20 deaths in March/2021 to 6 in April/2021. When you go to see the stats since April/2020, you'll notice that there were full months with 0 or 1 death. [0]
Too soon, too small sample to draw such conclusions.
The end of winter probably has a lot to do with it also (just like flu deaths go down during the spring and summer). The vaccines effectiveness probably won’t show through very visibly until November.
While I strongly believe in vaccines, I note that the Dallas, Texas (USA) area has seen similar improvements, and we’re hardly a high-vaccination area. Vaccines surely help, but there seems to be an additional force beyond 1. vaccination rates and 2. natural immunity that could be inferred based on data-informed infection rates. Almost every pandemic measure has been eliminated in Texas the past two months, and the fatality, positivity, and hospitalization rates have kept going down. (The state has prevented local jurisdictions from extending measures.)
My guess is that asymptomatic infection rates may have been far higher than what the professionals believe or herd immunity happens at considerably lower levels than believed. I don’t know how else to explain this.
For backup, here’s various plots I’m making from official state data. The hospitalizations are probably the most reliable metric, and like the other metrics, they are just falling off a cliff. https://www.arencambre.com/covid-19-stats-for-dallas-and-tex...
> While I strongly believe in vaccines, I note that the Dallas, Texas (USA) area has seen similar improvements, and we’re hardly a high-vaccination area.
With 45%+ of adults with at least one dose and 35%+ fully vaccinated,
its not bad either (and most of TX, by population, seems to be innthe same neighborhood.) Given that almost everyplace has (through a combination of formal policy and swlf-selection) tended to prioritize people either at risk by age or health condition or in and occupation posing a high spread risk, and catching asymptomatic vases is pretty hit or miss because surveillance never got that good, you’d expect a lot of the gains in deaths and reported cases to be in that first third of adult vaccinations.
The Brazil study was done with a less effective vaccine than the ones distributed in Dallas. 75% of that might not be far from about half with an mRNA vaccine.
Look at the plots in my link above. The rates have been low or falling off a cliff for a long time. Again, not doubting efficacy of vaccines. I’m proud to be fully vaccinated. But there’s something else at play.
How do you know you know Dallas is not a high vaccination area? We only have data at the state level. It may be that the urban areas have high vaccination rates while the rural areas have vaccination rates.
The big improvements are for sure a combination vaccination, natural immunity and people who are still using masks and social distancing.
No. I’m saying our vaccination rate is far from herd-immunity levels and low enough that experts have pushed back the projected herd immunity date considerably.
The other things are two large infection surges. Perhaps prevalence and/or power of natural immunity are higher than thought?
There is actually more interesting things going on here then the title suggests.
They split this small city into 4 and offered each section vaccines at a different time to get a better real-world test of the exact herd immunity point.
We know it works only because there are scientific studies confirming it. If we stop doing the studies just because the results are "obvious" by now, we won't know if/when something changes and our assumptions don't hold anymore. Not every new study has to be a surprise. Ones that confirm the status quo are equally valuable.
The anti-vaccine movement is not going to stop because these people are not persuaded by facts or arguments. Yes, we know epidemiology works. No, this proves nothing to people who do not listen.
I think that's a little unfair. I've encountered people who are nervous about the vaccine, largely because its a black box they don't understand. They changed their mind once pointed at an appropriate level resource (e.g. something more ELI5 than a scientific paper, but not an actual eli5 explanation that glosses over all the important bits and leaves more questions than answers). Although perhaps hestient and antivax are separate groups.
In any argument, its always convinent to assume your opponent is just unreasonable. That makes your failure to convince their fault not yours. Maybe some people are, but its a dangerous slippery slope to operate under that assumption.
> anti-vaccine movement is not going to stop because these people are not persuaded by facts or arguments
That’s fine. Nobody should be forced to have something injected into them.
But society doesn’t have to wait for them. Decisions have consequences, and a lot of public goods are a privilege, not a right. You have a right to refuse to get photo ID; it does not follow you have a right to fly.
If you choose not to get vaccinated, the public shouldn’t be responsible for your care costs, if you get sick or debilitated. You should also responsible for the costs of those you injure. Like Arizona’s stupid motorist law for people who ignore flood signs.
It's dishonest to conflate people who are hesitant about covid vaccines with anti-vaxxers. No amount of "listening" will change the fact that all three vaccines are untested (it will take time for manifestation and detection of possible long term side effects), and the two primary vaccines are novel technologies.
The truth of the matter is that covid vaccination has its risks and they need to be weighed against those of the virus. And when you make an honest effort to perform such an evaluation, the choice is not quite so clear cut.
Britain - which is of course highly vaccinated - is seeing recent small (so far) problems with spikes as well [1], due to the Delta (India B.1.617.2) variant now spreading there. There doesn't seem to be much consensus as to what a high-vaccination (and, in theory, high herd immunity) location like Britain might expect against that variant. The US will find out pretty soon how the mRNA vaccines hold up against it, as I imagine it'll blanket the US in the coming months.
My understanding is that the estimated range for herd immunity was quite a large range, from 60-90%. I suppose 75 is right in the middle of that, but given the big range, getting more data seemed prudent.
