Where is the mandate?

No red herring at all. It's just that you didn't get to what part of your post I was replying. You said the vaccinated "are now as much risk to their fellow workers as those that haven't gotten the shot" and you said this is supported by data. I said, not at all. Data say the opposite, because to be a risk to your fellow workers you need to catch the virus to start with (you can't transmit it if you don't catch it) but the data, including yours, show that the vaccinated are less likely to catch it. This is due to what we call sterilizing immunity when someone has a high titer of neutralizing antibodies against the RBD (receptor binding domain) of the virus' spike. These people will zap the virus immediately and won't be for all practical purposes infected and able to transmit it. Of course we agree that this protection wanes with time (and is not 100% to begin with) and now to maintain an equivalent level of the initial protection, boosters are needed. But this protection is not negligible, which is why new cases are preferentially among the non-vaccinated. I've NEVER pretended that the vaccine is 100% efficacious or 100% effective. But although imperfect, the vaccines do yield some reduction in the odds of catching the virus (if you interpret catching it, as viable, replicating infection) therefore they do decrease the danger to co-workers, from a vaccinated person.

Get it now?

In addition to those who have high titer of neutralizing antibodies (for a few months), there are two other points to be considered, in terms of establishing if the vaccinated are as much a risk to co-workers and the public as the unvaccinated. First, the vaccinated have faster secondary immunity, in case they do get breakthrough, replicating infections. They start with an equivalent viral load to the infected unvaccinated, but then their viral load drops precipitously when their T cells activate their B cells into antibody-producing plasma cells, a process that that takes much longer for the unvaccinated, because the vaccinated have been primed and have memory cells, while the unvaccinated have not been primed so they can't rely on memory cells yet. So the vaccinated stay infectious for a shorter time, which again, decreases their danger to others.

Second, it's been shown in studies in England with households that have only one vaccinated person, and that person becomes an index case in that household by catching a replicating breakthrough infection, that the person is still less likely to infect household members, as compared to an index case in a household where nobody (including the index case) is vaccinated. In certain households, the vaccinated breakthrough infected person was unable to infect a single member of the household, while unvaccinated index cases pretty much infected everybody in their household. Why was that? This shouldn't be simply explained by a shorter infectious period. The hypothesis is that the vaccinated person with a breakthrough case, sheds out defective viral copies that aren't as infectious, as they are partially knocked out by antibodies. So, those copies count towards a measurement of the viral load, but are not as infectious.

I linked you to that thread, because in the subsequent discussion from the point I linked you to, there were data and links about this.

Look, you do have some correct notions. I'm not looking at picking a fight with you. I'm just disputing your assertion that the vaccinated represent the same risk for co-workers than the unvaccinated. This is just not true, and it needed correction.

 

Right off the bat you are editing what I said to suit your purpose. What I actually said was "Those that got the shot early are no longer protected (noting that they were never fully protected in the first place) and are now as much risk to their fellow workers as those that haven't gotten the shot." It's kinda important to note that as it has been clearly shown that immunity wanes within months. That is beyond dispute. It's the very reason why boosters are now being rolled out.

These shots do not offer sterilizing immunity and I haven't seen anyone claiming they do, until you just did. People can and do get the virus, transmit it, get sick from it and also die from it after getting the shot. That hardly fits the definition of "sterilizing immunity".

I really don't see the need for all these qualifiers right after using the term "sterilizing immunity".

Had you not chopped my quote in the first place, there would have been no need (or reason) for your post. While you might feel like you "corrected" me, I'm left scratching my head over your notions of sterilizing immunity. I think I'll stick with this from Scientific American:

The question of whether immunization prevents recipients from becoming ill and from infecting others is not unique to the current pandemic. According to Dawn Bowdish, a professor of pathology and molecular medicine at McMaster University, this so-called sterilizing immunity was a key factor in eliminating smallpox.

 

I didn't chop anything. I just informed you of the part of your post I was responding to. My first response (post #314) quoted your ENTIRE post. Since you misunderstood what I was getting at, then I quoted the specific part I was responding too, FOR YOUR INFORMATION and for your understanding of my point. You can stop accusing me, because I'm NEVER disingenuous.

I never said that everybody has sterilizing immunity. This is clear, when I say "when someone has..." implying that not everybody does.

