Intuition tells us a plastic shield would be protective against germs. But scientists who study aerosols, air flow and ventilation say that much of the time, the barriers don’t help and probably give people a false sense of security. And sometimes the barriers can make things worse.
....Under normal conditions in stores, classrooms and offices, exhaled breath particles disperse, carried by air currents and, depending on the ventilation system, are replaced by fresh air roughly every 15 to 30 minutes. But erecting plastic barriers can change air flow in a room, disrupt normal ventilation and create “dead zones,” where viral aerosol particles can build up and become highly concentrated.
There's a restaurant near me that has so many plastic barriers installed that it's literally become a maze. The last time I was there I found myself backtracking two or three times as I ran into large pieces of plexiglass that I hadn't realized were there.
Plus there's another thing: barriers plus masks make it almost impossible to be understood. So everyone does the same thing: after one round of "WHAT?" they poke their heads around the barrier to try again, while the clerk on the other side pokes their head around the barrier in order to hear better. The whole thing is a bit of a joke.
Bottom line: masks are good, barriers are . . . probably a waste of time. Better still is getting everyone vaccinated.
Repeatedly wiping down surfaces also seems to be a waste* of resources against a virus that spreads primarily or solely through the air like covid, but everyone I work with is very concerned about viewing this display of security theater.
Average humans just don’t grok science.
*depending on how often surfaces were (or weren’t!) being cleaned before, stepping up cleaning protocols might be helpful against the spread of other diseases. But there’s little to no evidence it does anything to prevent covid spread. My coworkers refuse to believe this though.
Three weeks ago I was outside a Jimmy Johns restaurant located in a small town in a very red state. Delta was surging, the CDC had reversed course on its no-mask recommendation for the vaccinated, breakthrough cases were in the news, and the place was packed. 28 people (not including employees) and not one mask among them. A middle-aged, maskless couple walked out of the restaurant and the woman quickly went to her purse and pulled out hand sanitizer to share with her partner. I just shook my head.
Maybe she just wanted to protect against norovirus or some other potential cause of food poisoning. Many people used hand sanitizer prior to 2020. There are other illnesses out there, and if you're vaccinated against covid, a bout of food poisoning is likely to be a much worse experience!
Classic! Also, we now know that a person's right to control what's done to their own body only applies to white men who are resisting getting a little shot.
Well, maybe wiping down surfaces doesn't significantly protect against COVID. But one of the serendipitous findings was that wiping down everything that comes into the house significantly cuts down on seasonal respiratory diseases. Since the last time I had a cold or a case of the flu was late 2019/early 2020 before I started these particular protocols, I'm going to keep using them. Anecdotal I know, but I am somewhat ... elderly 🙂
+1
I mentioned this in a post below nose picking. I have a messed up nasal cavity that makes it impossible to fully clear my sinuses by blowing my nose and snot gets stuck and causes some medical issues. So I have to sometimes pick my nose.
After discussing with my doctor, who initially said never pick your nose but then understood I had to, she said it was really OK to pick your nose carefully as long as you thoroughly - like over 30 seconds - wash your hands right before and touch nothing else. So if have the urge to pick, just hold off until you can wash well.
That advice which I rigorously follow has dramatically decreased my sickness.
Also same for rubbing your eyes. Cannot say I always manage that.
They should be wiping down surfaces anyhow.
Agreed. In spades.
I was just going to say the same thing as Austin -- pretty much everything that's not masking, distancing, and vaccinating is indeed just hygeine theater. We knew early on that surface contact was one of the least-likely ways of spreading the virus compared to airborne particles, and yet "wipe down everything constantly" seems to have remained a standard protocol, esp in restaurants, schools, etc.
Don't forget ventilation. Adding ventilation reduces transmission as well. That could be open windows or doors to the outside but can also be using portable HEPA filters in rooms or upgrading the heating cooling systems to increase mixing of outside air, stronger filters or using UV light inside ducts to sterilize the air.
filters, yes.
UV lights? Much harder to implement well, works better on bacteria (things with larger genomes) than viruses, and can generate ozone which can also kill microbes but is not good for people if it builds up and get released into rooms.
The very limited use of plexiglass barriers I see in most stores seems a good choice. Having a barrier in the place where face-to-face contact happens most often (the checkout counter) likely helps limit spread between the public and workers.
For workers who are behind the screens, it may increase their exposure to each other's aerosols (if there are multiple workers there), but that is what workplace vaccine mandates can mitigate.
Yeah, that seems the only place they work... assuming that they aren't getting reflected sound traps.
