reactivating. For people with long covid, it just doesn't go away or dormant. It stays active.

That's not so unusual for viruses. A few years ago, I developed an inflammatory muscle disorder after a serious bout with viral bronchitis. It took two years of medication to get over it

The inflammation is caused by the immune system's reaction to the virus, mustering up such a strong defense that it causes inflammation in various parts of the body.

Long covid might be like that, an inflammatory aftermath of viral infection. I've read about some medical speculation on that.

For asymptomatic covid infections, the immune system might go into such a strong immediate reaction that obvious symptoms don't develop, but unseen internal inflammation occurs and gets worse over time until it creates long covid symptoms. That's one hypothesis that researchers are considering.

[wnylib]

139. OMG! What a coincidence!

Right after I posted about dormant viruses, NPR's Science Friday program had a guest virologist discussing viruses that stay in the body. She is Diane Griffin of John Hopkins.

She did not mention chicken pox, but she talked about measles, HIV, and herpes.

HIV and herpes have DNA so they incorporate themselves into the nucleus of cells and that's how they linger in the body, staying active, or capable of becoming activated.

Measles is an RNA virus so it can't get into the cell nucleus. But virologists are now discovering that the RNA viruses, like measles, can stay in the body of people who had measles as children all the way into their senior years. It is no longer active or infectious. She speculated that the continued presence of the measles RNA in lymph (part of the immune system) stimulates the immune system just enough to maintain immunity.

So she thinks that the SARS CoV-2 virus, which is also RNA, might linger in the body, too, stimulating the immune system enough to continue inflammation and other symptoms of long covid. The inflammation, headaches, congestion, and other illness symptoms that we get when sick are caused by the immune system's response to invasion. So an RNA virus that stays in the body even after it is no longer active and infectious could still provoke the immune system into action.

But my question then is why doesn't that happen with the measles RNA virus, too, when it lingers in the body for years? Also, if Ms. Griffin believes that the lingering RNA measles virus causes immunity, why wouldn't the lingering SARS COV-2 virus do the same? People can get reinfected with SARS COV-2.

[SheltieLover]

150. Yup

You're right on target from what I've been reading.

Scary stuff! Stay safe, my friend!

😷

[PSPS]

36. It's true."Those who are vaccinated did everything right, but some are going to go on to long-COVID"

There was at least one study that discovered this. One was from Israel:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/07/28/breakthrough-covid-19-infections-can-lead-long-term-symptoms-study/5399083001/

[LymphocyteLover]

52. I was just going to post that -- here is the original article in NEJM

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072?query=featured_home

[wnylib]

90. I have read this, too. I read so many studies

and interviews that I can't cite a source right now without checking. I can guarantee that it is not from Facebook or Twitter since I am not on either one. I also don't take covid info from random sources, only from scientific studies and websites.

[SheltieLover]

151. Same here, Wyn.

The only twitter I look at is Harvard epidemiologist, Dr. Ding, who has been ahead of the curve in sounding alarms about delta.

It was he who stated approx. 19% of fully vaxed healthcare workers ended up with long haul. Admittedly a small sample size, but it does prove the point.

Stay safe, Wyn! 😷

[LymphocyteLover]

8. "often does"?

that doesn't seem right

[SheltieLover]

17. Pls see post #14

[SheltieLover]

48. Also #36

[NH Ethylene]

113. 19% in one study.

It's only one study, but I would call that often.

[SheltieLover]

128. Thx!

I think Dr. Ding tweeted around 20-25%.

And the poor kids, 1 in 12 he says get long haul.

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. "Often" is a false statement. Nt

[SheltieLover]

16. It most certainly is not

[Fiendish Thingy]

18. Without proof, your assertion is worthless. Nt

[SheltieLover]

19. Your choice

Absolutely not false. Pls see #14.

Ps - I'm fully vaxed & will be 1st in line for booster, when available, but vaccines are not a magic shield.

With 1,000 times the viral load, would you expect otherwise?

C9mmon sense must prevail here in order to stay safe. Mask up. 👍😷

[oldsoftie]

72. Lord have mercy.........

More patience than I

[SheltieLover]

21. Please read all of post #4 here:

A series of Dr. Ding's tweets Rhiannon graciously compiled for us.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215572903

[Fiendish Thingy]

40. Absolutely nothing in that post supports your assertion

You claimed fully vaxed people “often” get long haul (defined as severe illness with long lasting symptoms) COVID.

Lots of good info in that post, especially around delta transmissibility, but absolutely nothing about the rate/frequency of vaccinated people experiencing long haul COVID.

[SheltieLover]

41. You might have to search his tweets

I'm not a twitter user, I just look at current tweets.

[Fiendish Thingy]

44. So, you refuse to retract your unsupported false statement?

That is how misinformation turns into “facts”.

[SheltieLover]

46. It is not a false statement

I don't need to prove anything to anyone.

My intention in sharing this FACT was simply to encourage DUers to continue to practice preventative measures.

The fact that we have at least 1 member & her 2 family members suffering with long haul after being fully vaxed is enough for me. Her sons are doctors in ERs.

Take the information for what you will, my friend.

[Fiendish Thingy]

53. The plural of anecdote is not data

I wouldn’t have a problem If you had simply said it was “possible” for fully vaxed people to get long haul COVID, rather than claiming that it happens “often”.

Words have meaning, and science is quite particular in choosing specific words like “significant” and “frequent” or “often”.

There is plenty of specific, hard evidence to support people taking precautions to protect against the delta variant.

