Can anyone explain if their is any logic to the government protocols to prevent covid.

[catturd]

13 hours ago, placeholder said:

Do you think invoking that one study repeatedly is going to establish its authority. It was published in the correspondence section of a journal. It is not peer reviewed. I connect to a CDC tally of many studies showing that vaccination effects transmission. Why do you believe that one non-peer reviewed study trumps all of them? Give it up.

There has to be a correlation, only a fool does not understand a few simple concepts which are waning protection and MANY so called experts at the CDC and other groups all agreeing the current vaccines DO NOT prevent covid infection or spread, but may only slow it. These same experts do all agree that illness and death are reduced by vaccination. The spread of delta IS NOT 100% preventable at this time. Vaccine efficacy (relative protection only) is about 90% after full vaccine doses, but dips to 20% or less after 5 or 6 months. If the vaccine's are stopping infection why is a 3rd dose required?

Some good example to reference is the current vaccination and current 7 day infection rates in Indonesia and Netherlands, and many other countries.

So, stop gaslighting everyone about covid prevention and the vaccines. The evidence is starting to show and is growing daily as scientists collect more data and learn from the current real world scenarios playing out globally.

[placeholder]

2 minutes ago, catturd said:

There has to be a correlation, only a fool does not understand a few simple concepts which are waning protection and MANY so called experts at the CDC and other groups all agreeing the current vaccines DO NOT prevent covid infection or spread, but may only slow it. These same experts do all agree that illness and death are reduced by vaccination. The spread of delta IS NOT 100% preventable at this time. Vaccine efficacy (relative protection only) is about 90% after full vaccine doses, but dips to 20% or less after 5 or 6 months. If the vaccine's are stopping infection why is a 3rd dose required?

Some good example to reference is the current vaccination and current 7 day infection rates in Indonesia and Netherlands, and many other countries.

So, stop gaslighting everyone about covid prevention and the vaccines. The evidence is starting to show and is growing daily as scientists collect more data and learn from the current real world scenarios playing out globally.

If anyone is doing gaslighting here, it's you. The person I was replying to contends that vaccination does nothing to slow the spread of covid-19 much less prevent its transmission. I have never claimed that vaccination stops the transmission of covid-19.

[catturd]

5 minutes ago, placeholder said:

If anyone is doing gaslighting here, it's you. The person I was replying to contends that vaccination does nothing to slow the spread of covid-19 much less prevent its transmission. I have never claimed that vaccination stops the transmission of covid-19.

No gaslighting at my end, just fact based reality, not your alternate reality based bias.

[placeholder]

7 minutes ago, catturd said:

No gaslighting at my end, just fact based reality, not your alternate reality based bias.

As I just pointed out, I have never claimed that vaccination stops transmission. I was replying to Longwood50 who claims that it doesn't slow transmission. If you have a problem with anyone over this issue, it's with him. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Edited November 21, 2021 by placeholder

[catturd]

Just now, placeholder said:

As I just pointed out, I have never claimed that vaccination stops transmission. I was replying to Longwood who claims that it doesn't slow transmission. If you have a problem with this, it's with him. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Yeah, more gaslighting. Ok, I don't understand, (along with all the data), nobody understands nothing but you.

 

[placeholder]

37 minutes ago, catturd said:

Yeah, more gaslighting. Ok, I don't understand, (along with all the data), nobody understands nothing but you.

 

Now that we know that you can spell gaslighting, clearly it's time for you to learn what it means.

[Longwood50]

15 hours ago, Scott said:

But with regard to the spread, it is still largely the unvaccinated driving the spread, at least from what I am able ascertain from various sources. 

Perhaps but if that was true, those countries with the highest covid vaccination rates "should have" the lowest rates of covid infection per million because they would have the fewest unvaccinated to spread the virus.  

Yet Portugal and Spain are number 1 and number 3 in covid vaccination rates yet have among the highest rates in Europe.  Belgium and the Netherland have much higher rates of covid vaccination, border Germany which has only a 59% covid vaccination rate and yet is among the countries with the lowest rate of covid infection per million. 

In trying to look for consistent correlations between factors that influence covid infection rates they only one that seems to be true is if you are an island and a warm sunny environment you are more likely to have a low covid infection rate. 
In the USA states like Alaska have 1 person per square mile in population density compared to an almost identical population in Washington DC with almost 12,000 people per square mile, yet Washington DC's rate is half of Alaska's despite similar vaccination rates.  Why?  Who the heck knows.  