Ventilation is key, imagine if Congress last Spring had bent over backwards to pass a bill to fund emergency ventilation upgrades in schools across America.
When it comes to science of COVID transmission and aerosols, poor ventilation is the #1 risk factor. So remedying that and doubling down with masks (where possible) would do away with most distancing concerns, which are the hardest intervention to implement in schools (and almost worthless in bad ventilation anyway).
And anticipating the obvious resistance to masking children in schools that would arise, ventilation is the one thing the federal state governments can control, think of it as infrastructure, emergency infrastructure, a gift that keeps giving synergistically long after COVID is gone as well (for other seasonal respiratory concerns with packing kids in schools together).
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/223/4/550/6009483?login=true
...federal and state governments...
Yes that would make most sense. But the scale of renovating that many schools frightens even me.
There’s an economic cost to _not_ improving ventilation, too - workdays lost to respiratory illnesses of all kinds, as jimm suggests.
The barriers make about as much sense against COVID transmission as they would in blocking cigarette smoke.
But they do work against smoke.
Okay, plexiglass maze is something I find entertaining. But yes the plexiglass was always a joke. Wiping is good for general hygiene if you are a place that serves food or its a spot where lots of people put their hands bur not for coronavirus.
Instead you want to spring for better ventilation and installing some air purifiers. You want the HEPA H13 filters (no ionized con job) and shoot for the ideal of 400ppm of co2. Thats outside ventilation. You'll never get that. Aspiration. 800ppm will be enough.
Oh my god, now it's Thursday! Yesterday you said it was Wednesday! Well, which is it!? Make up your mind! We're not going to be dictated to by Dr. Calendar!!! This is worse than Auschwitz!
In the spirit of the c. 1999 adbusters fake GAP ad touting Hitler's choice in pants (khakis), let me also say, "Hitler used calendars".
Hitler was a monster! What good has time ever done for anyone!? It's a tool of oppression, it's an attack on our freedom, our freedom to choose when we want it to be when we want it to be that and not when someone else wants it to be!! Who are they to tell us when this is now and that was then, when things are and when they aren't?? Nobody votes for the calendar!!!
[what, left out what]
Lol! You’re on a roll!
Remember, at the beginning and for a very long time thereafter the CDC said that SARS-CoV-2 was primarily carried and transmitted via droplets, that it wasn't aerosolized. This was, in fact, what drove the 6' social distance guideline.
Under that CDC guidance, many simply extended the accepted standard health code requirement to protect food against coughs and sneezes (droplets), and in the case of open salad bars, this means sneeze guards.
I might have mentioned this in the comment section, but more likely I just posted it on Twitter, that the proper way to mitigate wasn't hard surface barriers but layers of translucent cloth. Yeah, you'd have to wash them constantly, but they slowed air flow and captured aerosols. I mean, duh. You can observe what happens around the edges of buildings when the wind blows.
Also, I'd suggest for the *umteenth* time that the 6' social distance is wholly inadequate. It was based on really old research; newer research shows that 20' is the ballpark distance you'd ideally want.
Went to my local DMV office today
They had plastic sheets from ceiling right down top the counter top. One guy said in a loud voice "They have destroyed the air flow in the room". I looked up and saw the ceiling tiles were all new and return vents perfectly clean. On their side of the partition I saw the same thing.
The woman behind the counter was slightly irritated with the guy but didn't say anything. All I said was "they redid the ventilation system didn't they?" She said yep and just smiled.
I got a feeling they will be leaving those plastic partitions in place for quite some time.......
Most measures have some potential downsides and could cause greater covid spread along with the upsides reducing covid spread. So you have to weigh the upsides vs the downsides to assess whether it helps or hurts just considering only covid and disregarding other costs.
And , as our understanding of the virus has changed, especially with regarding spread through aerolization, droplets, and surfaces , our assessment of this weighting can change.
And note that current thinking is certainly not that covid cannot be spread through surfaces and droplets, it can be. It is simply that the relative possibilities have changed. And note droplets are not really now thoght of as less of a threat, it is only that aerolization is a bigger one.
So
Plexiglass barriers - good for droplets, but bad for aerolization . So now seems in many situations net negative. D' ohrk - slowing air flows is NOT a good thing with aerolization. Aerolization does not need much air flow to fill up a room- you need air flow to get it out of the room. Anyplace that does have some outside ventilation ( even a grocery store through only the door opening) barriers are likely a negative.
You know where Plexiglas barriers might help. Outside!. No matter barriers , you should there have enough air flow anyway so stopping droplets is worth it.
Wiping down surfaces. It still helps reduce whatever risk there still is for surface spread and no covid downside I can see. But other costs in time and money mean likeiy not worth it for small but still net positive covid benefit.
