Unvaccinated? Be prepared to get Covid once per year minimum. Keep in mind that the Case Fatality Rate for the unvaccinated is still 2% - -which is about 100 times the 0.03% case fatality rate of the vaccinated. So let's do some math for the unvaccinated -- you have a 2% chance of winning a Darwin award this year, a 2% chance next year, 2% the following year, perpetually into the future. Not taking precautions? Be prepared to get COVID once a year, modeling shows https://fortune.com/2022/05/22/how-often-can-you-get-covid-yearly-modeling-shows/ COVID is not a "one and done" thing—far from it. Those who are unvaccinated and don't mask can expect to come down with COVID once a year or so—once every other year for the unvaccinated who regularly use a "good quality" mask in public, according to modeling by drug developer Fractal Therapeutics. As for the vaccinated, both masked and unmasked, they can expect to get COVID "a lot less frequently," though it's impossible to say just how often, said Arijit Chakravarty, a COVID researcher and Fractal Therapeutics CEO. "The bottom line is if you are planning not to use a mask and live your life as usual, expect to get infected at least once a year, if not more," he said. "If you're planning to mask everywhere but at home, that probably cuts the risk in half." The team's latest models accounts for waning immunity from vaccines and prior infection, and a certain degree of immune evasion, as has been increasingly seen in Omicron subvariants. It also assumes that with each round of infection, a person gains some measure of protection against the sometimes deadly virus, albeit temporary. It does not account for the possible evolution of a variant that completely evades immunity, he cautioned. The modeling focuses on the unvaccinated because "vaccines are not currently providing protection against infection" for the majority of the U.S. population, though they are providing protection against severe illness and death, Chakravarty said. The percentage of Americans who've received one booster is small—46.5%, according to the CDC—and smaller yet for a second booster: 19.7%. Regardless, "boosters only provide a short duration of protection against infection," he said. Immunity, whether from vaccine or prior infection, is thought to wane after three or four months, though it varies by person. Chakravarty's team also ran simulations in which the vaccine is still undermined by immune evasion, but the public is able to "dose over and over again" with current vaccines. "If we assume that each new round of vaccine gives you a 15-fold jump in antibody titers—yes, in fact, if you vaccinate very often, you can probably massively reduce the risk of being infected," he said. The hypothesis "might well be worth testing in the real world," he said. While few would want to deal with a jab and current vaccine side effects every eight weeks or so, more might be willing to take a readily available nasal-mist vaccine, which may cause fewer side effects. Variants are outpacing current vaccine technology, potentially rendering it completely ineffective in the future. But "we haven't fully explored the range" of what that technology can provide in the way of protection, Chakravarty said—not yet. "More research needs to be done on this—in addition to coming up with vaccines that work better against the current viral variants, vaccines that can be used nasally—exploring how often vaccines can be given, and how much of a boost to our neutralizing antibodies we could get from frequent administration.” Such research might not require full clinical trials, but could start by looking at neutralizing antibody titers and asking the question, "What course of vaccine doses provide higher titers while still being acceptable from a safety standpoint?" Chakravarty said. "It's a relatively low-cost thing to fund and could yield benefit, even as we're exploring next-generation vaccines."
What a bunch of horseshit. People who are vaccinated will also get it once a year. That's how cold viruses work.
It probably already has and with Covid battering the pancreas and other organs a little or a lot every time I expect endemic Covid to take a chunk off life expectancy.
And however unfortunate that may be, in the aggregate it will tend to target the stupid more aggressively.