Your outrageous, unsupported, unethical claim is not among them.

[SheltieLover]

57. You are most welcome to ignore my posts, my friend

We have a DU member who has posted about this repeatedly. Very common among medical professionals immersed in high viral load in hospitals.

Have a pleasant day.

[Fiendish Thingy]

59. I am more concerned about others in the DU community who may accept your claims as facts. Nt

[oldsoftie]

73. I'd rather they think its more often than never nt

[maxsolomon]

93. Does "rarely" work for you? "Occasionally"?

Because Post #14 is an anecdote. "Often" is subjective, and what we need is accuracy. x% of cases, x% of those vaccinated, etc.

I see no reason to exaggerate; the Refusers take that hyperbole and wave it like a bloody flag.

[FBaggins]

144. You should indeed provide support for claims that can cause unnecessary panic

Particularly when those claims are contradicted by most reporting:

It is theoretically possible for a fully vaccinated person to get long Covid. But doctors contend that it doesn't appear to be a significant risk.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/can-vaccinated-people-get-long-covid-doctors-say-risk-very-n1273970

I have yet to see a report of long Covid in vaccinated people that accounted for the possibility that it was caused by an asymptomatic infection prior to getting vaccinated.

[Jakes Progress]

79. Stop playing games. Just put on a mask for Pete's sake.

[Dream Girl]

103. Put on a mask? Wat does the have to do with anything. Someone posted that asymptotic

Vaccinated people are suffering long haul Covid. This premise seems a bit iffy, been with the links that are posted in support of the premise. If you read closely, the links don’t really say that…you have to stretch to get to the conclusion that “many asymptotic people get have long haul Covid. Well, if they don’t have symptoms in the first place, how to they come to get diagnosed ? Particularly in numbers large enough where this is report as a creditable assertion. If I’m vaccinated and have no symptoms, why I even bother to get tested? And do the lack of symptoms transform to long haul Covid. We need to be careful with this. It’s out there that Russia is spreading disinformation on Pfizer’efficacy. This seems to be a good fit. I’d advise all to be suspicious at these strange assertions.

[Jakes Progress]

143. Read the thread.

The post was not addressing the OP, but the thread inside.

[Kali]

23. this is bs

often? what does that mean statistically? bullshit

[SheltieLover]

24. No, it is not.

Research Dr. Ding's tweets.

Dr Ding is a Harvard epidemiologist who has been well ahead of the curve on this information.

You're welcome.

[Fiendish Thingy]

45. YOU made the claim, the burden of proof is on YOU

Otherwise you are guilty of spreading misinformation and are no better than any random RWNJ on Facebook.

Either prove your assertion with evidence (the nine cases mentioned in another post is not conclusive, generalizable evidence) or retract your claim.

It’s the ethical, right thing to do.

[SheltieLover]

47. Read #36

[Fiendish Thingy]

56. Read #34 and #54

Nine cases is not a generalizable sample - science doesn’t work that way.

[Kali]

123. you need to link to whatever it is you are claiming

because using the word OFTEN is misinformation. spreading lies is not helpful no matter how good the intentions.

[SheltieLover]

125. I am not spreading lies

Nor am I publishing in a scientific journal.

Please feel free to ignore my posts.

[Kali]

131. no, when I see someone make unsubstantiated claims

I will continue to point that out. spreading misinformation is part of the reason we are in this mess.

[SheltieLover]

132. Again, feel free to ignore my posts

Last edited Fri Jul 30, 2021, 09:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Have a pleasant day.

On edit: again, my post was not inaccurate.

[Kali]

137. nah, I try to encourage accuracy when I see it isn't there

besides, hard to avoid somebody posting an average 50 times a day

you've only been here 16 months?

[SheltieLover]

138. Once again, feel free to ignore my posts.

[BumRushDaShow]

107. In medical parlance, "long haul" is being called "PASC" (Post-Acute Sequalae of SARS-COV-2)

And just last month, the largest study of its kind was done to look at that syndrome using 74,000 vets (I just found this a few minutes ago) - https://www.aamc.org/professional-development/affinity-groups/cmog/burden-post-acute-sequelae-covid-19-pasc-and-implications-health-care-leaders-and-systems

There was a webinar given on it sponsored by AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) -

vimeo.com/570288948

There is a slide deck for this as a PDF - https://www.aamc.org/media/55291/download

Some survey data that is out there (am guessing this is like a meta-analysis) has been taken from this project - Patient-Led Research Collaborative

First report (May 2020) - https://patientresearchcovid19.com/research/report-1/

Second report (updated April 2021, not yet peer-reviewed) - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248802v3

I'm not sure if this researcher used the data from the above or created their own data using this survey tool.

This is all data that is pre-vaccination availability. Am still scanning through it and am listening to the webinar right now, but

[SheltieLover]

116. And many docs are telling patients "it's all in your head"

Very common in patients with lyme whose symptoms persist past 10 days of antibiotics, which is absolutely ridiculous!

I just ran across this, a large study from the UK, pre-vax & pre-delta:

SciTechDaily

Half of Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients Develop a Complication

https://scitechdaily.com/half-of-hospitalized-covid-19-patients-develop-a-complication/amp/

I'll keep masking with my N-95's.

Ty for sharing all this great information as we all struggle to make sense of all this!

[BumRushDaShow]

120. From your cited study's origin

which is the UK, I think they may have other things to publish soon since they are a few months ahead of us in terms of having Delta become the predominate strain, so they might be able to start seeing the infections from any who were vaccinated.