Social distancing also cannot see any covid downside so issue is how much benefit and whether worth the non covid cost. D ' Ohrk. Yes, 6 feet was never a magjc distance but neither is your proposed 20 feet. There is no magic distance! The risk increases the farther away you are. But by how much also depends on the situation. If you are just passing by someone walking in the opposite direction, do not worry if you pass by within one foot ( unless they sneeze right in your mouth). The amount of virus you might breathe in from a one foot distance Outside in one second is almost surely too low to infect you.
But it seems that, in an enclosed space with poor ventilation for a long time period , 50 feet is too close. In studies, aerolization means whatever virus will eventually spread through the room and there will not be that much more virus ten feet away from the infected person vs. 50 feet.
6 feet still makes sense in many ways. It is a reasonable distance to prevent droplet spread ( which is where it first came from). And re aerolization where greater distance does not reduce risk as much, it is a reasonable distance you can maintain at little cost. You can reasonably talk to someone from 6 feet away but not 20 feet.
So distancing rule should be to really try to stay 6 feet away unless just impossible. After that , just stay as far away as you can at little cost or trouble.
But seems nobody ever wants to consider masking in this context. The main benefit of masks, and why they were introduced initially, is they stop droplets. They do little re aerolization spread - cloth masks really nothing and surgical masks very little. N95 yes ( and I wear those) if you wear them correctly and most do not ( I find it hard to fit them perfectly myself and have been doing it for a year).
As we better understood the fact that aerolization is the biggest risk factor, that should have included a recognition that the estimated value of masks is less too. And masks do have downsides re covid risk In people touching their faces to adjust them and acting invulnerable ( i.e. not worrying re distance) . I do think that this behavioral downside has improved over time as more learn how to wear them ( except for politicians who seem to only wear them for show ). And masks also have clear other health risks.
But masks have become the liberal shibboleth that cannot be questioned.
What matters most seems to be ventilation.
I would say better tradeoff if stores did not have to require masks or social distancing but just had to keep their doors and windows open and live with summer heat or winter cold.
Liberals have learned their lesson on outdoor masking. It's why your not hearing much about outdoors events.
Droplets can spread Covid-19 efficiently. Masks will block droplets, and even some percentage of aerosols, and will help keep those infected from spreading the disease. It won't be perfect, especially if it's not a properly fitted N95, but it's much better than nothing. Blocking droplets and some aerosols can also lower overall viral aerosol load in the air. (Do not use gaiter masks--some studies have shown they can aggravate the aerosol problem).
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fmore%2Fmasking-science-sars-cov2.html
Yes, better ventilation is needed too. And every who can be should be vaccinated.
I do love the argument cleaning surfaces is just security theater, but masks make me touch my face so will actually spread covid. My only retort is to tell people to stop picking their friend's nose, and they'd be fine.
Three basic ways covid can spread, droplets, aerolization and surface contact ( yes addtl droplets can also aerolize so consider that part of aerolization ).
Re masking below n95, it helps little re aerolization ( mainly by stopping droplets from aerolization so near zero to protect you but some protecting others from you) . They do help more significantly re direct droplet spread of course because they can catch the droplets and that helps both you and others.
I have explained to those that say masks are totally ineffective because the virus is much smaller than the pores that while that is true ( re virus and pore size ) droplets containing the virus are plenty big to be stopped by a mask. If droplets played zero role in spread, it would be stupid to wear masks ever for aerolization only. But , although droplets are less of the issue than we first thought, they still are an issue.
But for surface contact spread, masks actually increase the risk by getting you to touch your face more . You are sort of doing the same thing re surface contact and dismissing the risk of face touching completely unless you pick someone else 's nose - as those who dismiss droplets risk. Just because we now think it is a less important factor does not mean zero issue. So masking certainly does increase surface spread by getting your hands near your mask ( especially if adjusting and taking on and off every minute). Bring the virus near your nostrils mouth and eyes and you might get it in..small chance . One thing you can do that have only heard mentioned once. When you are having hands near face, do not breath in that second.
We have also adjusted our perception of relative risk over time and learned more. And that should also adjust our expected value of masks.
Initially you had a lot of concern over spread both by surface contact and droplets ( which is normal for many viruses). In that situation, the worry that additional spread risk from masking via surface contact could be bigger than it helping re droplets was a major concern. And exactly the reason fauci gave for not making originally. As we learned more and realized surface contact was a lower risk, the estimated value of masks went up ( as the extra risk re surface contact went down ). And that played a part in the change in masking policy that was poorly communicated.
