Effectiveness against infections declined from 88% (95% CI 86–89) during the first month after full vaccination to 47% (43–51) after 5 months. Among sequenced infections, vaccine effectiveness against infections of the delta variant was high during the first month after full vaccination (93% [95% CI 85–97]) but declined to 53% [39–65] after 4 months.
"Up to" 6 months isn't long lasting, thats salesmen speak, and the average again was 53% after 4 months.
>vaccine effectiveness against infections of the delta variant was high during the first month after full vaccination (93% [95% CI 85–97]) but declined to 53% [39–65] after 4 months.
>Reduction in vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infections over time is probably primarily due to waning immunity with time rather than the delta variant escaping vaccine protection.
Its why its important to get a booster shot. Most people who didn't get vaccinated also don't go to the hospital or die, so its not like that information is significant when the control isn't a black and white difference. People don't want to get infected in the first place so they don't get long covid.
What's your point? "Infections happen in only a small proportion of people who are fully vaccinated, even with the Delta variant" does suggest the vaccine is effective. You can still spread the virus, nobody's pretending it's 100% effective, but that doesn't make it ineffective
Speaking specifically to the Pfizer vaccine, it’s gone from 95% effective against preventing severe symptoms against the Alpha variant to 88% against Delta in less than 6 months of the vaccine being widely available to the public (With some even less optimistic peer-reviewed studies coming out of Israel, I’m just going by what the CDC is reporting). So under these circumstances, maybe it makes sense to wait a year or two before making claims about the long-term effectiveness of the vaccines. If they aren’t effective long-term some people might make different decisions about what vaccine they decide to take.
My own estimate is that the vaccine is about 50% effective for delta. That's cuts R0 in half, which is huge, but not something you can in any way, shape, or form rely on in isolation. It will likely be even lower for future mutations. Aside from the antivaxer movement, another outcome of extreme pro-vaccine stances, to the level of people lying, is that many people take NO precautions once vaccinated. That's a lot of what's driving some (not all) of the current delta outbreaks.
And on the anti-vaxxer side, once scientists get caught fabricating data, they're not going to be trusted even when they're right.
It’s weird to be so focused on infection, when efficacy against severe disease is more practically relevant. And the latter remains high, around 92% or higher, even against Delta.
Vaccine protection isn’t binary. Even if you end up infected your disease will be less severe AND you will be less contagious.
> Two doses of the Pfizer vaccine had an effectiveness of 93.7% at preventing symptomatic alpha infections, and 88% for the delta variant.
[..]
> However, the effectiveness of the vaccines plummeted if a patient had only received one dose of either vaccine: the study found both to be just more than 48% effective against alpha and only about 30% effective against delta.
I'm a little confused as to what your point is? The vaccines are highly effective after two doses, but not very effective after only one dose.
They are still 95% effective after 6 months at preventing death. They are unknown effective against new variants. I've seen a variety of studies with different variants tested against Delta. At best I read 92% for Pfizer (but a previous test had them at 60%), other vaccines as low as 30%. The new variants like lambda have shown it responds to antibiotic poorly, it spreads quickly and is more deadly compared to delta. I'm not sure the vaccine strategy will continue to work.
You are linking to correspondence, not to the study, the study suggests the opposite.
Saying they are completely ineffective is wrong based on what we know, to the best of my knowedge. I read, I talk to friends and family in the medical community, I am not an expert.
My understanding is that the vaccines have some effectiveness in preventing further infection but aren't fully effective, as evidenced by the study in Lancet which you indirectly linked to.
Just because peak viral load is apparently the same doesn't mean infection duration or transmission rates are the same, and the study suggests they aren't, in part because of faster decline in viral load among vaccinated folks.
Of course that data is only about delta. The science may change, and I follow the science.
Getting back to what I said, you know that, in the US, vaccine hesitancy is correlated with both less mask usage and less social distancing, right? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33592035/
If your idea is true, and the vaccine is completely ineffective, that still suggests unvaccinated folks are more likely to get infected with COVID, and to transmit it.
Getting back to the article, "Bastian said Delta has placed nearly 1,900 people on Delta’s “no-fly” list for refusing to comply with masking requirements"
Those aren't people I particularly want to fly with during this pandemic, but I do find the scope creep of the federal no fly list, as opposed to the company's list, disturbing.
Alex Berenson is not a journalist but a conspiracy theorist with no relevant training or experience. He is not a good source of advice on vaccination.
The Kaiser-Permanente study you linked is by actual medical experts and it paints a more nuanced perspective which is why it contradicts his claims — for example, they have the two dose effectiveness at preventing infection by Delta over 50% even a year out.