Just a heads-up. The number of COVID infections is at least 4 times higher than last year at this time . What does this tell you about the upcoming fall and winter seasons. The real COVID surge is (much) bigger than it looks. But don't panic NPR - https://tinyurl.com/3cnsz58p Cases of COVID-19 are – yet again – on the rise. The U.S. is seeing an average of more than 100,000 reported new cases across the country every day. That's nearly double the rate a month ago and four times higher than this time last year. And the real number of cases is likely much higher than that, according to health officials. Because many people now rely on at-home tests, "we're clearly undercounting infections," White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told reporters at the most recent COVID press briefing. Hospitalizations are trending upwards too, though only gradually still in most places. Yet in most places, health officials haven't called for any new COVID restrictions. So how big is the surge, really? And is there anything you should be doing about it? Measuring the true number of infections Official undercounts of cases are not exactly a new problem. At the beginning of the pandemic, many cases went undetected because tests were unreliable and supply was limited. "We saw early on – in March 2020 – that maybe one in 10, maybe one in 12 infections were actually being captured," says Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University whose lab has worked to model the true number of infections. Very early research efforts to figure out how many infections were out in the community involved testing a sample of residents for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. As the pandemic progressed, that method didn't work as well, Shaman explains, because antibodies after infection waned over time and because vaccinations complicated the antibody picture. Shaman's research group turned to using models to estimate the "ascertainment rate" – the portion of real infections that were being captured in official case counts. That rate has fluctuated – at the end of 2020, they estimated one in four cases were being counted. During the omicron surge it was closer to one in six. Now with the widespread availability of at-home rapid tests that aren't reported to health departments, Shaman thinks the true number of cases may be in the ballpark of eight times higher than case counts. In other words, instead of 100,000 new cases a day, the true number may be 800,000 cases per day. Take that estimate with a giant grain of salt, he advises. It's getting harder to get a firm handle on the current ascertainment rate. Wastewater surveillance sites across the country reinforce the idea that the virus is on the rise. More than half of sites have seen "modest increases" in levels of virus according to CDC, although the system doesn't cover the whole country and is not yet set up to offer people an ongoing estimate of the true number of cases beyond official counts. All of this is a predictable consequence of having easy, ubiquitous at-home tests, says Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "For people to have that information at their fingertips to be able to get the results that they need so that they can act on them immediately – that's totally worth it," she says. But it does come at the expense of the data, "and so you have to infer that there are higher numbers of cases than are being reported." The next surge could be worse As an epidemiologist, this uncertainty is not ideal, says Katelyn Jetelina, adjunct professor at University of Texas Health Science Center, who writes the Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter. And even if case counts are much higher than they appear, this summer may not see a health care crisis like previous surges, she says. As the weather warms up and people spend more time outdoors, "transmission is a lot less because of the ventilation outside," she says. Also, after the massive surge of infections from the omicron variant, she says, "we just have such high levels of infection-induced immunity that we have a very high immunity wall," something CDC has estimated as well. Basically, if someone has had a recent infection they're less likely to get infected again, so the virus might not be able to spread as much or make people as sick. The country's current population-level immunity is one of the reasons Maciej Boni, a professor of biology at Penn State's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics says it makes sense for policymakers to hold back on rolling out mitigation measures for now. "The reason is that we're going to exhaust people's patience and potentially exhaust certain health resources [and] political capital that we want to have saved up for when we really need it," he says. He predicts a much more dangerous surge is coming in the fall and winter. That's when he thinks health officials should start to ramp "the new set of measures that's likely going to be required to get case numbers down," he explains. Jetelina agrees that the country is unlikely to make big moves at the moment. "I don't see I don't see sweeping policy changes until the virus has another omicron-like event or a huge mutation," she says. Figure out what's happening with the virus where you are While public health officials may not be raising the