But later, as we learned that aerolization was the actual biggest factor, the estimated value of masks declines as it is less effective against the biggest risk factor . But real reluctance to ever discuss that.
Today with what we know, the issue of masks increasing surface contact spread is a real minor point, because the negative factor is clearly way less than the positive benefit re droplets. Just a small offset to the benefit. But it played a big factor initially.
And re inside outside. It is incorrect to say that masks are useless outside. In fact they are relatively MORE effective outside than inside. Inside aerolization is the real big issue as the virus can permeate the room and masks not as effective there. Outside, the aerolization risk almost disappears and it is droplets that is the big risk. The reason why outside is safer is that the aerolization risk goes away.
Why they are saying masks are not needed outside is that the absolute risk reduction is less, not relative. Say inside the mask reduces the risk by 25% from 4% to 3%. And outside it reduces it by 50% from 1% to .5%, where is it more important to mask?
If you are outside in a situation with big droplet spread risk, like say a blm protest where everyone is shouting and talking near each other, wear the mask. If you are inside where the only real risk is aerolization ( in an enclosed building for a long time but everyone 50 feet away , the mask is not useful much.
And re nose picking. Health professionals never say this as they want you to never pick your nose ( not realistic for most). But the most important time to wash your hands thoroughly is not after using the bathroom ( especially #1) or even eating. It is before you pick your nose.
There's not much surface spread infection happening, and that's why you're supposed to wash your hands more anyway (whether touching your mask or not), but ultimately risk management focuses on most important and significant risks, and doesn't really sorry about overwhelming people with different things to do for perfect coverage. The whole cleaning/surface contact thing really is theater when it comes to effective risk management, especially at population level.
Homemade cloth masks can be reasonably effective against aerosols if properly fitted: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7185834/
Materials and layering are important factors.
As I have repeatedly noted, many Asia/Pacific countries have had orders-of-magnitude lower Covid-19 case rates than the Western Hemisphere and Europe, and ubiquitous masking has been part of their protocols. Until evidence clearly shows them to be irrelevant, it is foolish to stop masking. Not that we have shortage of fools ….
We have the technology to solve this. Engineers building semiconductor fabs manage airflow to go from ceiling to floor, never sideways, to keep any dust from moving about. Add to that scrubbers. A scrubber is basically a box with stuff inside to provide a huge surface area. Inside this you spray water. The moist surfaces capture all particles.
So the engineers tell you how to route a few cardboard or aluminum tubes around the ceiling to source clean air, then near the floor you have a few more vents to capture air. Pump this through a compact scrubber.
A couple of decades ago I saw some of these scrubbers. Amazing stuff, a very small box would be enough to clean a good size room. As a bonus you get rid of pollen and other allergens.
This can't be more expensive than a bunch of plexiglass shields.
I think it is more expensive than plastic shields. But in a benefit vs. Cost analysis, it would bear plastic shields hands down. Especially since there may be zero net benefit from those shields.
You can use scrubbers but I understand they can be expensive.
The other thing is just have more exchange of air with the outside. Buy in recent decades we have spent a lot of time making our buildings very insulated from outside air largely for environmental reasons- to make them more energy efficient to heat and cool.
So what is best for infectious disease spread is worst for global warming. Sometimes there are tradeoffs and different goals conflict. But too often the tendency is to want something you advocate for to always be good for everything, which is an immature attitude but is prevalent today.
I do get annoyed at one take put restaurant I frequent. They are extremely strict at anti covid rules to the extent it even annoys me ( who generally is happy with them). They never allowed inside dining or unmasked vaccinated when it was allowed and insist on masks for infants. But they always keep the inside heavily air conditioner and cold and want the doors to stay closed at all times. Even on a cool day for la when it was in the 70s like today. Just keep the doors open on a decent day and do more to prevent covid than everything else.
And more outside ventilation is workable if everyone could just accept being a little bit warm in Sumner and cool in winter.
Semiconductor Fabs, aka Cleanrooms, are expensive and impractical. Airflow is vastly higher than what you'd normally need for IAQ, and you'd have to upsize AHUs which is then associated with higher operating and maintenance costs.
Furthermore, they operate on a completely different means of ventilation of rooms, through interstitial spaces, not ducts. Thus, you need to have a raised floor and a drop ceiling.
All very impractical.
Sounds like you know a lot more than I do about them.
But I think I do know an easy cheap way to ventilate. Open a window. Except in most modern offices, you can't.
