To me the more interesting aspect of this research is the possibility to test susceptibility to severe infection. If you know ahead of time you are high risk, then the treatment and behavior is different than someone who knows they are low risk. Right now we treat everything the same - recommend everyone is vaccinated and everyone wear masks during outbreaks. I’d really like to know how at risk I am, and act accordingly.
(Disclaimer: covid averse, lost family member, upset with society for “being done.”)
I’m not sure what to think about this.
A year+ ago, I would have worried that folks would treat a low-risk evaluation as a permission slip to say “the pandemic is over for me,” stop masking/etc, and thus increase the aggregate spread of the virus to folks who are high risk.
But now everyone is already doing that anyway. So yeah, it would be nice to know whether we are high risk or should just let it all go and say whatever.
Sometimes I think I'm the only low risk person left on the planet wearing a mask and vaccinating. Then I see old folks or one 30y/o woman in the supermarket wearing a mask, and I remember that this protects them too. There's even some performers asking fans to mask up so high risk people can come to their shows. Gives me a tiny glimmer of hope for humanity.
I just read this January 2023 article by a person with last name Fauci that claims coronaviruses have never been controlled by vaccines. More communication problems or admission of mistakes?
Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses, influenzaviruses, and other respiratory viruses
David M. Morens, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, and Anthony S. Fauci
'Because these viruses generally do not elicit complete and durable protective immunity by themselves, they have not to date been effectively controlled by licensed or experimental vaccines. In this review, we examine challenges that have impeded development of effective mucosal respiratory vaccines ...'
> with last name Fauci that claims coronaviruses have never been controlled by vaccines
Actually, the full text is:
"Viruses that replicate in the human respiratory mucosa without infecting systemically, including influenza A, SARS-CoV-2, endemic coronaviruses, RSV, and many other “common cold” viruses, cause significant mortality and morbidity and are important public health concerns. Because these viruses generally do not elicit complete and durable protective immunity by themselves, they have not to date been effectively controlled by licensed or experimental vaccines."
The authors of the paper (not just Fauci) named off a group of different viruses, not just a single one. Taken in the stated context, it should make a lot more sense to anyone who reads this stuff.
Countless studies have shown that SARS-CoV2 can infect systemically and not just the lungs. The SARS-CoV2 virus has been found in virtually every organ and the first autopsy studies in 2020 demonstrated this.
It is horrifying that the person who has lead the response to this virus for the US is a coauthor of this factually incorrect statement 3 years into the pandemic.
Humoral vaccines do provide some limited protection when it comes to transmission. Nothing like a mucosal vaccine would. But an additional line of protection for the susceptible we may come in contact with.
For full disclosure I don't vaccinate anymore (waiting until the mucosal vaccines are available). But I understand those who do, especially if they are around other people when maskless more than I am.
I was under the impression that there is no data showing that the covid mrna vaccines reduce transmission. If you are aware of a source that says otherwise I would love to check it out.
> The ARs among household contacts of index patients who had received a COVID-19 booster dose, of fully vaccinated index patients who completed their COVID-19 primary series within the previous 5 months, and of unvaccinated index patients were 42.7% (47 of 110), 43.6% (17 of 39), and 63.9% (69 of 108), respectively.
I appreciate the response. Hard to draw many conclusions from that study for a number of reasons, but perhaps the greatest in my mind is highlighted near the end: "TCOVID-19 prevention measures (vaccination, isolation, and mask use) are likely highly correlated within households, and the identified risk factors might not be independent predictors of transmission".
Basically this article doesn't show that vaccines prevent transmission. It doesn't show they don't either, although that there wasn't a more dramatic effect is a negative finding in my opinion. I wish the authors had analyzes the AR in vaccinated vs unvaccinated household contacts.
On the other hand, the authors there start their conclusion off with The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.
But it's a short discussion, people can go read it for themselves.
"The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions."
Means they aren't sure themselves, if their results are usable at all. For the individual, one unmasked exposure undoes the entire effort. We're not talking about toxicity.
This seems to be clear to the authors aswell. The strongest language in their conclusions reads like this:
"There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect."
Going from that to "Masks don't work" is quite the leap.
"We included 12 trials (10 cluster‐RCTs) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness (two trials with healthcare workers and 10 in the community). Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence)."
It always amazes me when someone ignores the 99 studies that show masks are effective, and highlights the one that says maybe they’re not. Cherry picking in action!
Is this meant to be irony? You seem to have not read the link. It's a meta-review of 78 randomised control trials. It is literally the opposite of cherry picking.
You then cherry pick one review saying the opposite.
You're still touching things, then touching your face. You're still breathing the same air as everyone. You're still moving through clouds of expelled vapor from everyone who has walked in front of you recently. There is no hermetic seal around your nose and mouth if you wear a mask. Your eyes are exposed to the air. And if you wear the same mask more than once, you are trapping all sorts of bacteria and other nasties in a soup of sweat, oils, and grime on your face. Masks are mostly theater in everything but controlled environments.
> You're still touching things, then touching your face.
> Your eyes are exposed to the air.
I'm not the person you're responding to. Just what I do.