And as I was just typing this, the researcher (on the presentation that I'm listening to) was literally just saying that as medical professionals, they need to get away from the "it's all in your head" attitude and pay attention to the patient and what they are experiencing.

[SheltieLover]

124. No doubt!

It was because I diligently watched what was happening in China early last year and acted on the information that I had toilet paper & 3M N-95s! I bought a box of 50 for $30 & within a couple of weeks, gougers were selling the same boxes on ebay for $750!

Anyway, I feel it would be in our healthcare system to stop ignoring what's happening in other countries & start being proactive, despite the whining rwnjs.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Trump supporters not vaccinating allowed it to get this bad.

So so bad.

Personally I thought during the first few months of this thing that we were in the days that we would look back on fondly someday, that the future of this virus and others would be really bad.

Darnit. When half your population responds to it with the maturity of a spoiled 6 year old, you are doomed. Can we fight both the virus and 40 or 50 million morons?

[oldsoftie]

78. Even Hannity telling people every nite to get the shot

MArk Levin said long ago that he & his wife are vaccinated.
Mitch McConnell. Although they all hate him now because he didnt bend over far enough for Dear Leader

All those big names & more, yet these idiots still buy into some youtube facebook bullshit thats probably coming from China or Russia

[roamer65]

4. Theory.

I suspect a large concentration of the virus in the fully vaccinated people is antibody neutralized virus.

Would be interesting to know if they can discern between active and neutralized virus.

That would explain that vast difference in outcomes between vaxxed and unvaxxed.

[JudyM]

10. If it was neutralized, how would it reproduce in the host at the same rate as in the unvaccinated?

You believe it could be rapidly reproducing even if neutralized?

[roamer65]

32. Could just be the active replicating...

I would love to see more data.

[JudyM]

61. Has to invade cells in order to actively replicate.

If it’s invading cells this successfully, what would be the cellular basis for not being as lethal? Just trying to understand your theory

[roamer65]

63. Good question.

That’s why it’s a theory.

We definitely need more science!

[JudyM]

64. Ha! Okay.

[roamer65]

65. Really good post by intrepidity.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215681210#post1

Well worth the read.

[JudyM]

83. Skimmed it, good info to read more later.

[Deminpenn]

6. 211 people

Here is the key paragraph

Among fully vaccinated symptomatic persons, the median interval from completion of ?14 days after the final vaccine dose to symptom onset was 86 days (range = 6–178 days). Among persons with breakthrough infection, four (1.2%) were hospitalized, and no deaths were reported. Real-time RT-PCR Ct values in specimens from 127 fully vaccinated patients (median = 22.77) were similar to those among 84 patients who were unvaccinated, not fully vaccinated, or whose vaccination status was unknown (median = 21.54) (Figure 2).

It's not clear to me to what subset these 211 people belong, but that is an awfully low number on which to base US policy.

This is undeoubtedly interesting information and worth additional study, but hardly mass hysteria worthy.

[LymphocyteLover]

11. "what subset these 211 people belong"?

I don't know what that means

[Deminpenn]

15. Of the total number of people cited in the study

Are they the ones who showed symptoms?

[LymphocyteLover]

22. Sounds like they tested asymptomatic people too

"Overall, 274 (79%) vaccinated patients with breakthrough infection were symptomatic."

"During July 10–26, using travel history data from the state COVID-19 surveillance system, MA DPH identified a cluster of cases among Massachusetts residents. Additional cases were identified by local health jurisdictions through case investigation. COVID-19 cases were matched with the state immunization registry. A cluster-associated case was defined as receipt of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test (nucleic acid amplification or antigen) result ?14 days after travel to or residence in the town in Barnstable County since July 3."

[LisaL]

25. There is zero reasons to believe those vaccinated patients are an exception.

They had high viral loads, same as in those who were not vaccinated.
Previously CDC was claiming that vaccinated people are not going to transmit covid.
Clearly that doesn't apply to delta covid.

[Deminpenn]

96. PCR tests cannot detect viral loads

You can read the info from the CDC here: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/faqs.html#Interpreting-Results-of-Diagnostic-Tests

Thermal cycles (Ct) thresholds can serve as a stand in assuming you know a lot of other data about the test used and about when and where the test was administered, but they can't tell if the "load" is high, low or in between.

[BumRushDaShow]

49. "211 people" - is now up to 882 total so far, with 653 (74%) fully vaccinated

I had actually stumbled on this article yesterday about that spreading event looking for something else -

CDC mask decision followed stunning findings from Cape Cod beach outbreak

July 29, 2021, 4:49 PM
• 8 min read


A week after the crowds descended upon Provincetown, Massachusetts, to celebrate the Fourth of July -- the holiday President Joe Biden hoped would mark the nation's liberation from COVID-19 -- the manager of the Cape Cod beach town said he was aware of "a handful of positive COVID cases among folks" who spent time there. "We are in touch with the Health Department and Outer Cape Health Services and are closely monitoring the data," Alex Morse told reporters. he announcement wasn't unusual with roughly half of the country still unvaccinated and flare-ups of the virus popping up in various states. But within weeks, health officials seemed to be on to something much bigger.

The outbreak quickly grew to the hundreds and most of them appeared to be vaccinated. As of Thursday, 882 people were tied to the Provincetown outbreak. Among those living in Massachusetts, 74% of them were fully immunized, yet officials said the vast majority were also reporting symptoms. Seven people were reported hospitalized. The initial findings of the investigation led by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seemed to have huge implications.