[Scott]

8 hours ago, Longwood50 said:

Perhaps but if that was true, those countries with the highest covid vaccination rates "should have" the lowest rates of covid infection per million because they would have the fewest unvaccinated to spread the virus.  

Yet Portugal and Spain are number 1 and number 3 in covid vaccination rates yet have among the highest rates in Europe.  Belgium and the Netherland have much higher rates of covid vaccination, border Germany which has only a 59% covid vaccination rate and yet is among the countries with the lowest rate of covid infection per million. 

In trying to look for consistent correlations between factors that influence covid infection rates they only one that seems to be true is if you are an island and a warm sunny environment you are more likely to have a low covid infection rate. 
In the USA states like Alaska have 1 person per square mile in population density compared to an almost identical population in Washington DC with almost 12,000 people per square mile, yet Washington DC's rate is half of Alaska's despite similar vaccination rates.  Why?  Who the heck knows.  

Well,  trying to find a consistent correlation, is difficult.  We do seem to be one step behind the virus most of the time.  We need to look a little bit further than just the vaccination rate for eligible people.  But on the vaccine front, here's what I suspect is part of the problem:

 

1.  Roughly 20-25% of the population in much of Europe is composed of children who are not eligible for a vaccine.  That is a huge reservoir in which the virus can thrive and spread.  It's made worse by the fact that children do not always get as sick as adults.  They may be more at risk for spreading it simply because they might not be identified as infected.  Schools are also good places to spread it.

 

2.  Waning immunity results in a rise in breakthrough cases.  Boosters should take care of some of this, but for older people and immunocompromised people, the immune system is simply not able to deal with Covid. The breakthrough cases are generally not a big issue, but they do happen.

 

3.  The lack of enforcement of other mitigation efforts, like large gatherings, mask wearing, social distancing.  Also, inconsistent contact tracing.  

 

4.  The extremely transmissible nature of Delta simply makes it an extremely hard virus to conquer.   I suspect it would take in the 90% of the population vaccinated to get it under control.  

 

In short, those countries with high rates of vaccination, still have huge populations of unvaccinated people.  We also need to remember we are humans and we sometimes do foolish things and things that aren't in our best interest.  

 

 

[Longwood50]

12 hours ago, Scott said:

Well,  trying to find a consistent correlation, is difficult.

This is what a Harvard Study showed.  No Correlation. I have looked at what is reported for vaccination rates and infection rates.  Some countries with high rates of vaccination have low rates, others high rates.  Population density, some areas with high population density have high rates others with high population density have low rates.  Tourism, some areas that have a high number of tourists have high rates, others low rates.  Age again, some areas with older populations have high rates and others low rates.  Even areas that are adjacent to each other such as Belgium, and the Netherlands that are next to Germany have markedly different covid infection rates despite identical EU protocols.  Even here in Thailand provinces adjacent to each other have markedly different covid infection rates. 

It leads one to think of Covid as a rock thrown in a lake that creates a ripple around it and very little can be done to mitigate it once that happens.  

I know I have gone from thinking that vaccines were the answer as they would significantly reduce the incidence of covid to now believing their impact is at best unknown other than they appear to consistently reduce the severity of covid if contracted.  Perhaps the ultimate answer and not a completely good answer lies with managing covid knowing that people will contract it and having effective drugs and treatments to minimize the death and severe effects on people if they do contract it. 

The longer this goes on with more and more waves and now quickly moving towards the third year of covid, the more it validates that covid can not be eradicated it can only be managed. 



https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7

 

[placeholder]

On 11/21/2021 at 11:41 AM, catturd said:

There has to be a correlation, only a fool does not understand a few simple concepts which are waning protection and MANY so called experts at the CDC and other groups all agreeing the current vaccines DO NOT prevent covid infection or spread, but may only slow it. These same experts do all agree that illness and death are reduced by vaccination. The spread of delta IS NOT 100% preventable at this time. Vaccine efficacy (relative protection only) is about 90% after full vaccine doses, but dips to 20% or less after 5 or 6 months. If the vaccine's are stopping infection why is a 3rd dose required?

Some good example to reference is the current vaccination and current 7 day infection rates in Indonesia and Netherlands, and many other countries.

So, stop gaslighting everyone about covid prevention and the vaccines. The evidence is starting to show and is growing daily as scientists collect more data and learn from the current real world scenarios playing out globally.

