Pfizer effectiveness dramatic drop vs Delta

[Birdstrike]

Pfizer vaccine effectiveness may be dropping dramatically against Delta infection, particularly if you got the vaccination early. Now only 42% effective against Delta, which is USA's dominant strain (93% of US cases, per CDC). Moderna faring better (76%). The good news is this same study still shows significant protection from severe COVID infection, hospitalization and death, from both Pfizer and Moderna.

Comparison of two highly-effective mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 during periods of Alpha and Delta variant prevalence

Although clinical trials and real-world studies have affirmed the effectiveness and safety of the FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines, reports of breakthrough infections and persistent emergence of new variants highlight the need to vigilantly monitor the effectiveness of these vaccines. Here we...

www.medrxiv.org

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[betamale]

Sadly, I have several fully pfizer-vaxxed staff and physicians with COVID. >90% of our vaxxed staff got Pfizer 😟. I got moderna and was infected months prior to the vaccine. I hope I've generated enough memory cells that can stick around a lot longer or maybe form a more neutralizing antibody every time I get my daily COVID booster.

 

[southerndoc]

This is why I wear an N-95 mask again. Wear a regular mask in public now. I didn't get a chance to read the article yet. Curious if this is Delta or Delta+ that the vaccine is ineffective against. Delta+ has a mutation on the spike protein that the vaccine targets.

Scary times for us in the middle of wave 4. I think this wave is about to get worse than the third wave. Suddenly we have a bunch of kids going to school, getting COVID, and then subsequently infecting their unvaccinated (and perhaps vaccinated) parents. We're seeing a much younger population of patients having severe COVID/SARS requiring hospitalization.

 

[betamale]

Agree, seeing same, had panic attack over it past couple of days. Definitely seeing sick younger crowd. An ID told me delta overcomes immunity due to higher viral load. Maybe need to look at HIV suppression type of meds to see if replication can be slowed to give vaccine chance to work...

 

[Birdstrike]

Sadly, I have several fully pfizer-vaxxed staff and physicians with COVID.

I personally know of 2 breakthrough cases in physicians. Both Pfizer x 2. Recently got COVID, mild symptoms, both doing fine.

A patient of mine who had one J&J vax had a breakthrough case, got admitted to the ICU (but not intubated) but last I heard is doing better and out of the ICU. Risk factor: Obesity.

 

[Birdstrike]

It's worth pointing out that despite the lower rates of protection from (mild, moderate and severe) infection, the study in my OP does still show strong protection against mortality, even in those breakthrough infections, 0.0% deaths for those vaccinated with Pfizer, and 2.1% for Moderna (orange and yellow highlight at bottom of slide in OP)

 

[bravotwozero]

It's worth pointing out that despite the lower rates of protection from (mild, moderate and severe) infection, the study in my OP does still show strong protection against mortality, even in those breakthrough infections, 0.0% deaths for those vaccinated with Pfizer, and 2.1% for Moderna (orange and yellow highlight at bottom of slide in OP)

Agreed, important not to lose sight of this. Aside from the issue of transmission, is it really a big deal if you get covid while vaccinated and get a cold? I don’t think so.

 

[Birdstrike]

Random, unanswerable question to open a hornets nest: Which would give stronger immunity:

A. Two vaccinations plus a booster, or

B. Two vaccinations plus natural immunity from a breakthrough infection?

Keep in mind both Pfizer and Moderna plus current boosters were all targeted towards old, defunct variants (alpha) and current breakthrough infections are almost entirely from the most current variants.

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

It's worth pointing out that despite the lower rates of protection from (mild, moderate and severe) infection, the study in my OP does still show strong protection against mortality, even in those breakthrough infections, 0.0% deaths for those vaccinated with Pfizer, and 2.1% for Moderna (orange and yellow highlight at bottom of slide in OP)

I’m not trying to belittle anything here and I haven’t kept up with this as much as many, but wasn’t 0-2.1% somewhere in the range of the mortality before we had the vaccine?

 

[Birdstrike]

I’m not trying to belittle anything here and I haven’t kept up with this as much as many, but wasn’t 0-2.1% somewhere in the range of the mortality before we had the vaccine?

You have a point.

 

[bravotwozero]

I’m not trying to belittle anything here and I haven’t kept up with this as much as many, but wasn’t 0-2.1% somewhere in the range of the mortality before we had the vaccine?

