Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Chatham, Provincetown: home, pharmacies, offices)

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by YevTK

Personal attacks against me might make you feel better but they are not relevant. Nor is the CDC's past performance.

My point is that the Providence study should never have been published. It is fundamentally flawed and it is ridiculous that it was used by the CDC to make policy. I think that the CDC should have done a proper study of the potential transmission of the virus by the vaccinated.

I follow the science and logic wherever it leads. I am fully vaccinated and think everyone should do the same. The CDC has helped the anti-vaxers spread their conspiracy theories.

We're in a crisis. You wait to do 18-24 month "proper studies" with controls, and you've lost thousands more people. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Again, I don't know based on what credentials you're questioning the CDC in this case? Are you familiar with the entirety of the data set they used to make the decision?

[YevTK]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

We're in a crisis. You wait to do 18-24 month "proper studies" with controls, and you've lost thousands more people. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Again, I don't know based on what credentials you're questioning the CDC in this case? Are you familiar with the entirety of the data set they used to make the decision?

The study is published on the CDC website: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/...cid=mm7031e2_w


A few notes:

- The study reported that a total of 469 COVID-19 cases were identified among MA residents, of which 346 occurred in fully vaccinated people and 123 occurred in the unvaccinated, so 74% of the cases were vaccinated. The problem with this is that we do not know the vaccination status of the people that attended the events. So no conclusion can be drawn about vaccine effectiveness.
- Only the MA cases were analyzed. The cases among the “thousands of tourists from 22 states” that attended were not.
- There was no evidence presented that the vaccinated people actually transmitted the virus to anyone.


The only thing the study did find was that vaccinated people with breakthrough cases have the same viral load as cases in vaccinated people. Why did CDC have to wait for this outbreak in Provincetown to discover this, why not just test breakthrough cases wherever they occur? If Bear Week had been cancelled would the CDC still be waiting?

[rach5]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

We're in a crisis. You wait to do 18-24 month "proper studies" with controls, and you've lost thousands more people. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Again, I don't know based on what credentials you're questioning the CDC in this case? Are you familiar with the entirety of the data set they used to make the decision?

I am not faulting the CDC for the Provincetown study, which was very rapidly done, but for the guideline in May that stopped requiring masks for the vaccinated. Not only did that foolishly assume that the unvaccinated would keep masking, but there was quite a bit of preliminary and credible evidence at that time from Singapore that fully mRNA vaxxed could be infected by, and transmit, delta, and do so not rarely. We also had outbreaks of delta in vaccinated people in the US around that time. I posted a lot about this here at the time.

[OutdoorLover]

Yes, influenza can kill people too. But Covid-19 killed over 500,000 Americans in a year. Influenza doesn't do that. Influenza doesn't overwhelm hospitals and city morgues. Covid-19 is not just the flu.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

Yes, influenza can kill people too. But Covid-19 killed over 500,000 Americans in a year. Influenza doesn't do that. Influenza doesn't overwhelm hospitals and city morgues. Covid-19 is not just the flu.

Err…. Big flu outbreaks fill hospitals. 2017-2018 flu season had 810,000 hospitalizations according to the CDC. I recall the Providence hospitals were full and turning people away that year. The body count is around 10% that of COVID-19. Mostly elderly. 61,000 is the highest death year in the last decade. A flu strain that isn’t in that year’s flu shot cocktail can rip through a nursing home and kill a bunch of the residents.

The WSJ is saying booster jabs in October for 65+, immune compromised people, and people who got their jabs in December & January. So the giant bureaucracy is only 2 1/2 months behind Israel.

You can get most of it before you hit the paywall.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-cov...ks-11628194767

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by rach5

I am not faulting the CDC for the Provincetown study, which was very rapidly done, but for the guideline in May that stopped requiring masks for the vaccinated. Not only did that foolishly assume that the unvaccinated would keep masking, but there was quite a bit of preliminary and credible evidence at that time from Singapore that fully mRNA vaxxed could be infected by, and transmit, delta, and do so not rarely. We also had outbreaks of delta in vaccinated people in the US around that time. I posted a lot about this here at the time.