Before Provincetown, health officials had been operating under the assumption that it was extraordinarily rare for a vaccinated person to become infected with the virus. And if they did, they probably wouldn't end up passing it on to others, such as children too young to qualify for the vaccine or people who were medically vulnerable. The idea that vaccines halt transmission of the virus was largely behind the CDC's decision in May suggesting vaccinated people could safely go without their masks indoors and in crowds, even if others were unvaccinated. But that assumption had been based on studies of earlier versions of the virus. Delta was known for its "hyper-transmissibility," or as one former White House adviser put it "COVID on steroids."

"What has changed is the virus," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and Biden's chief medical adviser. When a vaccinated person gets infected with delta -- called a "breakthrough infection" -- "the level of virus in their nasopharynx is about 1,000 times higher than with the alpha variant," Fauci said in an interview Wednesday with MSNBC. All indications now are that the Provincetown outbreak investigation is among the pieces of new evidence behind the CDC's decision to ask Americans to once again put on their masks indoors, even if they are vaccinated.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-mask-decision-stunning-findings-cape-cod-beach/story?id=79148102

When it comes to their study - they were probably waiting to continue to gather more data as I expect contact tracing is still ongoing, but decided to do an early release to get the info out there.

I have actually been to Cape Cod on a July 4th weekend and to Provincetown on July 4.

UMASS/Amherst is my alma mater and the summer before my senior year (almost 40 years ago), I was a new students program counselor that summer and that holiday weekend, a pile of us drove to Brewster (on the bay side of Cape Cod), and were in Provincetown for the fireworks, and to wander around what is a kitschy artsy shore town (which is also the correct ACTUAL landing spot for the Pilgrims before they headed north to Plymouth for a 2nd landing).





I can imagine what it was like there just a few weeks ago because I have been there, done that since it is an extremely popular place to go in summer, and particularly for the fireworks, and has also been a big destination spot for the LGBTQ community for decades.

[Deminpenn]

92. No, the 211 people are the cohort on which the CDC based its guidance

There might be more people testing positive, but it there haven't been any more people added to the data used in its analysis or released today.

[BumRushDaShow]

114. Yes, but those are the people who were most likely just the residents of Provincetown

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2777863

Provincetown has a year-round resident population of just under 3000 - https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US2555535-provincetown-ma/

When someone is doing long-term research, they can release what they have and then come back later to update it. But the trend was obviously clear, and getting what they had out "early" was important.

[Deminpenn]

140. Having read your link to the actual CDC study,

it's not clear how this 211 person sample was selected. It does mention they were all tested by the same lab with the same test, so perhaps that was the largest apples-to-apples cohort. I've been trying to read up on thermal cycles (Ct) as they are used in PCR testing and found that the different tests have different Ct thresholds and other variances. There are a lot more variables in both tests and testing than I realized. It would important that any analysis use results from the same lab and test.

Again, the CDC needs to use the data being collected from the clinical trial participants, not random information not done in a controlled or consistent way or it needs to conduct its own well-designed controlled study. Further, the only true way to know if a "positive" result equals infectiousness is to do a culture. That's either not being done at all or being done very rarely.

[BumRushDaShow]

142. Since research is continually on-going

they can't just wait until every "i" is dotted and "t" is crossed if they are seeing a trend across the reported research that is ongoing, that might present some flags to change course.

In many cases, researchers aren't operating in a vacuum and actually belong to organizations that have regular meetings with their colleagues across institutions where they can share what they might have found so far and get feedback. I gave an example of such a meeting and presentation here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2777973

Keep in mind that CDC said what they published in an "early release" was just one piece of what they used for the decision and the WaPo article has quite a bit of info to describe what was being presented in that release. along with some other pieces of data that they used, including data from a similar Wisconsin incident. I.e., -

The Provincetown outbreak has all the hallmarks of a superspreader event, with infected people reporting to public health officials that they gathered in “densely packed indoor and outdoor events that included bars, restaurants, guest houses and rental homes,” according to Friday’s CDC report. The full outbreak, which began over the July Fourth holiday weekend, is close to 900 cases, but the analysis included only a subset of 469 cases. About three-quarters of infections occurred in people who were fully vaccinated, and that group had received Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a research institute in Cambridge, Mass., that was involved in the genetic analysis of the outbreak, highlighted that this was not a single event.

At least five events sparked the outbreak, so it is not possible to blame it on one party or one bar. “There’s no one person or spot to blame here,” said Daniel Park, group leader for viral computational genomics at the Broad Institute. “The thing that’s catching the attention in national public health is that … a decently high vaccination rate isn’t quite enough” to stop an outbreak with so people in one place and the delta variant spreading. The scientists, along with officials at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, reported that 79 percent of the breakthrough infections were symptomatic. Four of five people who were hospitalized were fully vaccinated.

They are now analyzing the genetic fingerprints of the virus samples taken to trace chains of transmission and determine how commonly fully vaccinated people were infecting one another. The presence of similar amounts of virus in the noses of vaccinated and unvaccinated people raises the possibility they are both contributing to spread, but many scientists think that vaccinated people should be less likely to spread the virus. Similar findings may be emerging from other locations. The internal CDC document showed that national surveillance found that vaccinated people had larger amounts of virus in their nose when infected with the delta variant, compared with other variants.