Yes, for the original strain. The delta variant is far more infectious, so without vaccination it would likely be even worse.

 

[Jabbed]

I’m not trying to belittle anything here and I haven’t kept up with this as much as many, but wasn’t 0-2.1% somewhere in the range of the mortality before we had the vaccine?

You have a point.

1 death out of 135 cases (87 Pfizer + 48 Moderna). Sample size is incredibly small but that's 0.7% mortality rate.

I'm in FL now and the data seems to support what I'm seeing clinically. There's lots of covid everywhere. The only difference is that I'm discharging the vaccinated 86 year old who has a headache and cough while I'm admitting the unvaccinated 38 year old *with no comorbidities* who came in with a sat of 42% to the ICU on BiPAP 16/10 100%.

From a pure public health standpoint the best thing to do would be increasing overall vaccination rates before giving boosters. Increasing overall vaccination rate by something like 6% would reduce transmission as much as giving a booster to everyone that was already vaccinated.

How We’ll Know It’s Finally Time to Stop Masking

Delta is shockingly contagious. But we can control it.

slate.com

 

[Birdstrike]

Yes, for the original strain. The delta variant is far more infectious, so without vaccination it would likely be even worse.

Right. There's a huge different in 0% and 2.1% when you're applying that to hundreds of millions of people.

 

[RuralEDDoc]

From a pure public health standpoint the best thing to do would be increasing overall vaccination rates before giving boosters. Increasing overall vaccination rate by something like 6% would reduce transmission as much as giving a booster to everyone that was already vaccinated.

How We’ll Know It’s Finally Time to Stop Masking

Delta is shockingly contagious. But we can control it.

slate.com

Totally agree with your public health point. Sadly that last 20-30% of the population might just be forever unwilling to vaccinate. The public will have to rely on their natural immunity since they will all get COVID, unquestionably, and with whatever new strains develop in the coming months and years. Basically, this is now flu.

 

[Birdstrike]

From a pure public health standpoint the best thing to do would be increasing overall vaccination rates before giving boosters. Increasing overall vaccination rate by something like 6% would reduce transmission as much as giving a booster to everyone that was already vaccinated.

How We’ll Know It’s Finally Time to Stop Masking

Delta is shockingly contagious. But we can control it.

slate.com

True. If the unvaccinated could easily be vaccinated, then yes, it 100% makes sense to direct all doses to unvaccinated first, before boosters. But what if you have a surplus of doses, due to anti-vaxxers refusing or unvaxxed communities being unable to dose, the vaccines?

Do you let doses sit unused or go bad, when they could be used as boosters which could also save lives, albeit with a higher number needed to treat?

Interesting questions.

 

[dchristismi]

Ug.
I'm in Florida. (and I need to vent for a sec)

Husband and I will be attending the funeral of one of our local paramedics who was also a dear friend on Monday. (Not from Covid; worse than that. Use your imaginations about terrible things that healthcare professionals suddenly and unexpectedly die from.)

We both got the Moderna in Dec/Jan. He's working with Covid patients daily at this point at the hospital. My hospice house is a covid negative cohort (but we all know it's everywhere.) We're run down and tired, and of course now we're grieving, so there's always the "am I sick? I don't think I'm sick..." but there is still some Red Tide left from the big outbreak and we did go to the beach for the weekend, so we figured the random cough was just that.

I'm sure this funeral will be huge; this was a beloved person and our EMS/Fire/EM community is reeling. I'm also sure it will be a superspreader event because... well, the above. N95 it? Just mask? I know breakthrough infections are "rare" (heh for not knowing the denominator) and I am not really worried about me although I am a whiny, miserable patient; I don't want to pass it along - I have a nurse undergoing chemo who I'd rather not give it to; most of my patients of late are dying already. AND more selfishly, we are actually taking a very needed vacation in 2 weeks including a rim to rim Grand Canyon hike that has been replanned and postponed so many times I will not be able to bear it if we can't go. It's taken me 5+ f-ing years to score a cabin at Phantom Ranch and I haven't been able to get on an airplane in 18 months. By God, I am doing this hike!

What started as a really awesome, restful weekend has dissolved into a terrible week and now we are just trying to make it one day at a time.
Of all the senseless, pointless deaths, well, this one is up there. I'm really struggling with it, and by the nature of it, there will be no answers, no closure, no... nothing. Just grief. And I, on the whole, do death pretty well. That's how bad this one is.

