Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[Dom]

.. there's no evidence yet that the vaccines can provide herd immunity - they prevent the disease they don't stop you catching the virus itself.

100% verifiably wrong


https://biontech.de/covid-19-portal/mrna-vaccines

If a vaccinated person later comes into contact with SARS-CoV-2, the immune system will recognize the surface structure and will be able to combat the virus and eliminate it. Neutralizing antibodies targeted at SARS-CoV-2 are circulating in your body and will immediately bind to the virus, “neutralize” it and prevent it from entering the cell, thus protecting you from getting sick. T cells help the immune system to fight intracellular infections and can also kill the infected cells directly.

prevent it from entering the cell = the virus can not multiply

A virus that enters your body cant infect your cells, thus cant reproduce, thus it will *die*. All you have is the original viruses that have infected your body, being *alive* for as long as they can last, but they cant repoduce. On top of that, potentially infected cells will be killed as well.

I know it's a bitter pill, but Aractus is correct.  There is some preliminary data that suggests the vaccines may slow the spread, but they absolutely do not stop it.  Some vaccines prevent infection, such as the measles vaccine, but not all vaccines do that.  None of the current COVID vaccines prevent infection, and therefore they do not prevent spread.  Even with reduced infection rates, they will not likely provide herd immunity (which turns out to be a concept that doesn't work well with something as infectious and mutable as Covid anyway.  It applies more to things, again, like Measles.)

In clinical trials, the Pfizer vaccine was found to be 95 per cent effective at reducing disease. But whether it stopped people from getting infected in the first place isn't yet known — because it wasn't measured.

"Whereas in the Oxford-AstraZeneca trials, [the researchers] made all the participants do a COVID test every week," Dr Labzin says......They found a 67 per cent reduction in positive swabs among people who received a single dose of the two-jab Oxford-AstraZeneca regime.

This does not mean transmission was reduced by two-thirds, Professor Lewin says.
"But we now know that the amount of virus in the nose is associated with transmission — more virus in the nose, higher likelihood for transmission," she says.

So what you see there is likely reduced spread from the Astra Zeneca Vaccine, but not elimination or possible herd immunity, and the other vaccines are all completely unknown, but were not really designed to prevent infection, only illness/disease.

I'm not bagging on vaccines. What has been done so quickly has been fantastic, and maybe a future COVID vaccine will provide total immunity, but so far that does not seem to be the case.

There is one well into development that does stop transmission. I only heard it in passing through the room, but it comes from someplace in Europe.

Science will fix this, we have fixed most all disease outbreaks before. You don't hear of many people dying of the black Plague anymore.

The question is, how long will it take, who will be able to get this vaccine and when, and how many will die in the interim.