6 ms·

Transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 among fully vaccinated individuals

53 points by Tomminn 5y ago

elil17 5y ago
Interesting, but the sample size discussed is very very small - 204 households - and, as the researcher notes, there are many confounding variables to consider. To me, this does not at all suggest that a change of public policy is warranted at this time, but it would definitely be interesting to see more research.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Problem is that any source of data will have the same quality issues. Not alleging general propaganda, but I guess it always tends to confirm the initial suspicions of researchers as the data can be molded either way.
rlt 5y ago
At this point it’s hard to see vaccine mandates (certainly without alternative options such as proof of recent infection/recovery or recent/regular negative test) as anything but punitive against the unvaccinated. (I am triple vaccinated, for the record)
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  My government is sadly too incompetent to get out of panic mode and now has evasion ideas like a central vaccination registers...
- TrispusAttucks 5y ago
  The only logical reason at this point to mandate vaccines is if you wanted to remove the control group from the great human experiment. Or just see how far you can push your population. * I am triple vaccinated
  - version_five 5y ago
    It creates a group to focus people's anger on, it caters to the "do something" crowd. It is a populist measure just like a border wall for example.
Tomminn 5y ago
This interesting article was posted earlier by another user and quickly received 28 upvotes but was flagged, presumably for editorializing the title. Reposted without the editorializing. A reply to this comment with a link to the unpaywalled pdf would obviously be helpful for many readers.
- bluenose69 5y ago
  The link provides the full text. It's just a commentary essay, not a paper. The Lancet provides covid-related content for free. For example, I clicked the first link and got the full text of that particular reference at https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099...
- mlyle 5y ago
  PDF isn't paywalled. This is not a reviewed scientific paper; this is a short letter citing a couple studies that didn't see much of a difference in infection rates between unvaccinated and vaccinated people. Conversely, we have a bunch of data showing the opposite.
xupybd 5y ago
If this article is correct I hope that it will get incorporated into public policy swiftly.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Ego and the belief it could be used against them in campaigns this year will keep most politicians from allowing a change in public health policy due to the results in the paper. "We need more studies" likely will be how they proceed though there's a chance they'll simply try to discredit the authors and discourage anyone else from finding similar results.
  - elil17 5y ago
    But this isn’t even a study - it’s one person’s interpretation of a variety of studies, none of which directly show what he is suggesting. In this case, more research is literally needed to have any sort of answer to the question the author is bringing up.
    - berenza 5y ago
      while you wait for more research, i suggest looking at the countries that have ended their mandates this year, and how they are doing, as a cheap and expedient form of research into the question of how useful mandates are.
      - mlyle 5y ago
        We're talking about the efficacy of vaccination in preventing infection. I assume you're talking about ending mask mandates, which seems like a bit of a silly thing to bring up.
        berenza 5y ago
        you could do it for any covid-related public health measure or mandate, depending on the places you compared. denmark and sweden and norway and the UK are all ending, or have ended, all restrictions this quarter. i recall other countries (and states in the US) have done similar at different times in the past 2 years, but i'm not feeling like googling them right now.
dimgl 5y ago
This is completely anecdotal, but something interesting happened to me recently. My trainer, who is unvaccinated, got really sick one week. Lots of throwing up, high fever, headaches, just feeling awful in general. He tested negative for COVID multiple times. After his sickness went away, we worked out together (I'm vaccinated and boosted). Two days later, he calls me to tell me he tested positive for COVID but barely feels anything, just has a slight cough. He tested positive for a week and half afterwards. I didn't get sick whatsoever. I mean, maybe one day I had a little bit of nasal congestion, but it could have just been the cold weather or any number of things. My wife also did not get sick (but she's vaccinated as well). I think it's too early to write off that vaccines don't prevent transmissibility or even getting the virus. The immunization effects of these vaccines are so unknown to us given that they're so new. This whole COVID-19 situation is so damn weird, and that's why a lot of people are admittedly very skeptical of everything.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  So one problem with thinking about vaccine protection from infection is that it’s hard to get data. In practice, when you see figures on protection against infection (typically these show limited though existent protection re omicron and significant protection re delta for boosted people) those figures are typically based on household infection. Which is kind of a worst case; constant exposure for days. It may be that protection against infection by casual contact is significantly better, but it’s almost impossible to study that.
barathr 5y ago
This isn't a reviewed article, btw, but a "correspondence", which per The Lancet: "Correspondence letters are not usually peer reviewed (we rarely publish original research in this section)".
TMWNN 5y ago
I've heard it mused that with Omicron, vaccination may further spread COVID19 in the sense that those vaccinated are less likely to feel sick (so don't stay home from work/avoid other people) but are just as likely to spread the virus.