Take care of yourselves people.
I almost didn't write this, but if anyone out there is thinking about doing something, ahem, rash, because they've hit their breaking point, please don't.
There is enough suffering in this world without adding to it deliberately.

 

[southerndoc]

@dchristismi I'm sorry about your friend.

This study shows that both vaccines help prevent hospitalization and serious illness, but even getting COVID that's mild will be burdensome to the physician suffering from it and his/her colleagues needing to cover for him/her for 10 days.

 

[namethatsmell]

Ug.
I'm in Florida. (and I need to vent for a sec)

Husband and I will be attending the funeral of one of our local paramedics who was also a dear friend on Monday. (Not from Covid; worse than that. Use your imaginations about terrible things that healthcare professionals suddenly and unexpectedly die from.)

We both got the Moderna in Dec/Jan. He's working with Covid patients daily at this point at the hospital. My hospice house is a covid negative cohort (but we all know it's everywhere.) We're run down and tired, and of course now we're grieving, so there's always the "am I sick? I don't think I'm sick..." but there is still some Red Tide left from the big outbreak and we did go to the beach for the weekend, so we figured the random cough was just that.

I'm sure this funeral will be huge; this was a beloved person and our EMS/Fire/EM community is reeling. I'm also sure it will be a superspreader event because... well, the above. N95 it? Just mask? I know breakthrough infections are "rare" (heh for not knowing the denominator) and I am not really worried about me although I am a whiny, miserable patient; I don't want to pass it along - I have a nurse undergoing chemo who I'd rather not give it to; most of my patients of late are dying already. AND more selfishly, we are actually taking a very needed vacation in 2 weeks including a rim to rim Grand Canyon hike that has been replanned and postponed so many times I will not be able to bear it if we can't go. It's taken me 5+ f-ing years to score a cabin at Phantom Ranch and I haven't been able to get on an airplane in 18 months. By God, I am doing this hike!

What started as a really awesome, restful weekend has dissolved into a terrible week and now we are just trying to make it one day at a time.
Of all the senseless, pointless deaths, well, this one is up there. I'm really struggling with it, and by the nature of it, there will be no answers, no closure, no... nothing. Just grief. And I, on the whole, do death pretty well. That's how bad this one is.

Take care of yourselves people.
I almost didn't write this, but if anyone out there is thinking about doing something, ahem, rash, because they've hit their breaking point, please don't.
There is enough suffering in this world without adding to it deliberately.

Ugh I'm so sorry. I really, really hope you're able to take that hike!

I know you probably don't need to hear this (especially as a hospice doc who I presume has a higher social IQ and philosophical sense than most of us) but if it's helpful I've been a big fan of this John Lennon quote lately "Everything will be ok in the end, and if it's not ok it's not the end."

 

[deleted1114045]

Vaccines Are Pushing Pathogens to Evolve | Quanta Magazine

Just as antibiotics have bred resistance in bacteria, vaccines can potentially lose their effectiveness over diseases they controlled. Researchers are working to head off the evolution of new threats.

www.quantamagazine.org

Does this paper have relevance to COVID? Despite 37 million cases (which has got to be a vast underestimate) combined with 60% of the population who have been vaccinated, the virus is raging unchecked in the US. Have our efforts to socially distance (very appropriate) and get vaccinated put an evolutionary pressure on the virus causing it to be more contagious and virulent? I thought we were done with this virus. I thought we had conquered it just a matter of a few weeks ago. Boy was I wrong. It has developed into "maybe the most contagious virus that we've ever seen in living memory," according to Larry Brilliant who worked with the World Health Organization to help eradicate smallpox. The R naught for Delta is 5-8!

The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group Andrew Pollard said said herd immunity is "not a possibility because it still infects vaccinated individuals,”

Herd immunity ‘not a possibility’ with delta variant, Oxford Vaccine Group head says

The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said herd immunity is “not a possibility” because of the highly infectious delta variant, which is more transmissible than previous strains of the virus and…

thehill.com

 

[bravotwozero]

The flu also infects vaccinated individuals…

 

[Birdstrike]

It has developed into "maybe the most contagious virus that we've ever seen in living memory," according to Larry Brilliant who worked with the World Health Organization to help eradicate smallpox. The R naught for Delta is 5-8!