Such nonsense. As virtually all studies show, the vaccines slow the transmission. Not stop it but slow it. What's so hard to understand about that? And as receant sraeli studies show, a booster shot dramatically reinvigorates the immune system. No one knows for sure yet how long that booster protection will last.

As for comparing infection rates in Indonesia and Netherlands, why would anyone bother to do a comparison based on what those respective governments report? I repeatedly tried to direct one party's attention to the explanation of why countries that have less public health resources at their disposal offer more unreliable statistics than those that do. You can't simply naively trust every governments reports.  We see that in desperately poor nations, according to their statistics, Covid19 is at a very, very  low level. They just don't have the facilities to report numbers accurately.   I suggest for starters you go to https://covid19.healthdata.org/  which is maintained by IHME, to get an idea of how unreliable those figures can be. ourworldindata.org offers an excellent discussion of the issue.

And the latest large study done by a team at Oxford, still in preprint, shows that vaccination levels do affect transmission.

[Scott]

8 hours ago, Longwood50 said:

This is what a Harvard Study showed.  No Correlation. I have looked at what is reported for vaccination rates and infection rates.  Some countries with high rates of vaccination have low rates, others high rates.  Population density, some areas with high population density have high rates others with high population density have low rates.  Tourism, some areas that have a high number of tourists have high rates, others low rates.  Age again, some areas with older populations have high rates and others low rates.  Even areas that are adjacent to each other such as Belgium, and the Netherlands that are next to Germany have markedly different covid infection rates despite identical EU protocols.  Even here in Thailand provinces adjacent to each other have markedly different covid infection rates. 

It leads one to think of Covid as a rock thrown in a lake that creates a ripple around it and very little can be done to mitigate it once that happens.  

I know I have gone from thinking that vaccines were the answer as they would significantly reduce the incidence of covid to now believing their impact is at best unknown other than they appear to consistently reduce the severity of covid if contracted.  Perhaps the ultimate answer and not a completely good answer lies with managing covid knowing that people will contract it and having effective drugs and treatments to minimize the death and severe effects on people if they do contract it. 

The longer this goes on with more and more waves and now quickly moving towards the third year of covid, the more it validates that covid can not be eradicated it can only be managed. 



https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7

 

We do know that viruses such as this tend to come and go in waves.  If you look back at the Spanish Flu, it gives you an idea of how they work and it's a bit mysterious.  Cities like Philadelphia got hit massively hard (they had a big parade/celebration).  It eventually died down only to return again later.   San Francisco, which used strong mitigation efforts -- masks, managed to survive relatively well through the first and second waves, but got hit with the 3rd wave.  Of course, there was no vaccine. 

 

I don't think you will see a significant slowing of viral transmission until the vaccination rate is very high and for everyone -- including children.  

 

Fast moving viruses, like Delta, tend to spread quickly and then burn themselves out.  We see something similar (although MUCH more deadly) with Ebola.  

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, Scott said:

We do know that viruses such as this tend to come and go in waves.  If you look back at the Spanish Flu, it gives you an idea of how they work and it's a bit mysterious.  Cities like Philadelphia got hit massively hard (they had a big parade/celebration).  It eventually died down only to return again later.   San Francisco, which used strong mitigation efforts -- masks, managed to survive relatively well through the first and second waves, but got hit with the 3rd wave.  Of course, there was no vaccine. 

 

I don't think you will see a significant slowing of viral transmission until the vaccination rate is very high and for everyone -- including children.  

 

Fast moving viruses, like Delta, tend to spread quickly and then burn themselves out.  We see something similar (although MUCH more deadly) with Ebola.  

I don't know about that. Measles is far more contagious than Delta, and if it weren't for vaccines would still be thriving, so to speak.

And as a huge number of studies show, studies that the CDC has linked to, vaccination levels ares definitely a factor in the speed of transmission. As is transmissibility, the age structure of the affected population, population density, level of adoption of social distancing and masking, obesity levels. Probably other factors that I can't think of. 

[Scott]

37 minutes ago, placeholder said:

I don't know about that. Measles is far more contagious than Delta, and if it weren't for vaccines would still be thriving, so to speak.

And as a huge number of studies show, studies that the CDC has linked to, vaccination levels ares definitely a factor in the speed of transmission. As is transmissibility, the age structure of the affected population, population density, level of adoption of social distancing and masking, obesity levels. Probably other factors that I can't think of. 