A report of cases from mid-July in Dane County, Wis., found a similar result, showing that fully vaccinated people had viral loads similar to those of unvaccinated people “and may be more capable of spreading COVID than was previously known.” The Wisconsin data showed that unvaccinated people were twice as likely to be infected as fully vaccinated people.

Here is the link to the Dane County, WI data that was also evaluated - https://publichealthmdc.com/documents/2021-07-29_data_snapshot.pdf (PDF)

A copy/paste of the observation in that PDF is this -

Viral Load in Breakthrough Cases
Our partners at UW-Madisonsequence COVID test specimens and are able to determine levels of virus present in a sample. More virus in the sample can mean a greater likelihood that the person with COVID can transmit the infection to others. The chart to the right shows the level of virus (using cycle threshold data) present from recent test specimens in Dane County of fully vaccinated people (yellow dots on the right) vs. not fully vaccinated people (gray dots on the left). When the dots are below the gray dotted line, that means they had enough virus to be able to be sequenced. We can see that there are far more samples from the unvaccinated group—this is expected because unvaccinated people are more at risk of getting COVID. We can also see that the gray and yellow dots are distributed similarly. This is evidence that fully vaccinated people have viral loads similar to that of unvaccinated people, and may be more capable of spreading COVID than was previously known. This is a very recent discovery that is also being supported by recent research done by the CDC, but more research is still needed.

In fact, here is a screenshot of the slide that has the above text content that is part of that PDF -



And regarding the PCR tests, there are currently no quantitative type kits approved by the FDA. I expect that hospitalized individuals have routine blood screening and those samples can be pulled to do further serology testing and this is what was done.

The results that they are presenting are "real life" / live examples of people who have become infected and have been tested.

What you propose is that they do a large controlled purposeful infection of a designated group of people, which would also require a similar amount of people kept in a complete bubble without any infection (past or current), plus with and without vaccination, and with or without partial vaccination to use as control groups...and good luck with that.

[JudyM]

7. More here about 1000 times more contagious than the variant we dealt with earlier.

CDC document warns Delta variant appears to spread as easily as chickenpox and cause more severe infection
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/29/politics/cdc-masks-covid-19-infections/index.html

Whoever is not masking, vaccinated or not, is risking killing people.

[SheltieLover]

20. And more contagious than smallpox!

Pls read all of post #4 he4e:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215572903

[Happy Hoosier]

9. Hard to tell how meaningful this is...

... without more data. What was the overall population? What vaccine? What activities.

In doing research for my own health, I'm learning that lots of folks analyzing this kind of data have no idea how to do it properly.

[LymphocyteLover]

12. there is a link to the WMMR article which gives a lot more details

like on what vaccines they had.

Not sure what you mean by "What was the overall population?" and "what activities".

It was a CDC report. Generally they know what they are doing.

[hueymahl]

30. CDC is full of great people

But they do not have the reputation of not fully shooting straight with statistics. And what I mean by that, is they tend to be highly paternalistic/maternalistic, and treat the public like they are idiots - giving them worst case scenarios with their conclusions instead of just describing the facts they know.

[thesquanderer]

60. Correct. By itself, the 3/4 figure is meaningless. You'd need to know...

...things like what percentage of the population is that we're talking about, and what the vaccination rate is.

To make the point: Imagine we get to a day where 100% of people in a city vaccinated. Despite vaccinations, some people will still get it. And a similarly true (but misleading) headline would be, "CDC study shows 100% of people infected in this covid-19 outbreak were vaccinated." In areas where vaccination rates are 80% or whatever, you will also see that a greater percentage of people who get covid were vaccinated, because essentially, the population consists overwhelmingly of people who were vaccinated.

So then absolute numbers and percentages come into play as well. Let's say it's a city of two million people, and two people got it. It would still be true that 100% of the infected people were vaccinated, but it would also be only one in a million.

Without knowing what percentage of the population got sick AND what percentage of the population were vaccinated, a statement like the one in the headline tells you nothing.

[BumRushDaShow]

68. Did you actually look at the research link?

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cidmm7031e2_w

This data is coming from staff/researchers from both the County (Barnstable) and state (Massachusetts) Health Departments.

And believe it or not, since they compiled what they did as an "early release" (note that CDC & NIH are essentially just sponsors), the number of positive cases associated with that period in that location, has doubled. I posted an article with updates here in the thread - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2777831

In fact, just checking Barstable County Health Department's update, they are now up to 934 cases reported just today associated with that specific outbreak - https://www.barnstablecountyhealth.org/newsroom/july-30-2021-update-covid-19-cluster-in-provincetown

[IronLionZion]

37. "clear that the vaccines do work, as hoped, against severe illness and death"

Scientists said the Provincetown outbreak and other recent data on breakthrough infections make clear that the vaccines do work, as hoped, against severe illness and death, but do not offer blanket protection against any chance of infection. Only a handful of people in the outbreak were hospitalized, but four of them were fully vaccinated.

[progressoid]

42. Duh

[Tadpole Raisin]

50. Well good that I'm still taking precautions here. Delta is

A nasty variant and there are still more letters in the alphabet.

https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/


Stay safe!!

[LeftInTX]

51. Hmmm...males who were fully vaccinated.....

Among the 469 cases in Massachusetts residents, 346 (74%) occurred in persons who were fully vaccinated; of these, 301 (87%) were male, with a median age of 42 years.