The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group Andrew Pollard said said herd immunity is "not a possibility because it still infects vaccinated individuals,”

It sounds like he's saying, if you combine the fact that Delta infects both the unvaccinated and vaccinated, with a spread factor (Ro) of 5-9x, then:

1) Herd immunity through vaccine-based immunity alone, is impossible.

2) Every living human being will get COVID delta variant, vaccinated or unvaccinated, at some point.

 

[turkeyjerky]

It sounds like he's saying, if you combine the fact that Delta infects both the unvaccinated and vaccinated, with a spread factor (Ro) of 5-9x, then:

1) Herd immunity through vaccine-based immunity alone, is impossible.

2) Every living human being will get COVID delta variant, vaccinated or unvaccinated, at some point.

So we’ll have come full circle. From the novel coronavirus, to just another virus.

 

[Birdstrike]

So we’ll have come full circle. From the novel coronavirus, to just another virus.

What I've seen and read in the mainstream media about COVID, in the last 24 hours, is eerily reminiscent to what some people were pilloried for saying over a year ago.

 

[deleted1114045]

RSV is now circulating out of season. With worldwide lockdowns and social distancing, have we put evolutionary pressure on other viruses to select for high R naughts? Will the influenza that starts circulating again soon have higher R naughts? Law of unintended consequence?

 

[bravotwozero]

It is true that RSV is circulating out in the community, but the question is where is it most prevalent? I believe it's mostly the south, because this is like our 'winter'. What do I mean by this? 90-100+ degree humid weather drives a lot more people indoors, where most of the respiratory viruses spread. Plus now it's August, and kids are starting to go back to school...

 

[NITRAS]

It is true that RSV is circulating out in the community, but the question is where is it most prevalent? I believe it's mostly the south, because this is like our 'winter'. What do I mean by this? 90-100+ degree humid weather drives a lot more people indoors, where most of the respiratory viruses spread. Plus now it's August, and kids are starting to go back to school...

Not just that, but the amount of people trying to all of a sudden be “normal” again and have big parties is very large. My kids (3 &6) went 14 months without the sniffles and have had a cold for the past 3 months.

The amount of BS i hear on my other forum is crazy. People think the vaccine is making RSV worse. . . . . .

 

[deleted1114045]

It is true that RSV is circulating out in the community, but the question is where is it most prevalent? I believe it's mostly the south, because this is like our 'winter'. What do I mean by this? 90-100+ degree humid weather drives a lot more people indoors, where most of the respiratory viruses spread. Plus now it's August, and kids are starting to go back to school...

I’m waaayy north and school doesn’t start for weeks. RSV still circulating completely out of season.

 

[DoctwoB]

Vaccines Are Pushing Pathogens to Evolve | Quanta Magazine

Just as antibiotics have bred resistance in bacteria, vaccines can potentially lose their effectiveness over diseases they controlled. Researchers are working to head off the evolution of new threats.

www.quantamagazine.org

Does this paper have relevance to COVID? Despite 37 million cases (which has got to be a vast underestimate) combined with 60% of the population who have been vaccinated, the virus is raging unchecked in the US. Have our efforts to socially distance (very appropriate) and get vaccinated put an evolutionary pressure on the virus causing it to be more contagious and virulent? I thought we were done with this virus. I thought we had conquered it just a matter of a few weeks ago. Boy was I wrong. It has developed into "maybe the most contagious virus that we've ever seen in living memory," according to Larry Brilliant who worked with the World Health Organization to help eradicate smallpox. The R naught for Delta is 5-8!

The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group Andrew Pollard said said herd immunity is "not a possibility because it still infects vaccinated individuals,”

Herd immunity ‘not a possibility’ with delta variant, Oxford Vaccine Group head says

The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said herd immunity is “not a possibility” because of the highly infectious delta variant, which is more transmissible than previous strains of the virus and…

thehill.com

Microbes evolve, and certain events like vaccines (or immunity through prior infection) create an evolutionary selection pressure. Viral mutants that are more transmissible will have a selection advantage regardless of vaccination status, and in a setting of widespread vaccination, mutants that are capable of replicating or causing a transmissible breakthrough infection will also be selected for. Delta is so much more transmissible it likely would have become dominant regardless of vaccines, for example. In theory one could argue that by socially distancing and masking we are creating a selection pressure for viruses that can bypass those mechanisms, but things like dramatically reducing particle size or changing the physics of respiratory droplets don't really work like that compared to the much more simple changing of the sequence of an antigenic protein.