I am quite well aware that measles is much more transmissible than Covid.  Delta has moved up the ladder on transmissibility and that was my only point.   The person I was responding to was talking about correlation between vaccines and infections.  I simply see it as an issue of not enough people vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.  

 

As you pointed out there are a lot of factors in play and a big one is also simple human behavior.  I suspect that once we get a very large number of people vaccinated, there will be a correlation.  

 

In a lot of places a very basic problem is we have a significant number of people who are high risk for serious complications regardless of vaccine status -- people with serious conditions, etc.   Until they are protected they are at risk and will keep the hospitalization and deaths stubbornly high.

 

[Longwood50]

16 hours ago, Scott said:

We do know that viruses such as this tend to come and go in waves. 

I think that is the only thing that can be shown.  For whatever reason a pocket of infections hits and radiates around that area.  Other adjacent areas for whatever reason are spared.  

In terms of inoculation, I have had two shots and will get a third booster.  While I originally thought it would provide me with a significant amount of immunity from becoming infected, I no longer believe that but rather if I contract covid I am more likely to have milder effects.  

The same "seems" to be true throughout the world has areas such as Spain and Portugal have better than 85% of their populations fully vaccinated yet they continue to have high rates of covid infection.  The same is true for Belgium and the Netherlands.  

[Danderman123]

On 11/22/2021 at 12:00 PM, Longwood50 said:

This is what a Harvard Study showed.  No Correlation. I have looked at what is reported for vaccination rates and infection rates.  Some countries with high rates of vaccination have low rates, others high rates.  Population density, some areas with high population density have high rates others with high population density have low rates.  Tourism, some areas that have a high number of tourists have high rates, others low rates.  Age again, some areas with older populations have high rates and others low rates.  Even areas that are adjacent to each other such as Belgium, and the Netherlands that are next to Germany have markedly different covid infection rates despite identical EU protocols.  Even here in Thailand provinces adjacent to each other have markedly different covid infection rates. 

It leads one to think of Covid as a rock thrown in a lake that creates a ripple around it and very little can be done to mitigate it once that happens.  

I know I have gone from thinking that vaccines were the answer as they would significantly reduce the incidence of covid to now believing their impact is at best unknown other than they appear to consistently reduce the severity of covid if contracted.  Perhaps the ultimate answer and not a completely good answer lies with managing covid knowing that people will contract it and having effective drugs and treatments to minimize the death and severe effects on people if they do contract it. 

The longer this goes on with more and more waves and now quickly moving towards the third year of covid, the more it validates that covid can not be eradicated it can only be managed. 



https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7

 

The peril of relying on a single study is that it may be wrong.

 

The US is suffering an epidemic of the unvaccinated. Counties with low vaccination rates are suffering higher infections. 
 

Even if an area is 90% vaccinated, that’s still 10% who can easily be infected. Until that 10% recovers from infection, gets vaccinated, or dies, there are indeed going to be infections. 

[Danderman123]

On 11/21/2021 at 12:00 PM, catturd said:

Yeah, more gaslighting. Ok, I don't understand, (along with all the data), nobody understands nothing but you.

 

Vaccination slows the spread of the Covid virus, is that hard to understand?

[Danderman123]

Getting back to the topic, my understanding is that alcohol consumption in public is now out of control in places where it is forbidden. Unless there is an immediate crackdown, illicit alcohol consumption will be so prevalent that the government prohibition will be effectively meaningless.

[Longwood50]

16 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

The US is suffering an epidemic of the unvaccinated. Counties with low vaccination rates are suffering higher infections. 
 

Even if an area is 90% vaccinated, that’s still 10% who can easily be infected. Until that 10% recovers from infection, gets vaccinated, or dies, there are indeed going to be infection

The peril of seeing a correlation and think it is causation. 

You have areas with lower rates of inoculation such as Germany adjacent to areas such as the Netherlands, and Belgium with high rates of inoculation yet Germany's covid infection rate is significantly less.  You have Portugal with the highest rate of covid vaccination and Spain the third highest rate of covid vaccination with both countries being among the highest rates of covid infection for any EU countries. 

