Scrutable

Jabs do not reduce risk of passing Covid within household

Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study; https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/articl ... 9921006484

The results suggest even those who are fully vaccinated have a sizeable risk of becoming infected, with analysis revealing a fully vaccinated contact has a 25% chance of catching the virus from an infected household member while an unvaccinated contact has a 38% chance of becoming infected.

... The analysis further suggests that whether an infected individual is themselves fully vaccinated or unvaccinated makes little or no difference to how infectious they are to their household contacts.

That is what we have been seeing for months.The vaccine has a negligible effect on transmission but is very good at presenting severe outcomes in people under 60.

To ameliorate community transmission we need a lock down.

Yebbut is the risk of contracting the virus reduced by being vaccinated?

Anyone except tw.ts the unvaccinated are now (seemingly) less likely to catch it - so, it looks like another tw.tty comment

Herainestold wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:40 pm

That is what we have been seeing for months.The vaccine has a negligible effect on transmission but is very good at presenting severe outcomes in people under 60.

To ameliorate community transmission we need a lock down.

The study shows no effect on household transmission specifically.

If vaccines reduce the number of days for which someone is infectious, they may reduce community transmission outside the household, while having no effect within the household (as household members see each other every day).

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 12:22 am

Yebbut is the risk of contracting the virus reduced by being vaccinated?

Yes - as per the 25% vs 38% comment in the article.

a fully vaccinated contact has a 25% chance of catching the virus from an infected household member while an unvaccinated contact has a 38% chance of becoming infected

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:45 am

Herainestold wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:40 pm

That is what we have been seeing for months.The vaccine has a negligible effect on transmission but is very good at presenting severe outcomes in people under 60.

To ameliorate community transmission we need a lock down.

The study shows no effect on household transmission specifically.

If vaccines reduce the number of days for which someone is infectious, they may reduce community transmission outside the household, while having no effect within the household (as household members see each other every day).

And even if the vaccine is 99% effective in preventing infection per unit exposure, continuous exposure over days is still likely to break through, in a way that even exposure at a work place or school isn't.

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:56 am

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

No, it doesn't. The chance of transmission depends on the viral load transferred. Vaccines, masks etc. all reduce that transfer, and thus the chances of infection.

It's just that in households, the total time available for transfer far outweighs this reduction due to vaccines. You don't sleep next to your health staff, and then live in the same few underventilated rooms as them all day. They are likely masked whenever they are near you. If they show symptoms, they can isolate away from you. That largely can't or won't happen in a household.

And finally, the vaccine reduces the risk to them both of and from catching it from you.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:58 am

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:56 am

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

No, it doesn't. The chance of transmission depends on the viral load transferred. Vaccines, masks etc. all reduce that transfer, and thus the chances of infection.

It's just that in households, the total time available for transfer far outweighs this reduction due to vaccines. You don't sleep next to your health staff, and then live in the same few underventilated rooms as them all day. They are likely masked whenever they are near you. If they show symptoms, they can isolate away from you. That largely can't or won't happen in a household.

And finally, the vaccine reduces the risk to them both of and from catching it from you.

If health care staff are vaccinated there is less chance they will be hospitalized or die. Death makes them unavailable to the health care system and exacerbates staff shortages.

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:56 am

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

Let’s play spot the difference.

There’s a chance I might have a beer later. There’s a chance I might with the lottery later.

Troubled Joe wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:28 am

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:56 am

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

Let’s play spot the difference.

There’s a chance I might have a beer later. There’s a chance I might with the lottery later.

Thank you, I did get the point !

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 30, 2021 12:14 pm

Troubled Joe wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:28 am

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:56 am

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

Let’s play spot the difference.

There’s a chance I might have a beer later. There’s a chance I might with the lottery later.

Thank you, I did get the point !

Yeah, sorry if that came across as unnecessarily snarky it’s just an argument I’ve heard put forward that really gets on my nerves (“it’s not 100% effective so why should we?”) - presumably by people who also don’t look both ways when crossing the road on the grounds that although it reduces your risk of broken limbs, internal bleeding and brains spread across the tarmac like jam, it doesn’t 100% guarantee it won’t happen.

Troubled Joe wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 30, 2021 12:21 pm

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 30, 2021 12:14 pm

Troubled Joe wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:28 am

Let’s play spot the difference.

There’s a chance I might have a beer later. There’s a chance I might with the lottery later.

Thank you, I did get the point !

Yeah, sorry if that came across as unnecessarily snarky it’s just an argument I’ve heard put forward that really gets on my nerves (“it’s not 100% effective so why should we?”) - presumably by people who also don’t look both ways when crossing the road on the grounds that although it reduces your risk of broken limbs, internal bleeding and brains spread across the tarmac like jam, it doesn’t 100% guarantee it won’t happen.

Thanks. I'm fine with vaccine but wondered about the hassle going with compulsory vaccinations if it it didn't make a significant difference to transmission . The explanation about low viral load and not sleeping with your care staff was the clincher for me

When my son was with his dad and stepmum for a holiday in August, he has two half brothers as well aged 5, they all got Covid, despite him being singly vaccinated and his dad and stepmum being doubly vaccinated.

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:56 am

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

The Israeli data also suggested vaccines don't reduce transmission very much, but do protect the individual. This is a strong argument for vaccines being an encouraged personal choice rather than a social duty. Trying to flip individual choices to social obligations is a classic strongarm PR technique.