I'm not completely convinced that the conclusions drawn from the Provincetown study are accurate. Specifically, that fully vaccinated people can be infected and then transmit the virus.

Before you start thinking I'm some sort of crackpot, hear me out.

I think there's a possibility that the "fully vaccinated" people included in the study were no longer protected. Meaning - the vaccine wore off.

Maybe I'm missing something. I don't know. But with the way Delta spreads, I think the numbers would be so much higher right now if the CDC's conclusions were accurate.

Having been fully vaccinated doesn't mean you're always going to be fully vaccinated. We don't know how long the protection lasts. It may vary from person to person...and perhaps vastly different.

I'll again point to the recent study that showed that Pfizer is only 42% effective (and Moderna is 76%) after 6 months. Look at the timing of the Provincetown study.

Speaking of timing, it's easy to come to the conclusion that Delta is breaking through. But is it? Or did the vaccine just wear off for some people at around the same time Delta became dominant?

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Err…. Big flu outbreaks fill hospitals. 2017-2018 flu season had 810,000 hospitalizations according to the CDC. I recall the Providence hospitals were full and turning people away that year. The body count is around 10% that of COVID-19. Mostly elderly. 61,000 is the highest death year in the last decade. A flu strain that isn’t in that year’s flu shot cocktail can rip through a nursing home and kill a bunch of the residents.

The WSJ is saying booster jabs in October for 65+, immune compromised people, and people who got their jabs in December & January. So the giant bureaucracy is only 2 1/2 months behind Israel.

You can get most of it before you hit the paywall.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-cov...ks-11628194767

Yes, but that's still far short of Covid-19 mortality for a year. I don't agree with this perception that we are behind Israel due to giant bureaucracy. Immunocompromised - those approved, can get booster shots now.

"The CDC said patients and doctors should decide who needs an extra dose and what the timing of that dose should be. No prescription or doctor's note will be needed -- people must attest to their need for the third dose -- and third doses are already available at major pharmacies and doctors' offices."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/14/healt...ess/index.html

They will no doubt work from those who are oldest and/or got their shots earliest first, and likely go through all in time. What's wrong with that? Seems sensible to me. There is an emergency right now - but that exists among the unvaccinated. I am not aware of any emergency among the vaccinated.

[Jacconn]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

Yes, influenza can kill people too. But Covid-19 killed over 500,000 Americans in a year. Influenza doesn't do that. Influenza doesn't overwhelm hospitals and city morgues. Covid-19 is not just the flu.

No, it's not just the flu - if you're unvaccinated. So it was terrible and scary and worth protecting everyone in 2020 and into this year. But once you're vaccinated, the rate of hospitalization/death is a lot more like the flu stats (or maybe even lower). So once you're vaccinated, then we should treat it like the flu, strep, norovirus, etc. Don't want to catch it, of course but we have to accept that people will be hospitalized (100s of thousands) and die (10s of thousands). But it's no longer any scarier than those other diseases that we don't lock down the world for or stop seeing each other for.

Even unvaccinated and unmasked, the riskiest thing we let kids do, by far, is get into a car. The worst outcome is death, but there are tens of thousands of injuries every year, and those lead to lifetimes of issues (just like long COVID everyone is afraid of). But we put on seatbelts, have working airbags, and generally let life and luck take its course. With vaccines here, we should do the same for COVID.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by msRB311

So the Provincetown cluster happened during bear week. Im sorry but this is a big hook up week and likely lead to some of this spread. P town is also very small, lots of people in small spaces. The majority might have been vaccinated but I guess it didn't matter. The virus thrived there amongst all the likely not masked people who were very close and probably behaved last year and got friskier this year because time and they were vaccinated.

Blaming it on Bear Week only is a poor choice. It was also a rainy week and thousands of people not there for that event were forced inside small restaurants, attractions, and museums.

[msRB311]

Originally Posted by robr2

Blaming it on Bear Week only is a poor choice. It was also a rainy week and thousands of people not there for that event were forced inside small restaurants, attractions, and museums.

Ok maybe the rain attributed to it ? I'm not sure why blaming bear week is a poor choice. It's an event that occurred that brought in more people than usual.