alarm over the rise in cases, health researchers agree that certain people should take notice of the fact of the current, partly invisible surge: older people who haven't been vaccinated or boosted recently. "That's the low-hanging fruit here," Jetelina says. "Just get the vaccine. Go get your booster. Don't think very hard about it." Nearly one third of people older than 65 who are eligible for a booster haven't received one according to CDC's vaccination tracker – despite clear evidence that it reduces risks of hospitalizations and death. Higher-risk people generally should be more careful if cases are getting high. But with official reports of case counts from health agencies missing so much data, how do you figure out how bad COVID transmission is in your community? Just as when a storm's predicted you might watch the meteorologist on TV but also step outside to look at the sky, so public health experts say, it's smart to tune into both official and anecdotal signals of surging cases. Do keep an eye on case counts (knowing they are only capturing a portion of the true cases out there), and hospitalizations, and listen to public health officials. But also pay attention to the texts from friends and coworkers telling you they've gotten COVID-19. "That anecdotal evidence could be useful in making decisions, too," Jetelina says. If there seems to be a sudden spike, you'll know there's more virus circulating where you live. Another signal to look for: If your workplace or kids' school does surveillance testing – that is regular tests of everyone, even people who aren't symptomatic – that can be really helpful for keeping a pulse on what's happening with the virus locally. "Where I am in Miami-Dade County, there's still municipal employees that may need to test regularly, and we might get some kind of underlying signal of when we're having a surge," says epidemiologist Zinzi Bailey of the University of Miami. Bailey also likes using COVID-19 hospitalization data as a proxy for what's happening in her community. "I look at my local hospitalizations, and if they're starting to tick upwards, I modify my behavior accordingly – I'm going to be taking a little bit more attention in terms of masking, I'm going to be paying a little bit more attention about what indoor spaces I'm choosing to be in and how often I'm going to do that," she says. Jetelina uses trendlines in case counts to make decisions for her own family. "My ears start perking up [when there's] anything over a 50-75% increase in the past two weeks," she says. Looking at case trend lines, if the line is "just starting to slowly creep up, then then fine, but if the acceleration is getting faster and faster, that's when something seems up to me." Then there's grabbing a raincoat when weather's foreboding – i.e., getting your vaccine protection, or getting boosted if you're not up-to-date. Even though its easy to make an appointment at a pharmacy, fewer than half of Americans who got their initial vaccines still haven't gotten the first booster that was authorized in the fall. And now a second booster is available to anyone over 50. Beyond vaccination, if the virus is spreading a lot in your community right now, anyone who's high-risk because of age or underlying conditions – or lives with someone who is – would be smart to dial up on personal COVID-19 precautions: being selective about time in public spaces indoors and wearing a high quality well-fitting mask when you do.
So once again a study shows that having a previous variant does not protect you from Omicron. Only being vaccinated will provide some protection from Omicron. How often does this message need to be conveyed until anti-vax idiots get it through their thick heads. Seeing that the unvaccinated account for over 95% of the deaths and have more than 20X probability of dying from Covid. Children who've had COVID-19 are not protected from Omicron - study New research finds that children and adolescents showed a reduction in cross-neutralization against all of the variants, especially against Omicron. https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/article-708019 Children who have had COVID-19 or multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) are not protected from the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant, but those who have been vaccinated are, a new study led by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital found. (More at above url)
Reply to your post is inline, below: ="gwb-trading, post: 5605762, member: 9113"]Just a heads-up. The number of COVID infections is at least 4 times higher than last year at this time . What does this tell you about the upcoming fall and winter seasons. So after a year and a half of having multiple Covid-19 vaccines and Boosters, we are seeing even more infections? What might a analytical person reasonably conclude about the Covid-19 vaccine's effectiveness? The real COVID surge is (much) bigger than it looks. But don't panic NPR - https://tinyurl.com/3cnsz58p Cases of COVID-19 are – yet again – on the rise. The U.S. is seeing an average of more than 100,000 reported new cases across the country every day. That's nearly double the rate a month ago and four times higher than this time last year. And the real number of cases is likely much higher than that, according to health officials. Because many