The mask covers the mucus membranes, except around the eyes. And I've got glasses with side-shields for the eyes. And an ASTM-III mask over the N95 mask so that I can touch and manipulate the masks without touching the breathing surface of the N95.
> You're still breathing the same air as everyone. You're still moving through clouds of expelled vapor from everyone who has walked in front of you recently. There is no hermetic seal around your nose and mouth if you wear a mask.
It's a virucidal N95, so besides the filtering also kills much of the virus that it traps. While the filtering is not 100%, the killing on top of the filtering should greatly reduce risk of infection or transmission in the unlikely event I'm infected but don't know it.
> Masks are mostly theater in everything but controlled environments.
I used to get a respiratory infection about yearly. I haven't had a contagious illness that I am aware of since January 2020.
Edit to add: And I take my daily shower after coming home for the day. I have never used a delivery service to grocery shop. I got about one month of work from home before coming back to the job part-time, and was fully back to the job by September or October of 2020.
I wear an N95 when I go out but only my regular glasses. I too haven't been sick since January 2020. I used to get colds pretty much quarterly, and so it's absolutely worth it to me. If it bothers someone else to see me wearing one that's their problem, I'm not asking them to wear one.
I get the ocassional weird, sometimes mean look every once in a while, but I can deal with that as long as people don't stop and confront me over it, which thankfully hasn't happened yet, except a single time when some jerk walked past me and baa'd to suggest that I was a sheep back in 2020.
I don't even wear a mask everywhere (not since I got vaccinated). I don't once I sit at a table at a restaurant, or at certain social functions. But somehow I still haven't gotten Covid yet (that I'm aware of at least), even after a few known exposures, so I'm guessing either it's helping at least a little bit or I had an asymptomatic case a while back.
As far as I know, though, I could still have a moderate-to-bad case of it when I get it. My parents just both got it recently, for example, (that was one of my exposures, since they were helping me clean out my flooded basement just before they got symptoms) and it took both of them over a month before they got over it, and we share genes, so in theory I should have a somewhat rough time once I get it as well.
I used to get them more than yearly, usually 3x or more per year, some of them were pretty brutal (Really bad coughs, fevers, night sweats, up to a week of PTO to recover)
I have masked every time I leave the house since COVID started impacting Wuhan (we had Chinese operations, so saw early impact on the business side. If you saw me masking on BART in early 2020, wave) and I haven’t gotten a single illness of any type since then.
It’s glorious.
I am often close to the only person I see all day masking, and it blows my mind why people don’t get this advantage.
> if you saw me masking on BART in early 2020, wave
Which line, what time? :) I only started riding BART in late 2019, so only had a few months of it before stopping. I'm sure I would have been ill more often than yearly if my ridership had continued.
I agree. Additionally the masks will more than pay for themselves when it comes time to cash out my accumulated sick leave when I leave this job.
You were about half an hour later than me on the way out, and we only overlapped through Orinda to Rockridge. I usually got the 2:something on the way back, and by then it was crowded enough I'm sure I wouldn't have seen you even if we were in the same car.
If there's a one in a million chance that my wearing a mask might prevent me from unwittingly getting or transmitting COVID and that spreading to a high risk person, I'll take it. You make your life choices, I'll make mine. Thanks.
If you or someone in your family is immuno-suppressed, have at it. Otherwise in terms of risk avoidance you might as well start wearing a crash helmet when you ride the bus just in case.
30,000 die in the US in car accidents every year. crash helmets, race harnesses, and roll cages would save thousands of lives. but I get that some people rather die than wear safety gear.
I understood masks were not about making you proof against infection, but instead for slowing the spread so hospitals could respond. That's the critical measure of mask effectiveness.
Comorbidities have always been indicators of risk. You're more likely high risk if you already have health issues, are morbidly obese, or over the age of 70.
When people complain about prejudice against fat people, this is what they mean.
I fail to understand why someone's size would make their advice less credible, particularly on topics other than weight loss. If anything, being at higher risk would dispose them to take the virus more seriously.
After all, "trying to eat healthy" is rarely successful. The vast majority of dieters do not succeed in achieving long-term weight loss.
Fat people have often tried a variety of weight loss techniques. Their advice is liable to be more pertinent than a skinny person who has trouble gaining weight.
"Carrying too many pounds is a solid signal of current or future health problems. But not for everyone. Some people who are overweight or obese mange to escape the usual hazards, at least temporarily. This weight subgroup has even earned its own moniker—metabolically healthy obesity."
"But some people who are overweight or obese manage to avoid these changes and, at least metabolically, look like individuals with healthy weights. “Obesity isn’t a homogeneous condition,” says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It appears that it doesn’t affect everyone in the same ways.”"
So if it works for a person with a lot of bad habits you think it's a bad idea? Wouldn't something that works for a person with a lot of bad habits be even better?
I particularly like the nose spray application. If even non-susceptible people get in the habit of using a nose spray before starting their day, any contagious viruses that they may already have could be covered with an inactivator upon sneezing them out. Hypothetically this could protect susceptible people who inhale the sneezed out viruses.