53 points by Tomminn 5y ago

Interesting, but the sample size discussed is very very small - 204 households - and, as the researcher notes, there are many confounding variables to consider. To me, this does not at all suggest that a change of public policy is warranted at this time, but it would definitely be interesting to see more research.

raxxorrax 5y ago
Problem is that any source of data will have the same quality issues. Not alleging general propaganda, but I guess it always tends to confirm the initial suspicions of researchers as the data can be molded either way.

rlt 5y ago

At this point it’s hard to see vaccine mandates (certainly without alternative options such as proof of recent infection/recovery or recent/regular negative test) as anything but punitive against the unvaccinated. (I am triple vaccinated, for the record)

raxxorrax 5y ago
My government is sadly too incompetent to get out of panic mode and now has evasion ideas like a central vaccination registers...
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
The only logical reason at this point to mandate vaccines is if you wanted to remove the control group from the great human experiment. Or just see how far you can push your population. * I am triple vaccinated
- version_five 5y ago
  It creates a group to focus people's anger on, it caters to the "do something" crowd. It is a populist measure just like a border wall for example.

Tomminn 5y ago

This interesting article was posted earlier by another user and quickly received 28 upvotes but was flagged, presumably for editorializing the title. Reposted without the editorializing. A reply to this comment with a link to the unpaywalled pdf would obviously be helpful for many readers.

bluenose69 5y ago
The link provides the full text. It's just a commentary essay, not a paper. The Lancet provides covid-related content for free. For example, I clicked the first link and got the full text of that particular reference at https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099...
mlyle 5y ago
PDF isn't paywalled. This is not a reviewed scientific paper; this is a short letter citing a couple studies that didn't see much of a difference in infection rates between unvaccinated and vaccinated people. Conversely, we have a bunch of data showing the opposite.

xupybd 5y ago

If this article is correct I hope that it will get incorporated into public policy swiftly.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Ego and the belief it could be used against them in campaigns this year will keep most politicians from allowing a change in public health policy due to the results in the paper. "We need more studies" likely will be how they proceed though there's a chance they'll simply try to discredit the authors and discourage anyone else from finding similar results.
- elil17 5y ago
  But this isn’t even a study - it’s one person’s interpretation of a variety of studies, none of which directly show what he is suggesting. In this case, more research is literally needed to have any sort of answer to the question the author is bringing up.
  - berenza 5y ago
    while you wait for more research, i suggest looking at the countries that have ended their mandates this year, and how they are doing, as a cheap and expedient form of research into the question of how useful mandates are.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      We're talking about the efficacy of vaccination in preventing infection. I assume you're talking about ending mask mandates, which seems like a bit of a silly thing to bring up.
      - berenza 5y ago
        you could do it for any covid-related public health measure or mandate, depending on the places you compared. denmark and sweden and norway and the UK are all ending, or have ended, all restrictions this quarter. i recall other countries (and states in the US) have done similar at different times in the past 2 years, but i'm not feeling like googling them right now.

dimgl 5y ago

This is completely anecdotal, but something interesting happened to me recently. My trainer, who is unvaccinated, got really sick one week. Lots of throwing up, high fever, headaches, just feeling awful in general. He tested negative for COVID multiple times. After his sickness went away, we worked out together (I'm vaccinated and boosted). Two days later, he calls me to tell me he tested positive for COVID but barely feels anything, just has a slight cough. He tested positive for a week and half afterwards. I didn't get sick whatsoever. I mean, maybe one day I had a little bit of nasal congestion, but it could have just been the cold weather or any number of things. My wife also did not get sick (but she's vaccinated as well). I think it's too early to write off that vaccines don't prevent transmissibility or even getting the virus. The immunization effects of these vaccines are so unknown to us given that they're so new. This whole COVID-19 situation is so damn weird, and that's why a lot of people are admittedly very skeptical of everything.

rsynnott 5y ago
So one problem with thinking about vaccine protection from infection is that it’s hard to get data. In practice, when you see figures on protection against infection (typically these show limited though existent protection re omicron and significant protection re delta for boosted people) those figures are typically based on household infection. Which is kind of a worst case; constant exposure for days. It may be that protection against infection by casual contact is significantly better, but it’s almost impossible to study that.

barathr 5y ago

This isn't a reviewed article, btw, but a "correspondence", which per The Lancet: "Correspondence letters are not usually peer reviewed (we rarely publish original research in this section)".

TMWNN 5y ago

I've heard it mused that with Omicron, vaccination may further spread COVID19 in the sense that those vaccinated are less likely to feel sick (so don't stay home from work/avoid other people) but are just as likely to spread the virus.