Reply #2 JackTheBat's post
Sorry in advance for the length of this. I spend way too much time on learning about COVID-19, the global economy and other things. Every time I turn around, I learn something new about COVID-19 that is different from a few months ago.
I do enjoy reading other people’s stories as an escape while not having any new stories to share. I do feel it is important to learn about what is going elsewhere in the world and thank JackTheBat and others on sharing “on the ground” news.
There is debate about whether viruses are “alive” but that doesn’t matter. A virus has one function and it is the replicate. Viruses has RNA not DNA. Every so often they replicate an “error” in is RNA that creates a variant. COVID-19 has over 6,600 mutations and counting. This is not surprising when you think about how the hundreds of millions of people infected and it has had a chance to replicate tens of billions of times. A small number, Alpha, Delta, Gamma and Lambda, are more dangerous because they have adopted a more efficient way to attach itself to your lung cells via spike protein, and take over your lung cells to make more virus and killing the lung cells. The faster the virus can do this, the less time your body has to figure out how to and attack as the virus is replicating out of control. The cells in your lungs are destroyed which opens up your lungs to infection from natural occurring bacteria in your lungs that the lung cells keep from getting into your vulnerable areas. The death of lung cells leads to what you are seeing on the news. There are people saying it is not COVID-19, it is the pneumonia that kills you and COVID-19 does actually kill people are wrong. If not for COVID-19 destroying your lungs, then you would not get an infection that can kill you.
Introducing dead virus in whole as a vaccine is not used anymore. Vaccines are simple in concept; how do we get information to teach our bodies to fight the virus. Believe it or not, for centuries, dead viruses were the only way and how they introduced the dead virus was not a simple shot but through consumption of the virus or have other people exposed to other infected people and hope for a low death rate. Today, it is dissembling the virus to find the specific RNA creates the spike protein that latches onto your lung cell. Through this research you now have a “picture” of the spike protein. The hard part is finding a way to tell your body’s defenses to look for spike protein and teach it to generate the right antibodies and other defenses. The antibodies are designed specifically to get between the spike protein and our lung cell to stop it and thus keeping the lung cell safe. The virus cannot do anything our body has time to generate other natural defenses like T Cells to go kill the virus as opposed to trying to keep us alive by fighting infections. People fearful that the COVID-19 virus is being introduced to your body via vaccine are incorrect. There is no virus in the vaccine.
Not all vaccines are equal because of different technologies on how to teach your body to recognize the “picture” and how to take action. This is why you have different efficacy. Everyone is different, each person’s body to “learn” and “retain” the information from the vaccine is different. Ideally, we would like our bodies to learn something once and be good like Chickenpox or Measles vaccines; but not all viruses are equal nor in the same family. For example, the Flu is not in the same virus family as COVID-19. Hence, the conversation of booster shots and the need for new vaccines to address variants. People should get whatever vaccine is available. Any efficacy rate over 50% can help stop the virus from spreading.
The question pending is: can a vaccinated person who is infected by Delta be a transmitter on the virus? All the vaccines are effective on stopping transmission of a vaccinated infected person for the original COVID-19 virus and Alpha variant. Then we have the studies out if Israel questioning this and then Provincetown, Massachusetts super spreader event. There were large gatherings both indoor and outdoor in of Provincetown for “Independence Week” during the week of June 29th. From July 3rd to 17th, there are 469 confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which nearly 75% are vaccinated people and 90% of the cases were Delta variant. Provincetown’s 2,600 population has a near 95% vaccination rate. It is a population vacation destination during the summer that attracts tens of thousands weekly. The Provincetown super-spreader event resulted in increased infections in less vaccinated areas like Boston with a 60% vaccination rate. Of the 469 cases being tracked, 0 death, 5 hospitalized (of which 4 were vaccinated), and the remainder mild or no symptoms. Of the hospitalized there are possibly other underlying health factors. There is an ongoing study to determine if Delta variant can be transmitted by an infected vaccinated person.
The US CDC believes that the Delta variant is looking to be as contagious than the Chickenpox. For comparison for every person infected by the Flu can transmit it to 1.2 to 1.5 persons. For everyone person infected by the following the spread is as follows:
- MERS can infect between 0.3 to 0.7 persons.
- H1N1 can infect between 1.45 to 1.48 persons.
- Ebola can infect between 1.5 to 2.4 persons.
- 1918 Flu can infect between 2 to 3 persons.
- SARS can infect between 2 to 5 persons.
- Original COVID-19 can infect between 2 to 2.5 persons.
- Smallpox, Rubella and Polio can infect between 5 to 7 persons.
- Mumps can infect 4 to 7 persons.
- Chickenpox can infect 10 to 12 persons. (Delta Variant spread rate thus far)
- Measles can infect 12 to 18 persons.
You will note that many of these diseases we have vaccines that we still use to prevent epidemic or pandemics. The 1918 Flue died out after 3 years and killing an estimated 50 million people. We never developed a vaccine for SARS, which is now the distant the ancestor of COVID-19.
One of the challenges is WHO and a nation’s CDC will disagree what is a variant of interest and what is a variant of concern verses a variant of interest. The lack of a consistent global message on this leads to more confusion among everyone which does not help.
Thank you for your indulgence on my COVID-19 information rant. I am fairly confident that this information will change again in a few weeks as new research comes up. | |