people now rely on at-home tests, "we're clearly undercounting infections," Other than say pharmaceutical companies, who really cares if Covid-19 cases are undercounted? Obviously, those who were infected did not need to seek medical attention. By extension, if a significant number of people are being "undercounted" does this not suggest the hazard ratio of Covid-19, including death rates, is overstated? In addition, even giving vaccines full credit against a Covid-19 Infection, the fact there are apparently many people able to get through Covid-19 just fine not suggest that vaccines are not always necessary? Are you beginning to see how prior statements based on propaganda rather than scientific reasoning and principle have a habit of biting the propagator in the ass, sooner or later? White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told reporters at the most recent COVID press briefing. Hospitalizations are trending upwards too, though only gradually still in most places. Yet in most places, health officials haven't called for any new COVID restrictions. So how big is the surge, really? And is there anything you should be doing about it? Measuring the true number of infections Official undercounts of cases are not exactly a new problem. At the beginning of the pandemic, many cases went undetected because tests were unreliable and supply was limited. "We saw early on – in March 2020 – that maybe one in 10, maybe one in 12 infections were actually being captured," says Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University whose lab has worked to model the true number of infections. So tell us again, if the Case Fatality Rate(CFR) of Covid-19 is about 2.0% and we are undercounting by a factor of 10 to 12, would a metric we'll call the infection fatality (IFR) be at least ten times(90%) lower? I say at least because presumably most people who got severely sick would end up in the hospital before they died, right? In addition, historically the elderly and frail die from pneumonia because they have weakened immune systems, less resilience, and potential comorbidities versus younger persons, such as those under sixty years old. Here are relevant statistics from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ Very early research efforts to figure out how many infections were out in the community involved testing a sample of residents for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. As the pandemic progressed, that method didn't work as well, Shaman explains, because antibodies after infection waned over time and because vaccinations complicated the antibody picture. Shaman's research group turned to using models to estimate the "ascertainment rate" – the portion of real infections that were being captured in official case counts. That rate has fluctuated – at the end of 2020, they estimated one in four cases were being counted. During the omicron surge it was closer to one in six. Now with the widespread availability of at-home rapid tests that aren't reported to health departments, Shaman thinks the true number of cases may be in the ballpark of eight times higher than case counts. In other words, instead of 100,000 new cases a day, the true number may be 800,000 cases per day. Take that estimate with a giant grain of salt, he advises. It's getting harder to get a firm handle on the current ascertainment rate. Wastewater surveillance sites across the country reinforce the idea that the virus is on the rise. More than half of sites have seen "modest increases" in levels of virus according to CDC, although the system doesn't cover the whole country and is not yet set up to offer people an ongoing estimate of the true number of cases beyond official counts. All of this is a predictable consequence of having easy, ubiquitous at-home tests, says Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "For people to have that information at their fingertips to be able to get the results that they need so that they can act on them immediately – that's totally worth it," she says. But it does come at the expense of the data, "and so you have to infer that there are higher numbers of cases than are being reported." The next surge could be worse As an epidemiologist, this uncertainty is not ideal, says Katelyn Jetelina, adjunct professor at University of Texas Health Science Center, who writes the Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter. And even if case counts are much higher than they appear, this summer may not see a health care crisis like previous surges, she says. As the weather warms up and people spend more time outdoors, "transmission is a lot less because of the ventilation outside," she says. Also, after the massive surge of infections from the omicron variant, she says, "we just have such high levels of infection-induced immunity that we have a very high immunity wall," something CDC has estimated as well. Basically, if someone has had a recent infection they're less likely to get infected again, so the virus might not be able to spread as much or make people as sick. The country's current population-level immunity is one of the reasons Maciej Boni, a professor of biology at Penn State's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics says it makes sense for policymakers to hold back on rolling out mitigation measures for now. "The reason is