[LisaL]

55. Apparently it's time for Pride parades in MA.

NT

[BumRushDaShow]

74. Provincetown has always been a welcoming place and hangout

for the LGBT community - for a century.

https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/how-ptown-got-so-gay-gay-gay/
https://ptowntourism.com/lgbtq/

(links for the benefit of the thread as background info )

[Hoyt]

62. I'll stay masked and watch for announcement on boosters. Fact is that while science is doing a good

job -- with trump out of the way -- the scientists need to make it clearer that they only know what has happened to date and studied.

Everything else is conjecture, although hopefully an "educated" guess. It's also the best we've got.

[Phil the Kilibuster]

67. I know two people back home who got infected post-vaccination

This thing ain't done with us yet!

[uppityperson]

133. Howdy

[Phil the Kilibuster]

147. Howdy right back atcha! Unless you mean CAPTAIN Howdy

[LittleGirl]

76. I'm very concerned about this, yikes nt

[CentralMass]

77. It really seems that it was foolhardy if not downright irresponsible for the CDC to change their

guidelines on wearing mask. It was obviously premature.

[Cinnamonspice]

80. That's it then.

Since many people will not vaccinate, this pandemic will never end. We'll have to wear masks forever.

[Jon King]

81. And what? What should I do with this information?

Seriously, and what? We are vaccinated and wear a mask in public....what exactly are we to do with this information? Should we panic? If so, why?

AT some point we need to live life as vaccinated and masked people. Not sure what else to do really. Seems like for us we have a bigger risk of getting in bad car crash than having serious effect from Covid as vaccinated and masked people.

[CentralMass]

86. I'm among those that used my concept of common sense and continued to wear a mask.

I don't think that the CDC should have used the issue as as carrot or hammer to try and force people to get a vaccine with such a fluid situation and so many unvaccinated including children who are not yet eligible.

[BumRushDaShow]

91. The CDC Director promised to publish info for state, County, and local Health Departments

to help explain why their guidance from May and June, has changed.

This way, those stakeholders (and the general public) can adjust and adapt their own local guidance (and/or behaviors) based on the latest data from recent studies.

I know it is de rigueur to dismiss info related to this topic, and on DU, it's easy peasy to go ahead and "trash threads" (as well as Forums and/or Groups) - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10131560

or filter out thread topics "by keyword" - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10132310

[Deminpenn]

94. CDC FAQs on PCR tests

It's a good read and fairly easy to understand explanation of what PCR results do and do not mean.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/faqs.html#Interpreting-Results-of-Diagnostic-Tests-

[Jon King]

101. We are going off the deep end here, none died and only 4 were hospitalized

At this point we need to be careful of this stuff. 2000 people a day die of heart disease, obesity, cancer, car accidents. Where are the breathless stories visiting people next to their loved ones at the hospital saying "he said he wishes he would have exercised more and eaten better".

The media makes big money of the melodramatic stuff. In reality if we are vaccinated and toss on a mask in public the odds of a bad Covid reaction are way, way down the lists of worries.

[totodeinhere]

109. You make some good points, however,

even though the fully vaccinated rarely get really sick, even if they are completely asymptomatic they can still spread it to others who are not yet eligible to get the vaccine. And some of them might get really sick. And then there are those who are vaccinated but might have compromised immune systems. They could also get really sick.

[Deminpenn]

112. Agree

nt

[totodeinhere]

105. When the CDC changed their guidelines on masks the other day I started wearing a mask again.

I would not want to infect someone who for whatever reason is ineligible to get a shot. But I don't care about the slobs who refuse to get vaccinated and if they catch it from me they are just getting what they deserve. I am getting sick and tired of how absolutely stupid so many Americans are.

(Yes I know this is an emotional response. Of course I am aware that the unvaccinated can spread it to innocent people so I really should not want to infect anyone, vaccinated or not.)

[secondwind]

117. This is very sobering..................

Damn..

[TomCADem]

136. Vaccines are not a forcefield. They never were...

The sad thing is that the CDC has actually been very consistent about this with Fauci early on saying that he would be happy if they were able to find a vaccine that was even 50 percent effective early on to slow the spread and impact of the disease. Yet, folks still see the vaccines as being a force field or why bother. Yet, this is not how vaccines work.

While numerous studies have shown that the vaccines don't work as well against the delta variant as they did against other strains, health officials say they are still highly effective, especially in protecting against severe illness and death. Roughly 97% of new hospitalizations and 99.5% of deaths in the U.S. are among unvaccinated individuals, U.S. health officials repeated this week.

I guess I am surprised because I do regularly get the flu vaccine, even though there have been years when I have come down with a mild flu even after being vaccinated. Back in pre-COVID days, I sometimes was able to power through at work, but now that would be totally the wrong thing to do, particularly if you thought it was COVID.

That being said, I can see folks in a very different head space when it comes to vaccines. It is either a total hoax or there is this unrealistic expectation that a vaccine should serve as a 100 percent effective force field or why bother.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

134. Key thing to remember

Scientists said the Provincetown outbreak and other recent data on breakthrough infections make clear that vaccines offer significant protection, as they were designed to, against severe illness and death but do not offer blanket protection against any chance of infection. Only a handful of people in the outbreak were hospitalized. While the data suggests that vaccinated people can spread the disease, the extent to which they contribute is not yet clear. Walensky said this week that such transmission occurs on “rare occasions.”

[LisaL]

141. If the viral load is the same between vaccinated and not vaccinated, then there is no reason to

to think that vaccinated who are infected don't contribute to disease spread.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

145. CDC Says New Mask Guidelines Informed by Cape Cod Outbreak

This is on the first page of the Weekend edition.