On the other hand, by preventing infection, vaccines reduce opportunities for viral mutation and new variants to develop. Ditto for social distancing, fewer active infections = less chance for mutation. If we could have vaccinated everyone in the world with a highly effective vaccine at once, the pandemic likely would have died. But in the current setting, with a middling vaccination rate in the US, and much lower (and often with less effective vaccines) worldwide, we still have massive reservoirs of infection leading to ongoing mutation and new variants, of which as more people become vaccinated, the dominant strains will by definition need to be the ones that can cause breakthrough infections.

Long story short, expect regular booster shots. In theory, I would love to see a shot of mRNA loaded up with all the mutants weve identified, delta, lambda, etc to create a more polyclonal immunity. Not sure what the limitation on that is.

 

[Jabbed]

I’m waaayy north and school doesn’t start for weeks. RSV still circulating completely out of season.

Maybe it was just my peds program, but RSV was never truly 'seasonal'. We definitely saw more in the fall, but it was a year round bug.

 

[Birdstrike]

The amount of BS i hear on my other forum is crazy. People think ...

I guess we've got work to do, then.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

Microbes evolve, and certain events like vaccines (or immunity through prior infection) create an evolutionary selection pressure. Viral mutants that are more transmissible will have a selection advantage regardless of vaccination status, and in a setting of widespread vaccination, mutants that are capable of replicating or causing a transmissible breakthrough infection will also be selected for. Delta is so much more transmissible it likely would have become dominant regardless of vaccines, for example. In theory one could argue that by socially distancing and masking we are creating a selection pressure for viruses that can bypass those mechanisms, but things like dramatically reducing particle size or changing the physics of respiratory droplets don't really work like that compared to the much more simple changing of the sequence of an antigenic protein.

On the other hand, by preventing infection, vaccines reduce opportunities for viral mutation and new variants to develop. Ditto for social distancing, fewer active infections = less chance for mutation. If we could have vaccinated everyone in the world with a highly effective vaccine at once, the pandemic likely would have died. But in the current setting, with a middling vaccination rate in the US, and much lower (and often with less effective vaccines) worldwide, we still have massive reservoirs of infection leading to ongoing mutation and new variants, of which as more people become vaccinated, the dominant strains will by definition need to be the ones that can cause breakthrough infections.

Long story short, expect regular booster shots. In theory, I would love to see a shot of mRNA loaded up with all the mutants weve identified, delta, lambda, etc to create a more polyclonal immunity. Not sure what the limitation on that is.

I’m all for limiting what mutants come out of the US but it seems like the real baddies are going to be the ones that come out of the slums of India, Brazil etc. where you have just millions and millions of people stacked on top of each other etc.

 

[Birdstrike]

In the past 24 hours, with news of Delta's Ro being 5-9 and causing vaccine breakthrough infections, I sense that even the most hardcore pro-lockdown/mask/quarantine folks in the mainstream media seem to be emitting a collective, "Aw...f it. There's nothing we can do. We're cooked."

They seem to be giving up, sort of like, "If you've gotten the vaccine, great. Otherwise, every man for himself, because this place is gonna blow."

They're not saying that, of course. But, I sense a shift from a collective urgency, to aura of fatalism.

 

[DoctwoB]

I’m all for limiting what mutants come out of the US but it seems like the real baddies are going to be the ones that come out of the slums of India, Brazil etc. where you have just millions and millions of people stacked on top of each other etc.

Oh this is absolutely true, even perfect vaccination in US will not keep new variants from coming worldwide.
That said the Ro are likely much lower in a fully vaccinated populace, meaning new variants will have a much tougher time taking hold and spreading in the US if we have a vaccinated populace.

 

[Birdstrike]

Oh this is absolutely true, even perfect vaccination in US will not keep new variants from coming worldwide.
That said the Ro are likely much lower in a fully vaccinated populace, meaning new variants will have a much tougher time taking hold and spreading in the US if we have a vaccinated populace.

And for reduction of disease severity. It seems that's the biggest benefit of the vaccines to me, at this point. And maybe that's all they need to do? I don't know.

The virus certainly is mutating way faster than than the FDA works to approve vaccine formulation against new mutations.