You are correct, but ventilation improvements that would be far short of cleanroom particle-count levels should still significantly reduce transmission of virus.
dear god, where will it end?
https://i.redd.it/u2ex0rkflci71.jpg
Some other covid comments
1. On personal issues, I did relate my mom in the nursing home caught covid while vaccinated. Thanks for everyone who gave their best wishes.
Almost ten days now and zero symptoms. She feels fine. Hopefully can end isolation soon.
But my brother In law also got covid ( not living in same area) . He just got fully vaccinated 3 months ago and should have been at peak immunity. Got some serious symptoms ( not near hospital level) but is OK now.
So far, in my extended family of about 50 people, a little over half have been vaccinated. And every single person who has a confirmed covid case this year is in the vaccinated group ( that does include my nephew who got confirmed 6 days after fitst vaccine so probably do not count him). Freaky luck.
And it has killed my ability to talk any more unvaccinated into getting vaccinated. My brother in law ( who is hard line trump supporter) is one I helped talk into getting vaccinated and he was still very sceptical. I expected him to say see, it did no good. Surprised me a bit he said thank God he got vaccinated as otherwise could have been worse.
2. In LA county , a few days ago , they did give %age chance of confirmed covid case for vaccinated and unvaccinated over a week period. Which is a far more useful measurement than most of the crap statistics we see. Remember that worthless graph showing death rate multiplex re vaccinated vs vaccinated per state with ridiculous disparities. Well these numbers are better.
They get 4 times chance to catch it if unvaccinated and 14 times for hospitalization. Did not give deaths but should be even better than hospitalization. So I would think death rate differential is maybe 20 times. And, if you adjust by age, all should be even higher especially death rate.
So even though we are seeing breakthrough cases - as expected- they do work .
3. Also from LA county , our reported cases have still inched up from last week but positive rate going down. And the daily announcements make it clear a lot of extra confirmed cases due to extra random testing ( schools reopened this week).
So now I am calling it. I think we here in LA are past the peak in actual cases are they are now going down. R below 1.0. And that is reported cases so likely actual peak was a week ago.
And I guess rest of us a little behind and maybe national peak about now.
4. But what scares me is Israel. What the freaking hell is going on there? And not so much a deathless covid wave anymore.
And what differentiates them from other countries not seeing as big a wave or a big wave but less deaths ( like uk) might be vaccine policy of 2nd shot 3 weeks after 1st. Many others prioritized first shot so 2nd shot was maybe 2 or 3 months after 1st.
Seems that spacing out of 1st and 2nd shots
One thing I find curious about this delta variant is the fact that it developed before vaccines were available. "... SARS-CoV-2 mutation originally surfaced in India. The first Delta case was identified in December 2020, and the strain spread rapidly, soon becoming the dominant strain of the virus in both India and then Great Britain."
With most of the world unvaccinated, is this going to repeat itself over and over? It's also a case against international travel. Why else would it spread from India to GB? This lesson from New Zealand is also relevant - assuming the source is confirmed:
"New Zealand scientists linked the country's growing COVID-19 cluster to the Delta outbreak that began in Sydney, Australia — and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday they're "fairly certain" they've found the source."
There is very little which can be done about essential travel - shipping, trade, etc. But we can certainly limit international tourism. I'm guessing this summer's surge was stirred up by so many people running all over the US on vacation (Provincetown Mass, Branson Missouri, Florida beach vacations etc.)
Maybe I'm part of the problem too... I traveled to another city this week to attend two MLB games. I was in a big crowd for the first time in a couple of years. I'm fully vaccinated but the second shot was in early February. Hopefully I won't get the plague!
Note that a true vaccine resistant variant ( which has a mutation allowing it to specifically get around that immunity and not just be more overall contagious) will NOT come out of a place that is heavily unvaccinated. It will have no advantage there and could be at a disadvantage ( if that same mutation is harmful to the ability of the virus to spread to unvaccinated or those with natural immunity).
A variant arising from unvaccinated virgin populations like delta did will just be more transmissible to unvaccinated. It might also be more transmissible to vaccinated also, but just due to whatever overall transmissibility advantage it has, not something specifically enabling to avoid vaccine immunity. This is delta.
I have yet seen anything showing a vaccine avoiding variant. The scientists say it was designed in a way that should make it near impossible ( as it targets a method that should be essential for the virus to use) and maybe it will never happen. Of course if you keep having cases in vaccinated populations, eventually something almost impossible can happen.
Note that a vaccine resistant mutation can arise in an unvaccinated person, but to have a spread advantage and become a noticeable variant, there have to be enough vaccinated to spread to.