POLITICS | HEALTH POLICY

CDC Says New Mask Guidelines Informed by Cape Cod Outbreak

Vaccinated people infected by Delta variant appeared to carry as much virus as those in unvaccinated cases

By Brianna Abbott
https://twitter.com/Brabbott42
[e-mail]
Updated July 30, 2021 5:54 pm ET

A Covid-19 outbreak on Cape Cod helped prompt the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to urge some Americans to start wearing masks again, the agency said, because it demonstrated that vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant might be as contagious as those who are unvaccinated.

The CDC said in a report on Friday that 127 vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant during the outbreak appeared to carry as much virus as 84 unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people who became infected. The report referred to an outbreak in Barnstable County, Mass. Local officials there have said that at least 430 confirmed Covid-19 cases have been linked to one cluster following festivities over the July 4 weekend in Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod.

“High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Friday. “This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation.”

An internal CDC slide presentation earlier this week described the Delta variant as infectious as chickenpox, which used to sicken some four million Americans a year before a vaccine became available in the mid-1990s. The Delta variant is more transmissible than the common cold, seasonal flu and smallpox, but less contagious than measles, according to the presentation, which was first reported in the Washington Post.

“The war has changed,” the presentation said.

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[BumRushDaShow]

146. There was another outbreak in Wisconsin which showed similar findings

and per WaPo, they apparently included that in their briefing docs for the press.

I had posted about it here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2778275

And this is the slide that showed the same issue that UW-Madison found that was shown in MA between vaccinated and unvaccinated. You can literally see a sudden change in break-through viral load behavior that started some time this month (July), when the viral loads for both categories started tracking together (with vaccinated still a bit less, but no longer with the usual huge gap - at least so far). It remains to be seen whether that behavior will continue to track that way or will level off at some point while the unvaccinated aggregate numbers continue to increaase.

[Deminpenn]

148. What's the definition of "high" and "low"?

Thanks

[BumRushDaShow]

154. FDA publishes a reference standard for the current EUA-approved tests

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/sars-cov-2-reference-panel-comparative-data

which indicates the minimum detected viral load (particles per ml) for each of the approved test systems. A good summary of that is here -

Op-Ed: Why PCR Cycle Threshold Is Useful in Coronavirus Testing
— It can help better triage patients, physician argues

by Robert Hagen, MD January 4, 2021

(snip)

The FDA has given lab manufacturers a wide latitude in determining the cycle threshold cut-off number of their qualitative tests to determine positive versus negative. These tests were approved under Emergency Use Authorization and have not been subjected to typical FDA scrutiny. With this in mind, the state of Florida has required all laboratories doing COVID testing to report the cycle threshold numbers used in qualitative and quantitative tests.

So how does a qualitative RT-PCR test work? Basically, the manufacturer sets the test to turn off the cycling or amplification process when a certain number is hit. For a qualitative test set at 40, after 40 amplification cycles, if any viral material is detected, it turns off and is reported as positive. If none is detected, it would be reported as negative. If the number of amplification cycles was really 15 or 25, it would still run until it gets to 40 and be reported as positive. With these type of tests, it's critical to use an agreed-upon cycle threshold value such as 33 (CDC) or 35 (Dr. Fauci) rather than setting it at a potentially misleading 40 or 45.

Many of the current tests in use are preset by the manufacturer to these higher numbers.The World Health Organization issued a notice last week telling the labs "the cut-off should be manually adjusted to ensure that specimens with high Ct values are not incorrectly assigned SARS-CoV-2 detected due to background noise." Could this be a reason why many people test positive but remain asymptomatic? In that same memo, WHO said all labs should report the cycle threshold value to treating physicians.

A quantitative test is designed to come up with the actual cycle threshold value as the cycling process turns off when detecting any virus. There is not a preset value, so a quantitative measure is obtained. A test that registers a positive result after 12 rounds of amplification for a Ct value of 12 starts out with 10 million times as much viral genetic material as a sample with a Ct value of 35. Above that level, Fauci has said the test is just finding destroyed nucleotides, not virus capable of replicating.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/90508

(emphasis mine)

The number of cycles (Ct) to reach a detectable amount with forced replication (amplification), tends to vary (due to sampling type and consistency, and obviously due to sample prep required for the various test systems and their actual detector thresholds). But from a bunch of research things that I looked at, some kind of "positive" result will be detectable within a range from ~13 - 35 cycles.

Supposedly many of the test systems are set to run for up to 40 cycles to catch the most minimal of particles, but generally going that far didn't seem necessary. For example, a simple description of that was this (from October 2020 regarding viral shed) -

The correlation of SAR-CoV-2 viral loads and PCR cycle thresholds (Ct) values with isolation of viable virus is a topic of interest. The Ct value upper bound cutoff that determined a positive PCR was inconsistent among studies reporting this threshold, though most reported positive values at ?35 or ?40. (49-52,54,72,77) Bullard et al (5) compared PCR Ct value with culture positivity and found that the ability to isolate virus in culture was reduced when Ct value was ?24. They reported that the odds ratio for infectivity decreased by 32% for every 1 point increase in the Ct value. (5) La Scola et al (8) report significant correlation between Ct value and culture positivity rates. Positive cultures occurred in all samples with Ct values 13–17 but culture positivity decreased to 12% at a Ct value of 33. (8) Isolating virus in culture with positive PCR samples containing viral loads

(emphasis mine)

So looking at the 5 pages of "approved" tests, the most sensitive vs the least sensitive -

NDU/ml (NDU/mL = NAAT Detectable Units/mL)

180 | PerkinElmer, Inc. | PerkinElmer New Coronavirus Nucleic Acid Detection Kit
600000 | Boston Medical Center | BMC-CReM COVID-19 Test

So the above represents the "lowest detectable" by those systems (as the most sensitive vs the least sensitive for the approved list) but either would be considered a "low" viral load. And within the ranges of each of these tests, there would be a "high" load value that is detected with the minimum amount of amplification cycles, and based on a number of papers, those with "high" loads happen fairly soon in the number of cycle runs, but more often than not, after about 12/13 cycles. And apparently once they hit a "positive", they cease any further runs.