Most importantly, and the main reason I'm replying to this, is that it's _really_ important to also remember that there are two reasons to get vaccinated. One is to prevent infection entirely (largely a product of neutralizing antibodies, which fade relatively quickly) but the other is to lower the severity of an infection (a product of T cells, which is longer lasting) and the data continues to show that vaccines remain highly effective considerably longer than 3 months:
Promoting the voices of antivaxers like Alex Berenson is the single most effective way to prolong the pandemic since the thing which will allow us to return to normal will be high levels of vaccination reducing the severity of an infection to manageable levels.
No one is realistically looking for 100% effectiveness. However the vaccines don't reduce spread enough to eliminate the virus. Eventually we'll all be exposed. The main benefit of the vaccines is preventing deaths.
The efficiency of vaccines for infection fell by 50% in 4 monts even for delta and other variants. Their effectiveness with omicron infection is very little.
You see papers claiming an effectiveness against symptomatic infection against Delta of ~ 50 %, and the rise of cases in Israel as well as the Provincetown outbreak should really make us concerned.
The vaccine still prevents hospitalization and death, so that's reason enough to take it. But on its own it isn't enough to get R_0 below 1. The way everyone is behaving, they are asking for outbreak after outbreak.
Speaking of protection (vaccine effectiveness against infection) durability, I have to admit there is a certain level of disappointment seeing charts like Figure 1 in a US veteran study, which flat out contradicts the J&J claims (VEaI 3%) and partly invalidates the Pfizer claims (VEaI 56%). Or a Qatar study. Or a Sweden study.
There is also the official reaction. Aug 18, 2021: "CDC Director Says Coronavirus Vaccines Less Effective For Delta But Still Prevent Severe Infection".
Possible all of these studies are flawed. And perhaps I'm accidentally misquoting Rachel Walensky. Given that the original trials were closed by vaccinating the control arm of the studies, not even sure where to look for credible longterm tracking of VE against infection data.
On the other hand, possibly the manufacturer original studies were flawed. Or the virus evolved, Delta, duh. These conversations are difficult to carry partly because we are supposed to take the original studies, created with (acceptable) conflict of interest as gold standard, and summarily dismiss any independent verification thereof.
Vaccine efficacy isn't 100% though. People can (and are) getting infected even after (enough time has passed but not so long they'd be due a booster since) being vaccinated.
That's an oddly specific ask. The vaccines are absolutely fantastic in the short term, and there's credible evidence indicating the vaccine protection is long term, by analogy with how other vaccines work.
Vaccine efficacy is against severe COVID illness, not against transmission. The vaccine is still effective, although recent studies indicate that after 6 months it may only be 50% effective against severe illness (this will vary tremendously for each individual).
This is a non-sterilizing vaccine. It was never designed to stop transmission. It did surprisingly block transmission pretty well before the Delta variant. The theory presented here is that the vaccine effect takes time and kicks in on around day 5. With Delta the virus has already become highly transmissive by then. Pre-delta that probably was not the case.
From reading comments, it seems like a lot of people don't understand that Delta changed things.
In a world without Delta, the vaccines did do an incredible job of actually preventing infection. "Effectiveness [against confirmed infection] remained above 95% regardless of age group, sex, race, or presence of comorbidities."[1] But that study used data up to March 2021, which means mostly non-Delta variants. Against Delta, vaccine effectiveness in preventing infection might be closer to 50%+ (e.g. [2]) -- which is still very effective! It's just not effective as we would like. "Hi, here's a shot that cuts your odds of getting infected in half. Do you want it?" Um, yes please.
You have to change your behavior when the facts in the world change. The messaging had to change with the facts. Of course you can't use the old vaccination thresholds for re-opening if the virus is now infecting 10x (50% vs. 95%) as many vaccinated people as it was 2 months ago, that doesn't make sense.
The virus moved the goalposts. You can be angry about that, but that's reality.
We are so lucky that despite everything, the vaccines are still incredibly effective at keeping you from dying if you get COVID. I'm actually very angry at how the mask messaging was handled (there should absolutely be consequences for that), but it doesn't matter how angry I am, if I don't get vaccinated I am irrationally refusing the single best way to avoid dying in this pandemic.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Effectiveness against infections declined from 88% (95% CI 86–89) during the first month after full vaccination to 47% (43–51) after 5 months. Among sequenced infections, vaccine effectiveness against infections of the delta variant was high during the first month after full vaccination (93% [95% CI 85–97]) but declined to 53% [39–65] after 4 months.
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