Eta: The beer/lottery analogy doesn't hold. The change in transmission risk is nothing like that radical.

sheldrake wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:58 am

Trinucleus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:56 am

Doesn't that suggest that insisting care/health staff are vaccinated is rather pointless if there's still a chance they could infect people?

The Israeli data also suggested vaccines don't reduce transmission very much, but do protect the individual. This is a strong argument for vaccines being an encouraged personal choice rather than a social duty. Trying to flip individual choices to social obligations is a classic strongarm PR technique.

Eta: The beer/lottery analogy doesn't hold. The change in transmission risk is nothing like that radical.

There's still a social duty aspect to Covid vaccination though, even if it doesn't prevent spread (and there have been studies which show that it *does* reduce the length of time people are infectious for so should on that basis reduce spread outside the household). The social duty in that case being that you are helping reduce the load on the NHS.

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:09 am

There's still a social duty aspect to Covid vaccination though, even if it doesn't prevent spread (and there have been studies which show that it *does* reduce the length of time people are infectious for so should on that basis reduce spread outside the household). The social duty in that case being that you are helping reduce the load on the NHS.

A person would be, but threatening people with the loss of their jobs to 'protect the NHS' is pretty new. Given that most of the strain on the NHS seems to be coming from staff absence due to isolation orders (stats posted in another thread) rather than actually unmanageable numbers of people requiring treatment, I think people are right to be suspicious of this kind of propaganda.

ETA: Imagine if we'd threatened people like this to stop them from smoking? It would've probably had a bigger impact on mortality and NHS burden but we would rightly have been concerned about the civil liberties implications. All it seems that's needed to prod the middle class into near-fascist health interventionism is the vague suggestion that to be suspicious makes one 'anti vaccine' and therefore 'anti science' and on the side of Trump voters and people who sell homeopathic cancer remedies. This is a really pernicious social media trend. I suspect pharmaceutical PR.

Obviously smoking is a dud comparison in this instance. A nurse who smokes can get ill, but can't infect a patient, doctor or fellow nurse with smoking. A smoker in the general public risks themselves but can't start a chain reaction of cases.

Frontline NHS staff come into very frequent contact with over 80s and other vulnerable people. Being vaccinated against flu, Covid and the other usual suspects is so obviously a requirement for NHS staff it's not even worth talking about.

But for the general public, yes it's pretty much as you say. There's a clear social duty. We should spend taxpayer money on adverts to get the unvaccinated to change their minds. We should spend taxpayer money on free and convenient vaccination centres, including bribes, free transport or other little incentives. But passports and similar enforcements are ethically dubious - and not at all clear what the goal or end game is.

lpm wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:51 am

Obviously smoking is a dud comparison in this instance. A nurse who smokes can get ill, but can't infect a patient, doctor or fellow nurse with smoking. A smoker in the general public risks themselves but can't start a chain reaction of cases.

I was addressing the very specific point above about purely personal protection still being a social imperative. In that instance smoking is a good comparison (note a lot of junk science on passive smoking was thrown around in an attempt to make smoking cessation into a social duty too).

Frontline NHS staff come into very frequent contact with over 80s and other vulnerable people. Being vaccinated against flu, Covid and the other usual suspects is so obviously a requirement for NHS staff it's not even worth talking about.

We haven't been requiring them to get flu jabs either. Insisting on flu jabs would be more defensible because they're not under emergency authorisation like Covid vaccines. I sincerely suspect Owen Patterson is small potatoes compared to the kind of money and career opportunities being thrown around by pharmaceutical giants.

sheldrake wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:09 pm

lpm wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:51 am

Obviously smoking is a dud comparison in this instance. A nurse who smokes can get ill, but can't infect a patient, doctor or fellow nurse with smoking. A smoker in the general public risks themselves but can't start a chain reaction of cases.

I was addressing the very specific point above about purely personal protection still being a social imperative. In that instance smoking is a good comparison (note a lot of junk science on passive smoking was thrown around in an attempt to make smoking cessation into a social duty too).

For the record, I wasn't in any way suggesting that forcing NHS employees to get vaccinated should follow as a result (I'm not sure how it would). I was merely pointing out that there is still a social duty/benefit to getting vaccinated, even without the reduction in transmission benefit.

sheldrake wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:09 pm

I was addressing the very specific point above about purely personal protection still being a social imperative.

But it's not purely personal protection.

So you're talking about a situation that doesn't exist in the real world.

It's more interesting to talk about the range and when vaccine passports or similar "force" would become the ethical choice. A vaccine with a 0% reduction in transmission of a deadly virus: obviously not. But 100%: yes.

For Covid it's something like 65% reduction in transmission if infected, plus reduced chance of being infected in the first place. So in total it's maybe 80%.

lpm wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:19 pm

But it's not purely personal protection.

So you're talking about a situation that doesn't exist in the real world.

Israel had its largest wave of infections after most of the population had been vaccinated, the reduction in transmission is not sufficient to really stop people catching it (the 63% quoted is only between two parties who are both double jabbed, and the infectee will already have significant protection against being hospitalised even if they do catch it if their immune system is functional. If their immune system is impaired vaccines may not help either)

You are the master at going off in irrelevant tangents and wasting everyone's time.

Turns out that all you have to do is open the windows for a bit

How many "happy birthday to you"s is 10 minutes?

That'll be fun if it's a harsh winter...with gas prices at a record high.

They seem to have completely forgotten about LFTs as a way to prevent spread too.