 

[STLINI]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.12.21261951v1.full.pdf

Fascinating paper out of Sweden today. They compared antibodies in recovered patients to Pfizer induced antibodies and AZ induced antibodies in their ability to neutralize different variants. Pfizer antibodies showed a 15% reduction in neutralization of Delta when compared to wild-type. In my opinion, this very modest reduction coupled with the differential efficacy of the Moderna vaccine strongly suggests the reduced efficacy of Pfizer is predominantly a product of rapidly waning immunity rather than significant immune escape by the Delta variant. For comparison, the beta and gamma variants showed dramatically reduced neutralization. Interestingly antibodies from recovered patients showed HIGHER neutralization of Delta compared to wild-type and this was at one year following infection.

 

[xaelia]

... but after you get Pfizer x2 and then mild COVID, then you're good, right???

 

[Birdstrike]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.12.21261951v1.full.pdf

Fascinating paper out of Sweden today. They compared antibodies in recovered patients to Pfizer induced antibodies and AZ induced antibodies in their ability to neutralize different variants. Pfizer antibodies showed a 15% reduction in neutralization of Delta when compared to wild-type. In my opinion, this very modest reduction coupled with the differential efficacy of the Moderna vaccine strongly suggests the reduced efficacy of Pfizer is predominantly a product of rapidly waning immunity rather than significant immune escape by the Delta variant. For comparison, the beta and gamma variants showed dramatically reduced neutralization. Interestingly antibodies from recovered patients showed HIGHER neutralization of Delta compared to wild-type and this was at one year following infection.

View attachment 342007

Interesting. And strange.

Immunity held up for natural infection and the vaccines, against alpha (U.K.) and delta, but not beta (S. Africa) and gamma (Brazil).

But we're seeing a surge of delta, but not beta or gamma?

Weird.

 

[bravotwozero]

Interesting. And strange.

Immunity held up for natural infection and the vaccines, against alpha (U.K.) and delta, but not beta (S. Africa) and gamma (Brazil).

But we're seeing a surge of delta, but not beta or gamma?

Weird.

Z Dogg MD in his podcast talked about the concept of viral interference, I.e. if there’s a predominant outbreak of one antigen, it tends to ‘push out’ or keep other pathogens from infecting or predominating . As an example, during the outbreak of swine flu, there were very few cases in certain parts of France, where there was a significant rhinovirus outbreak. Delta predominance may be pushing out other variants….

 

[MechEDoc]

Interesting. And strange.

Immunity held up for natural infection and the vaccines, against alpha (U.K.) and delta, but not beta (S. Africa) and gamma (Brazil).

But we're seeing a surge of delta, but not beta or gamma?

Weird.

Perhaps it's due to the massive inoculum of delta?

 

[MechEDoc]

In the past 24 hours, with news of Delta's Ro being 5-9 and causing vaccine breakthrough infections, I sense that even the most hardcore pro-lockdown/mask/quarantine folks in the mainstream media seem to be emitting a collective, "Aw...f it. There's nothing we can do. We're cooked."

They seem to be giving up, sort of like, "If you've gotten the vaccine, great. Otherwise, every man for himself, because this place is gonna blow."

They're not saying that, of course. But, I sense a shift from a collective urgency, to aura of fatalism.

I'd hate to be in Australia now. Talk about returning to one's penal colony roots.

Total lockdowns. Military deployed in civil law enforcement.
Citizens abandoned overseas
Exit visas required (i.e. can't freely leave Australia and get two jabs and a job in the USA/Canada/etc.).
Nationalistic bungled vaccine purchasing
Fully vaccinated Olympians quarantining for 28 days (how do they think this virus replicates? did the mistranslate Latin for forty as twenty eight?).

Next time I'm looking at those overseas locums jobs, I might just skip over Australia!

 

[Birdstrike]

Perhaps it's due to the massive inoculum of delta?

I think you're probably right. Must be that the higher viral load and subsequent increased transmission (Ro of 5-9) that overpowers the fact that there's more natural and vaccine-based immunity to delta, than beta and gamma. That combined with the fact that there's a big enough unvaxxed playground for it to play in.

 

[Birdstrike]

I'd hate to be in Australia now. Talk about returning to one's penal colony roots.