(I really miss being able to do tables and other formatting on DU... that removal was thanks to the hack )

[Deminpenn]

155. Fine, but what's the "high" and "low" for this

particular set of data? Presumably the top end is 40 Cts, although it could be less. What's the "above the gray line" value?

The Wisconsin data gives you many data points on the scatter plot, but not the information (actual Cts on the x-axis) to be able to put the scatter plot in context.

Fwiw, did my fair share of Powerpoint presentations and data analyses. Would never have presented conclusions without all of the underlying data or a detailed explanation of it.

[BumRushDaShow]

156. That's not how it correlates

The Ct value is inversely proportional to the viral load that gets picked up by a test, so that it is basically -

Ct ~1/NDU/ml

So because of the wide ranges of detectability by the various test systems (although presumbably the WI study use the same model testing equipment), it's better to use a correlation vs raw numbers in order to do a relative comparison across the board.

I.e., the lower the Ct value (number of cycles to achieve a positive), the higher the load the test is picking up (because it didn't have to be "amplified" as much since is was already at a higher concentration upon sampling).

That scatter plot on the slide in that post that has the "vaccinated" data in yellow, is actually showing that although the number of "vaccinated" yellow data points are not at the same amount as the "unvaccinated" gray data points, it is still not only "non-zero", but actually at a somewhat significant amount nevertheless - including in the "high load" category, despite being vaccinated.

An example would be what happened with this guy today - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142779004



The unfortunate circumstance that we have is that the messaging seemed to have become "whisper-down-the-lane" distorted into the vaccine being a "shield" to having any infection, and that was always ridiculous. But with the earlier variants, the data was generally showing that vaccination did in fact provide a major reduction of viral load too, so break-throughs WERE "rare".

But with Delta, because of its configuration and replication mechanism, it can reproduce faster AND in a shorter time than the previous circulating variants. And that behavior is apparently allowing it to really load up anyone exposed to it, basically ravaging through the unvaccinated, but also initially overwhelming the vaccinated, but eventually succumbing to the body's immune system that was already primed and ready to go due to the vaccine. Whereas the unvaccinated would have to have their bodies "learn" how to fight it from scratch, and that would take way more time than what might have occurred had they been vaccinated.

[Deminpenn]

157. Disagree here

It is important to have actual numbers on the x-axis or if you want to designate "high" and "low", then do seperate graphs for each individual test if the data comes from labs using different tests. Otherwise you have an apples to oranges comparison.

When I see graphs like this and the one from the CDC, it makes me skeptical that the data is being fairly presented.

[BumRushDaShow]

158. I figured you were going to try to argue

because from day one, you have completely dismissed the pandemic and it's severity. I don't know if you even read the PDF that was linked to. Here it is again - https://publichealthmdc.com/documents/2021-07-29_data_snapshot.pdf

Here is a link to their site where they are tracking the sequencing by variant - https://dataportal.slh.wisc.edu/sc2dashboard

That chart was not comparing apples and oranges. It was using whatever U-WI found with their tests to establish what was being found between "unvaccinated" and "vaccinated" for load. The fact that it was a scatter plot is showing you the "relative" correlation and the relative range - high to low - based on whatever test system was used.

I.e., you either have the virus or you don't, and if you do have it, "here are the relative levels of it that were found", and in the case of both the MA and WI data sets, as long as they are using the same or similar testing protocols, you can compare them. And the papers that I had gone through were generally indicating that it was generally consistent, even across the different tests, regarding how much amplification seemed to be needed to hit someone with a high load (less cycles needed), and how much to basically find nothing at all or end up picking up "noise" substances (generally greater than 33 - 35).

When you get a blood test - say from Lab Corps or Quest, they provide the ranges for their tests (and sometimes will include a brief description of their protocols) and what is considered "high" or "low". Both labs do testing for standard suites of blood, urine, and/or fecal panels and all the entities that they are testing for, and will add any additional via a physician's Rx for specific types of analysis. Because of the variability that patients will naturally have, they always do a range and will designate whether your result falls within it, and in fact, there are some tests that actually will say that your "x" value should be "greater than" "y" or "less than" "z", and they will continually update those ranges over time as research dictates.

And as a note, both Quest and Lab Corps do much of the COVID testing as well.

[madville]

152. Not surprising, been seeing this at work

We’ve had people going out with Covid over the last few weeks, it’s been about 50/50 as far vaccinated and unvaccinated folks showing enough symptoms to warrant getting tested at work. The vaccinated folks that have had symptoms have had either the Pfizer or J&J vaccine.

I would bet several of us other vaccinated folks have gotten it but been asymptomatic so there’s been no reason to get tested and know if we had it or not. That’s one reason to be skeptical about the statistics as well, many people are getting and spreading Delta but they and we never know about it because they have no symptoms so they never get tested or quarantined.

[orangecrush]

153. Good God.