that we're going to exhaust people's patience and potentially exhaust certain health resources [and] political capital that we want to have saved up for when we really need it," he says. He predicts a much more dangerous surge is coming in the fall and winter. That's when he thinks health officials should start to ramp "the new set of measures that's likely going to be required to get case numbers down," he explains. Jetelina agrees that the country is unlikely to make big moves at the moment. "I don't see I don't see sweeping policy changes until the virus has another omicron-like event or a huge mutation," she says. Figure out what's happening with the virus where you are While public health officials may not be raising the alarm over the rise in cases, health researchers agree that certain people should take notice of the fact of the current, partly invisible surge: older people who haven't been vaccinated or boosted recently. "That's the low-hanging fruit here," Jetelina says. "Just get the vaccine. Go get your booster. Don't think very hard about it." Nearly one third of people older than 65 who are eligible for a booster haven't received one according to CDC's vaccination tracker – despite clear evidence that it reduces risks of hospitalizations and death. Higher-risk people generally should be more careful if cases are getting high. But with official reports of case counts from health agencies missing so much data, how do you figure out how bad COVID transmission is in your community? Just as when a storm's predicted you might watch the meteorologist on TV but also step outside to look at the sky, so public health experts say, it's smart to tune into both official and anecdotal signals of surging cases. Do keep an eye on case counts (knowing they are only capturing a portion of the true cases out there), and hospitalizations, and listen to public health officials. But also pay attention to the texts from friends and coworkers telling you they've gotten COVID-19. "That anecdotal evidence could be useful in making decisions, too," Jetelina says. If there seems to be a sudden spike, you'll know there's more virus circulating where you live. Another signal to look for: If your workplace or kids' school does surveillance testing – that is regular tests of everyone, even people who aren't symptomatic – that can be really helpful for keeping a pulse on what's happening with the virus locally. "Where I am in Miami-Dade County, there's still municipal employees that may need to test regularly, and we might get some kind of underlying signal of when we're having a surge," says epidemiologist Zinzi Bailey of the University of Miami. Bailey also likes using COVID-19 hospitalization data as a proxy for what's happening in her community. "I look at my local hospitalizations, and if they're starting to tick upwards, I modify my behavior accordingly – I'm going to be taking a little bit more attention in terms of masking, I'm going to be paying a little bit more attention about what indoor spaces I'm choosing to be in and how often I'm going to do that," she says. Jetelina uses trendlines in case counts to make decisions for her own family. "My ears start perking up [when there's] anything over a 50-75% increase in the past two weeks," she says. Looking at case trend lines, if the line is "just starting to slowly creep up, then then fine, but if the acceleration is getting faster and faster, that's when something seems up to me." Then there's grabbing a raincoat when weather's foreboding – i.e., getting your vaccine protection, or getting boosted if you're not up-to-date. Even though its easy to make an appointment at a pharmacy, fewer than half of Americans who got their initial vaccines still haven't gotten the first booster that was authorized in the fall. And now a second booster is available to anyone over 50. Beyond vaccination, if the virus is spreading a lot in your community right now, anyone who's high-risk because of age or underlying conditions – or lives with someone who is – would be smart to dial up on personal COVID-19 precautions: being selective about time in public spaces indoors and wearing a high quality well-fitting mask when you do. At this point, would it be fair to say that Covid-19 vaccines had a protective half-life of four to six months, at best, not even factoring the impact of all the new variants coming out? In other words, are Covid-19 vaccines becoming increasingly ineffective? Another factor to consider: There can be preservatives(Thimerosal, a mercury compound for vials with multiple doses) and adjuvants(Aluminum) in a vaccine. While a single dose, or even multiple doses of vaccines are considered safe, what is the potential effects of multiple vaccinations and boosters per year for an extended period of time, especially in younger people, who live long enough to see potential long term adverse effects manifest themselves? Aluminum has been associated with increasing dementia risk and mercury compounds can be broken down by the body into hazardous forms under certain conditions. Is there a threshold where the risks of over-vaccination outweigh the potential rewards? Personally, I believe most things are best in moderation, including vaccines. Especially for a disease of only moderate concern that is apparently evolving faster than vaccine manufacturers can keep up.