Why are you insisting with something we agree upon, that vaccine immunity fades??? That is not my point at all. Do I need to AGAIN explain my point to you? Gee!

Yes, there *is* sterilizing immunity and it's been shown in numerous studies that try to establish the threshold of titers above which there is sterilizing immunity. Not everybody achieves it. It also depends on the person having a competent immune system, thus achieving high titers, and on how recent the vaccination is.

Look, if YOU have never heard of the term sterilizing immunity, it's not MY fault. Ask another user here, @557 who is very familiar with the concept too.

Yes, I DID correct you. You said that the vaccinated are AS DANGEROUS to co-workers as the unvaccinated, and this is plain and utterly FALSE, for the reasons I've explained, and you seem to be unable to comprehend (which again, is not my fault).

If not, pray tell, why in the hell do vaccinated people acquire the virus way less often than the unvaccinated (which is confirmed BY YOUR OWN DATA and by numerous other studies??? Care to explain that? Duh, it's because a number of them (not all, and I've never pretended that it happens for all) do acquire sterilizing immunity (for a few months).

Just an anecdotal case, which is not my style (I prefer to quote studies than anecdotes) but maybe you'll understand it a bit better.

I have a friend who got two doses of the Moderna vaccine (the one that has been yielding the highest titers). Her husband got one dose of the J&J (which has been performing less well). Her young son was unvaccinated (not of age yet). So, her husband caught the virus in a breakthrough infection (he thinks it happened in a used car fair that he attended, where he talked closely to a number of unmasked people). He passed it on to their son. She was in close contact with both her husband and her son, of course. Since she is a healthcare worker and reported this contact, she got repeatedly tested with both RT-PCR serial tests and rapid antigen tests that she had at home. All of them were negative. Obviously she breathed in virus-laden aerosol, sleeping with her husband in the same bedroom, hugging her son while getting him ready for school, etc., and they were presumably infectious before they got diagnosed, so she was breathing in their exhaled air all over the place. Why do you supposed she never once tested positive despite multiple testing and high exposure? Duh, because she had neutralizing immunity from a high titer of IgG against the RBD of the virus' spike protein, just like numerous studies that look at titers, show.

 

@Woogs By the way, I shouldn't have said you're unfamiliar with the concept of sterilizing immunity since you did include a quote in your latest response (you probably became familiar with it now; you probably googled it after I mentioned it). Then you quoted Down Bowdish, a professor of pathology and molecular medicine at McMaster University. First, what he is saying doesn't contradict what I'm saying. Second, he is not a virologist or immunologist. Third, my own credentials are superior to his, and the three universities I've been involved with, the one I got my MD from, the one I got my PhD from, and the one I currently work for, are all three ranked way higher than McMaster University in all international rankings any way you look into it (reputation, research grants, citations, etc.) so, sorry, but your appeal to authority doesn't impress me at all.

 

You know, I'm not gonna play word games with you. You clearly chopped my quote, changing its meaning, in your response. The covid shots do not achieve sterilizing immunity. If they did, we wouldn't see so many "fully vaccinated" people in the hospital and even dying from covid, as MY OWN DATA SHOWS (see, I can do all caps, too).

Also, despite your wall of text, I still don't feel "corrected". Maybe you should look elsewhere to get your desired result.

 

I agree that we have to make good decisions concerning what we require by law.

I don't know what you mean by your comment on "coerced vaccination". Yes, we have long required vaccinations for children entering our public education system. Do you oppose that?

I'd say that 911 CLEARLY pointed out that creating an alternate legal system to avoid our criminal law was a GIGANTIC mistake. And, the main problem with "terror watch lists" probably had more to do with the fact that citizens couldn't even tell if they were ON such a list, let alone have any way of getting back off. That was nothing at all like requiring that people comply with the standard methods we have for defending against disease.

I don't see a way to suggest that this pandemic deserved no direct defense of the American citizenry. If this many citizens died of any other new cause, we would address it in no uncertain terms.

 

That some people for whom immunity fades, get in trouble, doesn't mean that others don't achieve sterilizing immunity. The people who get in trouble after being fully vaccinated are typically the ones who got it first by virtue of age and infirmity as we went by it giving first priority to those, so they are a pre-selected fragile population that doesn't achieve good immune response to start with, and they are the farthest away (in time) from their basic vaccination. This is what explains the growing share of hospitalizations and deaths in your graphs (the pre-selected population, a concept I'm sure you are unfamiliar with or else you'd have understood your own graphs), but as you would have noticed if you had the ability to do any math, EVEN THOSE still result in the vaccinated population being underrepresented there, and the unvaccinated, proportionally overrepresented. Also, the proportion of fully vaccinated people who acquire a breakthrough infection when you look at the full denominator (the total number of vaccinated) remains much smaller than the proportion of people who acquire it among the unvaccinated, which is a FACT.

