D&D and the rising pandemic

[NotAYakk]

If it makes you feel better, in 2021 more US citizens have been have been killed by gender reveal parties than by the COVID vaccine. As long as you can stay away from any overly excited expecting parents, you should be safe.

Oh yes, I took it eyes open.

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Michigan's COVID Wards Are Filling Up With Younger Patients

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — At Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, in one of America’s worst coronavirus hot spots, entire units are still filled with COVID-19 patients. People weak with the virus still struggle to sit up in bed. And the phone still rings with pleas to transfer patients on the verge of death...

news.yahoo.com

So apparently B117 is starting to hit the USA like it already is hitting Ontario.

B117 is what caused the UK to panic around Christmas. In environments that had Covid under control (reproduction under 1), it spreads faster and basically doubles every week. It is 60% more lethal, and tends to make younger people much sicker than the baseline strain.

It is believed it was incubated in an immunocompromised person; the covid evolved to reproduce better and evade the immune system. Human immune systems usually win when they get a fingerprint of an infection; in immunocompromised people, it stumbles along, and the virus had time to adapt in multiple ways. It then spread from there. (This is the general theory of most of the variants of concern, because they have too many mutations all at once).

Vaccines tend to protect against variants of concern less well. Both mRNA and protein-based vaccines are being tested that specifically target the variants.

India is also experiencing a B117 wave; it also has another variant which isn't dominant there but biologists think is extra concerning.

In an old folks home where 50% of staff and like 90% of residents where vaccinated, B117 was 8 times as likely to infect an unvaccinated as vaccinated, but vaccinated people died and got very sick from it; in comparison, baseline covid 19 killing someone vaccinated is under a one-in-a-million event.

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In related news, someone did a comparison of death rates from 1918 flu and covid 19 in NYC, and covid 19 was deadlier in almost every metric.

 

[Umbran]

In an old folks home where 50% of staff and like 90% of residents where vaccinated, B117 was 8 times as likely to infect an unvaccinated as vaccinated, but vaccinated people died and got very sick from it; in comparison, baseline covid 19 killing someone vaccinated is under a one-in-a-million event.

So, we absolutely need to remember something. The most effective vaccines are 90-95% effective.

95% IS NOT 100%!

I mean, really, we are all D&D players here, right? 5% is exactly the chance for a standard critical hit! Roll the dice enough times, and covid can still roll a 20.

Closed in with a population pool like an old folks home is like standing in the middle of a horde of goblins, each of them taking cracks at you. No stuff, every once in a while, someone rolls a critical.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

I mean, really, we are all D&D players here, right? 5% is exactly the chance for a standard critical hit! Roll the dice enough times, and covid can still roll a 20.

I'm somewhat disturbed that you went with critical hit when "natural 1" and fumble was right there

 

[NotAYakk]

So, we absolutely need to remember something. The most effective vaccines are 90-95% effective.

95% IS NOT 100%!

I mean, really, we are all D&D players here, right? 5% is exactly the chance for a standard critical hit! Roll the dice enough times, and covid can still roll a 20.

Closed in with a population pool like an old folks home is like standing in the middle of a horde of goblins, each of them taking cracks at you. No stuff, every once in a while, someone rolls a critical.

In this case they where 88% effective against infection, but unlike against baseline covid did not prevent serious disease and death.

Against baseline covid, every western vaccine is 99%+ protection against serious illness and death.

Also note none of the vaccines where tested head to head. We do not know if 80% effective is better or worse than 96%, because they where tested in different populations with different variants and different testing criteria. But all of them made serious illness and death just vanish. Except B117 violates that protection.

 

[Ryujin]

I'm somewhat disturbed that you went with critical hit when "natural 1" and fumble was right there

I'm thinking "Die-Die.club" here. "Did everyone eat the stew?"

 

[CapnZapp]

These numbers - 96% or 72% or what have you - I find uninteresting.

Yes they represent protection from getting sick (infected) and I realize that's what important from the pandemic angle.

But for me I'm not worried about getting a bit sick for a week.

To me, the BY FAR MOST IMPORTANT MEASURE is the protection against severe disease and death.

Basically, protection against having to visit the hospital.

Any vaccine that prevents hospitalization is good enough for me.

That's the important number and it frustrates me it isn't what people are talking about.

 

[Ryujin]

These numbers - 96% or 72% or what have you - I find uninteresting.

Yes they represent protection from getting sick (infected) and I realize that's what important from the pandemic angle.

But for me I'm not worried about getting a bit sick for a week.