Having a lot of unvaccinated infected people with vaccinated poses a risk, even if the vaccine was 100% effective against the original. And even if everyone was vaccinated, a vaccine resistant variant can arise ( in fact then most likely to ) if there are enough cases among the vaccinated.
If waning immunity among vaccinated drops R below 1 so the virus becomes endemic, that is the biggest risk of a vaccine resistant variant.
Some other covid comments
1. On personal issues, I did relate my mom in the nursing home caught covid while vaccinated. Thanks for everyone who gave their best wishes.
Almost ten days now and zero symptoms. She feels fine. Hopefully can end isolation soon.
But my brother In law also got covid ( not living in same area) . He just got fully vaccinated 3 months ago and should have been at peak immunity. Got some serious symptoms ( not near hospital level) but is OK now.
So far, in my extended family of about 50 people, a little over half have been vaccinated. And every single person who has a confirmed covid case this year is in the vaccinated group ( that does include my nephew who got confirmed 6 days after fitst vaccine so probably do not count him). Freaky luck.
And it has killed my ability to talk any more unvaccinated into getting vaccinated. My brother in law ( who is hard line trump supporter) is one I helped talk into getting vaccinated and he was still very sceptical. I expected him to say see, it did no good. Surprised me a bit he said thank God he got vaccinated as otherwise could have been worse.
2. In LA county , a few days ago , they did give %age chance of confirmed covid case for vaccinated and unvaccinated over a week period. Which is a far more useful measurement than most of the crap statistics we see. Remember that worthless graph showing death rate multiplex re vaccinated vs vaccinated per state with ridiculous disparities. Well these numbers are better.
They get 4 times chance to catch it if unvaccinated and 14 times for hospitalization. Did not give deaths but should be even better than hospitalization. So I would think death rate differential is maybe 20 times. And, if you adjust by age, all should be even higher especially death rate.
So even though we are seeing breakthrough cases - as expected- they do work .
3. Also from LA county , our reported cases have still inched up from last week but positive rate going down. And the daily announcements make it clear a lot of extra confirmed cases due to extra random testing ( schools reopened this week).
So now I am calling it. I think we here in LA are past the peak in actual cases are they are now going down. R below 1.0. And that is reported cases so likely actual peak was a week ago.
And I guess rest of us a little behind and maybe national peak about now.
4. But what scares me is Israel. What the freaking hell is going on there? And not so much a deathless covid wave anymore.
And what differentiates them from other countries not seeing as big a wave or a big wave but less deaths ( like uk) might be vaccine policy of 2nd shot 3 weeks after 1st. Many others prioritized first shot so 2nd shot was maybe 2 or 3 months after 1st.
Seems that spacing out of 1st and 2nd shots over months might produce the better long term immunity and Israel is seeing immunity wane. And we vaccinated the same way just a little later.
We will all be scrambling to get a limited supply of booster shots sooner than later. I predict they will change the " wait 8 months " current advice as soon as get boosters to those vaccinated first. They are lying again re 8 months to prevent a rush for boosters.
In fact, just forget about convincing the still unvaccinated to get it now. Instead use the supply to give boosters to those who really want it.
A 20 something guy I work with came down with COVID while fully vaccinated.
Sore throat, some cough, headache for 4 days and done. It's not even a bad cold for him really. Does that mean the vaccine was a success or a failure?
He claims not to know how he got it. No one else in our work group got sick at all. It seems like he didn't get it at work and neither did he spread it to anyone at work. All are required to wear masks all the time. To me, this is a vaccine success story.
I expect when the data on breakthrough infections is analyzed, it will show something like this:
"The vaccinated patients are older, unhealthy, often they were bedridden before infection, immobile and already requiring nursing care," said Noa Eliakim-Raz, head of the coronavirus ward at Rabin Medical Centre in Petach Tikva.
In contrast, "the unvaccinated COVID patients we see are young, healthy, working people and their condition deteriorates rapidly," she said. "Suddenly they're being put on oxygen or on a respirator."
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-doctors-find-severe-covid-19-breakthrough-cases-mostly-older-sicker-2021-08-20/
Good luck!
Justin
Correct on all of that. But the seasonal flu affects us much the same way which for us older folks means getting an annual flu shot.
But think of it this way. Obesity rates for those 18 to 60 have risen. Diabetes is rising. Out entire population has gotten LESS HEALTHY over time
Long read, but worth it:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/new-sars-cov-2-variants-have-changed-pandemic-what-will-virus-do-next
This story puts the variants in another light:
https://www.salon.com/2021/08/18/lambda-variant-prophesies-future-mutations/
It seems - to this old guy at least - that we're in round 4, and watching future rounds develop in other parts of the world. Some may be worse, the majority probably less so. But clearly the sheer numbers of cases world wide is troublesome for future variations of COVID
There was a strange outbreak in Michigan in the spring which never really went anywhere else... yet it was as bad as the surge in November to January at peak.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/michigan-covid-cases.html
It was pretty much over quickly. Was that the delta?