Edit: i missed that we're talking about CoronaVac, where the range i cited was for a different vaccine.
75% seemed to be from immune people (from that nature article that showcased the maths). It's curious to me a 50%(correct me if I'm wrong) efficiency vaccine would work at 75%. I guess they had some natural immunity already?
EDIT: Nevermind, it would work anyway because the vaccines prevent more dangerous effects. So if you vaccinate at-risk people, ofc your deaths would lower
That's the first thing I thought when I saw this (hopefully your detractors will explain themselves). It seems almost tautological. If you've accepted that the vaccine is effective, then it's effective when it gets used at scale.
You're going down a dangerous road with that "seems almost tautological" perspective, because it is only one step away from "it's tautological, why bother checking?"
No one knows the herd immunity threshold for these vaccines. Based on cases of vaccinated people getting Covid infections, this is just the vaccine preventing serious infections.
Pretty impressive result for a vaccine that's been shown to barely have the 50% efficacy threshold to make the cut (and with doubts about its results due to no releasing of trial data). Shows high promise for countries using mRNA vaccines.
This seems like good news for a country like Bahrain. It’s unfortunate that the Chinese vaccine isn’t as effective as the competition (such that the current ~50% deployment isn’t enough), but getting to 75% is a realistic goal still.
Let's hope to see more studies like this. Here in Hong Kong there is a prevailing public view of the vaccines being too new and created too quickly esp the mRNA ones. Public don't understand that mRNA was decades in the making and is engineered which is why available so quickly. The cultivated traditional vaccines took a little longer due to process. But maybe now people will understand the importance of herd immunity because until that is achieved world wide then this pandemic will stay with us. I worry it will be like tuberculosis and hang around amongst the poor and dense populations, further reducing their chances for good quality of life in places with large populations,high density, and prevailing poverty.
Readit News
20 deaths in March/2021 to 6 in April/2021. When you go to see the stats since April/2020, you'll notice that there were full months with 0 or 1 death. [0]
Too soon, too small sample to draw such conclusions.
[0] For ex., search for "Serrana" in this site: https://especiais.gazetadopovo.com.br/coronavirus/casos-no-b...
edit: typo, should be "april/2020"
Deleted Comment
My guess is that asymptomatic infection rates may have been far higher than what the professionals believe or herd immunity happens at considerably lower levels than believed. I don’t know how else to explain this.
For backup, here’s various plots I’m making from official state data. The hospitalizations are probably the most reliable metric, and like the other metrics, they are just falling off a cliff. https://www.arencambre.com/covid-19-stats-for-dallas-and-tex...
With 45%+ of adults with at least one dose and 35%+ fully vaccinated, its not bad either (and most of TX, by population, seems to be innthe same neighborhood.) Given that almost everyplace has (through a combination of formal policy and swlf-selection) tended to prioritize people either at risk by age or health condition or in and occupation posing a high spread risk, and catching asymptomatic vases is pretty hit or miss because surveillance never got that good, you’d expect a lot of the gains in deaths and reported cases to be in that first third of adult vaccinations.
Dallas does not seem half bad in terms of vaccination rate.
The big improvements are for sure a combination vaccination, natural immunity and people who are still using masks and social distancing.
False, e.g.: https://data.democratandchronicle.com/covid-19-vaccine-track...
The other things are two large infection surges. Perhaps prevalence and/or power of natural immunity are higher than thought?
Dead Comment
They split this small city into 4 and offered each section vaccines at a different time to get a better real-world test of the exact herd immunity point.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04747821
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-pandemic-ser...
Epidemiology works.
In any argument, its always convinent to assume your opponent is just unreasonable. That makes your failure to convince their fault not yours. Maybe some people are, but its a dangerous slippery slope to operate under that assumption.
That’s fine. Nobody should be forced to have something injected into them.
But society doesn’t have to wait for them. Decisions have consequences, and a lot of public goods are a privilege, not a right. You have a right to refuse to get photo ID; it does not follow you have a right to fly.
If you choose not to get vaccinated, the public shouldn’t be responsible for your care costs, if you get sick or debilitated. You should also responsible for the costs of those you injure. Like Arizona’s stupid motorist law for people who ignore flood signs.
Deleted Comment
The truth of the matter is that covid vaccination has its risks and they need to be weighed against those of the virus. And when you make an honest effort to perform such an evaluation, the choice is not quite so clear cut.
To an extent. Just a couple of weeks ago, this was in the news:
"Why the world’s most vaccinated country is seeing an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases" [0]
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/06/seychelles-v...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/scientists-cal...
Edit: i missed that we're talking about CoronaVac, where the range i cited was for a different vaccine.
EDIT: Nevermind, it would work anyway because the vaccines prevent more dangerous effects. So if you vaccinate at-risk people, ofc your deaths would lower
Not according to my colleagues who, to my frustration, believe podcasts are more credible than scientific literature.
Which surprised me. They are intelligent people, how does that happen?
Dead Comment
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacci...
Is there a study which has calculated a more precise herd immunity threshold, taking this effect into account?