Wall of text, huh? Any problem with attention span? So, you appeal to TLDR, the infamous Too Long Didn't Read that people who are losing a debate often resort to. And you insist on the chopping part, despite my showing to you that I initially quoted your ENTIRE post (it's up there for anybody to see), and only zoomed into a part when you failed to understand my point. Insisting with this after it's been demonstrated to you that it is not true, is disingenuous. As such, I won't waste my time with you any longer. Using the tools I have at my disposition, you're out. I won't be reading you or responding to you (why waste any time with those who not only don't understand the science but won't or can't, even after it's explained to them? I am very patient with explaining it to lay people but not to people who aggressively insist in ignoring the explanations and can't realize where they are wrong and what they are wrong about). You don't "feel" corrected; yes, sure, I figure as much; you don't have the capacity to acknowledge your error, because yes, you WERE corrected.

As for high caps, it's just an emphasis thing. Seems like it offends you. LOL.

So, have a nice and long life. Stay protected. Get a booster. Over and out.

 

I googled the quote. I was already familiar with the concept. But thanks anyway for pretending to know what I was thinking.

Actually, I could have quoted someone else. Others say much the same thing. Your idea of sterilizing immunity is rather unique.

Sorry, but your bloviating doesn't impress me at all. So, back to the iggy list for you, which is where you would have stayed had you not quoted me in the first place.

 

The OSHA - Department of Labor rule is coming in the next few days. It's been written and it has already passed the review by the Office of Management and Budget. It's about to be published. Then, we'll see what the courts say. By the way, it looks like the Supreme Court is more favorable to vaccine mandates (or at least hands-offish and not against them) than conservatives had hoped (it's significant that the last decision was 6-3 in favor of staying out of it, at least for now).

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/poli...mrgFwILKGZmjxorVzIXRuM/2o&bt_ts=1635849274995

 

Biden knew that he didn't need a law. He knows what Americans are capable of. They will throw their fellow citizens in the gutter and stomp on their face on a whim.

 

Politicians and greedy leaders have usurped powers as long as politics has existed.

Sleepy Joe usurping powers not delegated is treason. If OSHA enables his usurpation, it too acts treasonously.

There is no lawful authority for the government to order a citizen to be injected. That was how the NAZI government in Germany behaved. That so many citizens accept it today illustrates exactly what Ben Franklin was talking about in 1787

 

Indeed, our fellow citizens are treating unvaccinated almost exactly how the Germans treated the Jews in the early stages, with the obvious difference being that the Jews didn't have an option to no longer be a Jew.

 

were in the middle of the pandemic, declared so by Trump, we have a vaccine, let's end this Pandemic, take the vaccine

the unvaccinated are not being treated like Jews

 

The vaccine doesn't end the pandemic. Ireland = 80+% vaccinated. Huge Covid spike. Where are the absolute highest transmission rates within Ireland? Waterford. Which has a 99.7% vaccination rate. Are the .3% really extending the pandemic?

 

I know we're speaking very loosely here, but IT'S NOT A VACCINE.

 

Love to see a link - also what is the hospitalisation rate?

 

the vaccine does not stop you from getting the virus, it helps train your body to fight it if\when you do get it

Ireland is doing pretty good

 

That is the prevailing psychobabble, yes.

 

psychobabble, is what the anti-vaxxers are spreading

 

But you, like Biden and many others, insinuated that the vaccine will end the pandemic. It clearly won't. It may increase your survivability, but if you want some of us to continue believing even that much, I would recommend not lying about it stopping the spread.

 

The injection only protects the person who received the injection. It's not going to 'end' the virus.

 

You are very well conditioned and trained.

 

You are obviously not one of us unvaccinated that are being prevented from working. I'm not even permitted to travel to NYC because DeBlasio said so. Maybe he forgot the privileges and immunities clause in the Constitution...

 

How many require hospitalisation?

 

Then get vaccinated - problem solved