Total lockdowns.
Citizens abandoned overseas
Exit visas required (i.e. can't freely leave Australia and get two jabs and a job in the USA/Canada/etc.).
Nationalistic bungled vaccine purchasing
Fully vaccinated Olympians quarantining for 28 days (how do they thing this virus replicates? did the mistranslate Latin for forty as twenty eight?).

Next time I'm looking at those overseas locums jobs, I might just skip over Australia!

Agree. We're in year 2 of this pandemic. I understand their intension, but how many more years are they going to use these lockdowns? 3 years? 5 years? 10?

 

[Birdstrike]

... but after you get Pfizer x2 and then mild COVID, then you're good, right???

It seems vax X2 plus a booster of the latest natural virus would getcha covered, but who the hell knows, at this point. I'm just shootin' in the dark here.

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

Agree. We're in year 2 of this pandemic. I understand their intension, but how many more years are they going to use these lockdowns? 3 years? 5 years? 10?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s been 20 YEARS since 9/11 and we still have to pay a fee every few years for a “special background check” or otherwise take our shoes off to get on a %&@* airplane.

 

[NITRAS]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s been 20 YEARS since 9/11 and we still have to pay a fee every few years for a “special background check” or otherwise take our shoes off to get on a %&@* airplane.

Get Global Entry. Keep your shoes on, always TSA pre-check. WAAAAAY shorter lines to enter customs in US.
Our kids have it too. It was nice, though my 3 yo who’s passport picture is from when she was 6 months didn’t match her face for the computer.

 

[Arcan57]

Agree. We're in year 2 of this pandemic. I understand their intension, but how many more years are they going to use these lockdowns? 3 years? 5 years? 10?

I understand the frustration. I think the answer is going to be until COVID surges no longer overwhelm local healthcare systems. When that will happen is some stupidly complex equation where vax rates, mask rates, variant virulence and frequency, length of immune response, hospital staffing levels, physical bed space, ventilator/ECMO availability, frequency of indoor mass gatherings, and proportion of populace in death cults are all going to be variables of varying weights.

The question that your original question brings to mind is “When are we going to stop giving equivalence to mask mandates and lockdowns?” Right now, a 50% vaccination rate and reasonable adherence to masking means your region’s hospital system isn’t overwhelmed with COVID. Not sure if that will stay true, but it doesn’t seem like a huge ask compared to the sacrifices so many have already made.

 

[Birdstrike]

… until COVID surges no longer overwhelm local healthcare systems. …

I understood the desire for drastic lockdowns in the short term, to prevent "overwhelmed healthcare systems." That made sense in the very-short term.

But if the plan is that drastic lockdowns of entire continents are going to be needed, to prevent overwhelmed hospitals for "as long as it takes," i.e., 3, 5 or 10 years (we're already in year 2) then being in "short term Armageddon mode" for years on end, is no plan at all.

They either need to build a healthcare system that can handle the problem, or end the problem once and for all.

 

[Nephro critical care]

It's worth pointing out that despite the lower rates of protection from (mild, moderate and severe) infection, the study in my OP does still show strong protection against mortality, even in those breakthrough infections, 0.0% deaths for those vaccinated with Pfizer, and 2.1% for Moderna (orange and yellow highlight at bottom of slide in OP)

0% mortality in breakthrough COVIDs is not correct. I have had several die from breakthrough infections. Granted age >65.

 

[Birdstrike]

Have a couple of vaccinated 70 yr olds

0% mortality in breakthrough COVIDs is not correct. I have had several die from breakthrough infections. Granted age >65.

0% did seem a little bit like wishful thinking, as it often is.

 

[Arcan57]

I understood the desire for drastic lockdowns in the short term, to prevent "overwhelmed healthcare systems." That made sense in the very-short term.

But if the plan is that drastic lockdowns of entire continents are going to be needed, to prevent overwhelmed hospitals for "as long as it takes," i.e., 3, 5 or 10 years (we're already in year 2) then being in "short term Armageddon mode" for years on end, is no plan at all.

They either need to build a healthcare system that can handle the problem, or end the problem once and for all.

I don’t get the sense that Australasia is locking down to prevent the healthcare system from being overrun. They seem to be banking on brief periods of severe restrictions to allow for longer periods of complete normalcy.

We currently are suffering from lack of a coherent national plan. Locking down after there’s been severe community spread and being unable to come together as a country to fight this pandemic is costing us lives and $$$.