To me, the BY FAR MOST IMPORTANT MEASURE is the protection against severe disease and death.

Basically, protection against having to visit the hospital.

Any vaccine that prevents hospitalization is good enough for me.

That's the important number and it frustrates me it isn't what people are talking about.

And the more important number, overall, is the point at which we hit "herd immunity" as, after that, individual resistance largely becomes statistically immaterial.

 

[Umbran]

I'm somewhat disturbed that you went with critical hit when "natural 1" and fumble was right there

For two reasons:
1) Critical fumbles are not actually in the rules.
2) It really is less like you or the vaccine fumbling, and more about the virus getting that one lucky shot. The critical hit metaphor is just more apt.

In this case they where 88% effective against infection, but unlike against baseline covid did not prevent serious disease and death.

Against baseline covid, every western vaccine is 99%+ protection against serious illness and death.

Also note none of the vaccines where tested head to head. We do not know if 80% effective is better or worse than 96%, because they where tested in different populations with different variants and different testing criteria. But all of them made serious illness and death just vanish. Except B117 violates that protection.

So, if you are going to note the differences in studies, then we really need to make it plain - the events at one group home are not statistically significant. It is not a properly randomized sample, with control. The numbers in a single group living site are statistically small compared to the testing overall. And, most importantly, since we are talking about events at a particular location, there is the possibility that there was some other influence on that community that changed the numbers.

Especially when this is particular incident is to us... a bit apocryphal. I mean, I haven't seen a reliable news story about it or anything.

So, while this may be of some concern, it IS NOT grounds to say the vaccine is not effective against B117. That conclusion is premature.

 

[NotAYakk]

These numbers - 96% or 72% or what have you - I find uninteresting.

Yes they represent protection from getting sick (infected) and I realize that's what important from the pandemic angle.

But for me I'm not worried about getting a bit sick for a week.

To me, the BY FAR MOST IMPORTANT MEASURE is the protection against severe disease and death.

Basically, protection against having to visit the hospital.

Any vaccine that prevents hospitalization is good enough for me.

That's the important number and it frustrates me it isn't what people are talking about.

And that (protection against hospitalization) is near 100% against the baseline strain from every vaccine.

It appears not to be near 100% for the variants. It is still good, but not nearly perfect protection.

Now, it would be surprising if Covid didn't seem to spread much better from people with higher viral loads, and the vaccines reduce viral loads; I don't think we've found a variant it is ineffective against, just less effective. And vaccination seems to be reducing transmission in the real world, where Israel's mass vaccination was seeing drop offs in infected of non-vaccinated.

Herd immunity's impact is hyperbolic -- the divisor of transmission is a factor of 1/(1-transmission reduction). If your vaccine is 80% effective at reducing transmission (whoop!) and you have 30% coverage, that divides R by 1.3. Which is more than dominated by social distancing/mask wearing in impact.

If you hit 70% coverage with 80% effectiveness, the R divisor becomes 2.3. An R divisor of 2.3 turns an exponential outbreak that doubles every week -- think Italy or NYC in March -- into the number of infected petering off.

At 90% coverage and 80% effectiveness, the R divisor becomes 3.6.

And 80% effectiveness is out-of-my-ass. If it is closer to 95% (ie, reduction in transmission in proportion to reduction in symptoms), the R divisor is 6.9.

A disease with a 4 day cycle that had an R number of 4 would go from 10 infections to 10 million under 2 months, way faster than Covid 19. And an R number of 4 divided by 6.9 is 0.6. A virus with a 0.6 R number goes from 1 million active infections to 10 in about 100 days (plus time for the last infected to recover); it is choked off and killed.

Annoyingly, it is the product of "willing to wear masks and not sing inside with each other" times "actually willing to take vaccine" that determines how fast you kill off Covid 19. And the derp seems to correlate.

 

[CapnZapp]

Not sure if you intended to continue my argument only to immediately undercut it, by doing exactly what I argued against, which is to discuss other stuff than what I brought up... but let me do that thing too:

And the more important number, overall, is the point at which we hit "herd immunity" as, after that, individual resistance largely becomes statistically immaterial.

You are exactly right except herd immunity is probably just an illusion and the important number overall for me is the percentage of not getting hospitalized, not getting a hose shoved down my throat, not being put in a medical coma, and not dying.

You assume this disease is going away which it most likely is not, and we will have to keep getting vaccinated for the foreseeable future. So... to make my point again: it is the percentage against severe disease and death we should be discussing.