For every factor "thought" to be a contributor there are numerous examples that are contrary.  Population density.  Washington DC is the most densely populated area with almost 12,000 people per square mile while Alaska is the least densely population area with 1 person per square mile.  Both have populations of approximately 3.4 of a million people.  Washington DC has one of the lowest covid infection rates and Alaska one of the highest.  You can pick any factor whether that is age, race, covid vaccination rate, population density, mask mandate, quarantine etc and for every example shown to have a correlation you can find numerous regions with exactly the opposite.  

So as the study showed, there is no strong correlation between vaccination rates and covid infection rates.  If vaccine rates were highly correlated then Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal would be among the lowest covid infection rates.  They are not. 

 

[Danderman123]

3 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

The peril of seeing a correlation and think it is causation. 

You have areas with lower rates of inoculation such as Germany adjacent to areas such as the Netherlands, and Belgium with high rates of inoculation yet Germany's covid infection rate is significantly less.  You have Portugal with the highest rate of covid vaccination and Spain the third highest rate of covid vaccination with both countries being among the highest rates of covid infection for any EU countries. 

For every factor "thought" to be a contributor there are numerous examples that are contrary.  Population density.  Washington DC is the most densely populated area with almost 12,000 people per square mile while Alaska is the least densely population area with 1 person per square mile.  Both have populations of approximately 3.4 of a million people.  Washington DC has one of the lowest covid infection rates and Alaska one of the highest.  You can pick any factor whether that is age, race, covid vaccination rate, population density, mask mandate, quarantine etc and for every example shown to have a correlation you can find numerous regions with exactly the opposite.  

So as the study showed, there is no strong correlation between vaccination rates and covid infection rates.  If vaccine rates were highly correlated then Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal would be among the lowest covid infection rates.  They are not. 

 

In all cases, hospitals see many unvaccinated patients. It’s the unvaccinated keeping the epidemic alive.

 

In America, political affiliation makes a difference in infection rates

Edited November 24, 2021 by Danderman123

[Longwood50]

58 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

In all cases, hospitals see many unvaccinated patients. It’s the unvaccinated keeping the epidemic alive.

For every highly vaccinated country there is one with a high rate of covid infection and one with a low rate of covid infection.   There is no evidence that it is only the unvaccinated that are spreading it.  If that correlation was true, Belgium and the Netherlands would have a lower rate of covid infection than neighboring Germany.  Yet just the opposite is true. 

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Longwood50

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, Longwood50 said:

The peril of seeing a correlation and think it is causation. 

You have areas with lower rates of inoculation such as Germany adjacent to areas such as the Netherlands, and Belgium with high rates of inoculation yet Germany's covid infection rate is significantly less.  You have Portugal with the highest rate of covid vaccination and Spain the third highest rate of covid vaccination with both countries being among the highest rates of covid infection for any EU countries. 

For every factor "thought" to be a contributor there are numerous examples that are contrary.  Population density.  Washington DC is the most densely populated area with almost 12,000 people per square mile while Alaska is the least densely population area with 1 person per square mile.  Both have populations of approximately 3.4 of a million people.  Washington DC has one of the lowest covid infection rates and Alaska one of the highest.  You can pick any factor whether that is age, race, covid vaccination rate, population density, mask mandate, quarantine etc and for every example shown to have a correlation you can find numerous regions with exactly the opposite.  

So as the study showed, there is no strong correlation between vaccination rates and covid infection rates.  If vaccine rates were highly correlated then Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal would be among the lowest covid infection rates.  They are not. 

 

The problem is you can't just cherry pick a factor. That's why it takes a team of experts from Oxford like those from Oxford to find out what is significant and what isn't. They recently found that vaccination was a significant factor. And, of course, as I've pointed out a number of times, Johns Hopkins along with the International Vaccine Center and WHO did an exhaustive study listing the results of research papers to determine how vaccines affected infection rates, symptomatic rates, hospitalization rates and mortality rates. Overwhelmingly these studies found a strong positive correlation between vaccination and transmission. 

[placeholder]

27 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

For every highly vaccinated country there is one with a high rate of covid infection and one with a low rate of covid infection.   There is no evidence that it is only the unvaccinated that are spreading it.  If that correlation was true, Belgium and the Netherlands would have a lower rate of covid infection than neighboring Germany.  Yet just the opposite is true. 

 

Also, you seem quite naive in your unccritical acceptance of statistics from various nations. The more testing that is done, the higher the rate. Poor nations do very little testing and have very basic public health systems. .

[Scott]

Off-topic posts and replies removed.  Continue and face a suspension.