My brother in law is late 50s but extremely healthy - runs marathons. He is one of those who "never gets sick" which is one reason he felt he did not need to be vaccinated and had to be talked into it.
And yet, when his immunity from full vaccination should be at peak, he gets it and is sicker, according to him, worse than ever before in his life.
Meanwhile my mom in the nursing home was vaccinated 8 months or more ago, gets covid and zero symptoms. And her health is poor enough that we thought she was passing in December ( family was allowed to visit as she was expected to die)..
Who knows. Seems like it is almost random. Studies contradict each other and it spreads In places and times that do not seem to follow a logical pattern.
One possibility with this is some of it might be just human error. Maybe my mom's test was a false positive. There had been an outbreak in the nursing home so perhaps a bit of virus happened to float into the test ( or was at the surface of her nose but did not infect her)
And maybe my brother in law never got fully vaccinated. With all the mass vaccinating, and needing to staff up to inoculate millions in long lines, with vaccines requiring careful handling, how often did the human beings screw up and let the vaccine go back, not insert the needle right, etc. And some might have known and covered up their mistake.
I wonder how many of the " breakthrough " cases are not due to the vaccine not working, but a screw up in vaccination so they were not really vaccinated.
There was an awful surge in michigan in the spring.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/michigan-covid-cases.html
During the winter, I knew lots of folks who got sick. Even my next door neighbor got it over thanksgiving and her close friend died. He had cancer too though. I never knew anyone who got sick in the spring. Then again, most of my neighbors were vaccinated by then too.
It really is hard to understand.
Sorry. Don't know how that partial double post happened
Rational-
No need to apologize, it happens
It's strange that you called the peak in your area when Israel is having such a problem after attaining one of the highest vaccine rates in the world.
In many stories I have seen there seems to be a trend going on.
They are starting to use words like: Surprised, stunned, alarmed, and others to describe what they are finding out about COVID.
Even the lab leak theory went down the toilet with the news of a detailed unpublished study showing COVID expansion outside the Wuhan lab IIRC at least a month before the lab reported their outbreak. We now find COVID in animals is spreading.
I know viruses change, they adapt. It's a marvel to watch but terrifying at the same time, and I'm NOT a virologist or epidemiologist, so I'm surprised and stunned by everything this thing does.
As for spacing of the vaccine shots? Not sure if that is the answer or not. We still have 45% of the population we could try that out on though. Much like the "shelf life" of the anti bodies we won't know unless we try it over time. After getting my second shot back in March I was left with the impression that I was set for a year. That has now changed to 8 months or november for me.
So we have a virus that we thought we had under some control with vaccines developed to fight the first 2 variants. Our current variant is showing BETTER ability to break through than previous variants have and we now know that our vaccine strategy is flawed but still a good one.. One thing that is bothersome to me at least is that the thought process NOW seems to be that we need to get a global vaccine program underway and/or reduce international travel and trade at least temporarily. IF, we develop an oral vaccine we could possibly do this - a pill or gel cap which is easily stored and shipped. Until then? I get the feeling we are at the mercy of the variants
I am glad you and your family are recovering.
Re delta and vaccines. Still see no evidence that delta has an actual mutation that gets it around the way vaccine immunity works. It just works better overall and that helps too even if vaccinated.
Analogy. Everyone is fighting wars using arrows . They manage to kill who you hit 25% of the time.
Then someone invents a shield which protects against the arrow 90% of the time ( have to hit that little part of the person peaking around the sheild. Now arrows only 10 * 25% or 2.5% effective in killing .
The attacking archer is covid, the arrow is its mode of attack and the shield is the vaccine.
Now someone invents a gun that hits with way more power than an arrow. That is the new variant method. The bullet will kill 75% of the time with no shield. And sometimes blast through the shield so it will kill shielded person 25% of the time.
Now sheild has gone from 90% effective against arrows ( original covid ) to 67% effective ( 75% reduced to 25%) against bullets ( variant).
But when would you most want that sheild ( vaccine) ? Being shot at with an arrow where it reduces your chance of dying from 25% to 2.5% ? Or when being shot at with a bullet where it reduces the chance of dying from 75% to 25%?
This is delta. And yes, it appears that the vaccine is relatively less effective against delta. But it still can be MORE effective against delta in absolute terms because delta is so damn contagious for unvaccinated.
And delta is not really a vaccine resistant mutation.
Instrad say someone invented an arrow that curved , so that it could go around the sheild. So, instead of killing someone with a sheild 2.5% of the time, it manages to kill 10% of the time ( maybe hits 40% times 25% kill rate). But it makes it less effective against unshielded as now you miss 50% of the time and kill rate is 12.5%.
So the arrow works well against shielded ( kill rate 10% instead of 2.5%) but is worse against unshielded ( 12.5% instead of 25%).
That is like a real vaccine avoiding mutation. Will never arise in unvaccinatded population.
And have to push back against you saying that a previously unpublished study showing covid spread in Wuhan makes the lab leak theory " down the toilet ".
Where is this study from? China? That has an interest in discrediting the lab leak theory ( especially if it was a lab leak).
Oh, I have a previously unpublished study from Donald Trump that shows that democrats manufactured fraudulent votes. So the theory that Joe biden won is now down the toilet too I guess.
But I actually have little reason to doubt this unpublished study if it exists. The real problem with your idea is that it is based on their being community cases before the lab REPORTED their outbreak. Did you ever consider that if it was an accidental leak from the lab , that china would want to cover up, that they would delay reporting a lab case until there was sufficient spread outside to make it clear there was no way that they were going to stop it and cover up its existence and there being some community spread making them at least able to deny it came from the lab?
Your position is entirely dependent on the assumption that the Chinese lab would always have immediately reported any lab leak outbreak.
A lab leak had always been most likely to me. The logical way to approach it is to first consider the chances that such a virus would arise naturally versus being a lab leak - if you had zero knowledge of where it first appeared ( except maybe in china) . Say the chances there are 98% natural and 2% lab.
Then consider what % subset of the natural virus would have first appeared within 3 miles of the lab working on such viruses - maybe 1 in 10,000 and that is probably too high. And what about for lab leak - close to 100%.
So, knowing that it did first appear outside lab, the chance that it is a lab leak is roughly 99.995%.
By the same logical method, the chance that it was deliberately released is near zero. Because the subset of Chinese deliberate releases that would happen within 3 miles of their lab is basically zero.
May be the case this could be final wave, if Delta remains the fittest variant. Sucks for the unvaccinated right now, but if Delta truly does find most of the unvaccinated this go-around, then we should get pretty close to herd immunity (or some version of it), because the vaccinated are only going to hospitals in slightly larger numbers (effectiveness still very high), the numbers released by CDC showing deaths not moving much at all (so very high vaccine effectiveness), and most of the population should be either vaccinated or previously infected (so with some t-cell immunity that likely also greatly limits severe disease and death).
And that's what we want, a dominant variant that doesn't kill us, because what selective pressure would that variant have to mutate into something more lethal? Generally, there is no such evolutionary advantage for a virus, and any newer variants will have to grapple for control from the dominant Delta strain, which may no longer be lethal, and a more lethal variant wouldn't be as for or successful in this competition, because killing your host is going to be a fitness handicap in the present US situation.
So let's hope this is on course to be an endemic new cold coronavirus, that over time will hopefully reduce in disease severity from a flu level to a cold level, after we get through this final wave where the unvaccinated are extremely vulnerable.
Of course I left out the rest of the world, who we also need to get vaccinated ASAP because more virulent variants can still "accidentally" emerge in all that chaotic randomness, where no variant is dominant.
I think we just have reached herd immunity, if defined as R being less than 1.0.
The problem is can we maintain herd immunity. If immunity from vaccine or natural wanes enough over time so that the " immune R " itself will be above 1.0 after enough time, you can only keep R below 1.0 when any addtl immunity from additional infections or vaccinations offsets waning immunity from old infections and vaccinations.
When you just reach herd immunity and R first drops below 1.0, you are at peak cases . So plenty of new addl immunity to offset waning immunity and R drops even more and the case count declines even faster. But the more you reduce case counts, the less addrl immunity offset you have and eventually R goes back up to 1.0
You can avoid this is if you can simulate addl infections by new vaccine boosters.
At this point, sure does not appear that vaccine immunity stays permanently at a level where R is below 1.0. But not sure of maybe natural immunity might especially from cases of delta. But do not count on it.
Endemic virus looks likely and question is at what level and how much sickness and death. And good chance both vaccine and natural immunity permanently gives decent protection for that.
But all those who never had covid and got vaccinated and will get boosters and expect to live more than a few more years. Be prepared to accept that you will almost surely get covid eventually and that just cannot be changed no matter what we do.
We have not reached herd immunity.