Reality Check

[JamesE]

Approximately 50% of the total population of the US has been vaccinated. This leaves about 164M people of all ages unvaccinated. Take away the under 12s who can't (yet) get the shot (+/- 60M) and the US has about 104M unvaccinated individuals or roughly 1.8 times the number of unvaccinated people in Thailand.

Today the US passed 100,000 new cases per day. Roughly 5 times what was seen in Thailand.

97% of the people in US hospitals because of COVID are unvaccinated. Breakthrough cases (+/- 150K) are a vanishingly small percent - 0.08% - of the total vaccinated population. So it's not an epidemic of everyone, just the unvaccinated. Sure, cases and deaths are under-reported in Thailand, just as they are under-reported in the US. Neither country is testing as much as they should. Those factors are a wash.

So, why is the US still doing so much worse than Thailand?

Thailand completely screwed the pooch with its vaccine ordering. When it finally got in gear it behaved like the COVID Clown Car. And still, Thailand is doing better than the US.

Just curious as the what you think.

[MrStretch]

I think it's down to two things really.

One is that large groupings are unusual in Thailand, compared to the US right now.  It's summer socializing season in North America.  People get together in groups for just about everything; vacations, sporting events, picnics, concerts and performances.  In those areas of under or non-vaccinated they are also eschewing mask mandates.  Look at Florida.  What a disaster.

The second thing is that Thais aren't as "touchy feely" as Americans.  In Thailand we don't hug, kiss and shake hands when we greet others, in the states, this is common behavior, especially among friends.  Thais wai and keep a natural distance.

The fact that Thais do a better job of adhering to mask mandates and the limitations for interaction placed by the government (mall closings, restaurants not allowed for inside dining, etc.) means there are fewer opportunties for the virus to spread, regardless of which variant it is.

[gummy]

4 minutes ago, MrStretch said:

I think it's down to two things really.

One is that large groupings are unusual in Thailand, compared to the US right now.  It's summer socializing season in North America.  People get together in groups for just about everything; vacations, sporting events, picnics, concerts and performances.  In those areas of under or non-vaccinated they are also eschewing mask mandates.  Look at Florida.  What a disaster.

The second thing is that Thais aren't as "touchy feely" as Americans.  In Thailand we don't hug, kiss and shake hands when we greet others, in the states, this is common behavior, especially among friends.  Thais wai and keep a natural distance.

The fact that Thais do a better job of adhering to mask mandates and the limitations for interaction placed by the government (mall closings, restaurants not allowed for inside dining, etc.) means there are fewer opportunties for the virus to spread, regardless of which variant it is.

And don't forget that according to Kh Anutin, the health minister, foreigners are dirty, so that must have an impact as well. But only in Thailand and in the imagination of some you understand 

[thai3]

You don't see Thais fighting to get in Tesco's without a mask on screaming about their rights, or being dragged off a plane for refusing to wear a mask either. In this they are better than some in the west, probably better at cleaning their hands with sprays as well, we have enough of that stuff for the next couple of years !

[AussieBob]

1 hour ago, MrStretch said:

I think it's down to two things really.

One is that large groupings are unusual in Thailand, compared to the US right now.  It's summer socializing season in North America.  People get together in groups for just about everything; vacations, sporting events, picnics, concerts and performances.  In those areas of under or non-vaccinated they are also eschewing mask mandates.  Look at Florida.  What a disaster.

The second thing is that Thais aren't as "touchy feely" as Americans.  In Thailand we don't hug, kiss and shake hands when we greet others, in the states, this is common behavior, especially among friends.  Thais wai and keep a natural distance.

The fact that Thais do a better job of adhering to mask mandates and the limitations for interaction placed by the government (mall closings, restaurants not allowed for inside dining, etc.) means there are fewer opportunties for the virus to spread, regardless of which variant it is.

Very true.  And I would add to that the fact that many Americans are refusing to get vaccinated. The net result is that more and more States are going to introduce laws that ban people who are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask from attending events where large crowds are in attendance.  Then, as is always the case in USA, it will be a legal fight between those who say it is their right not be be vaccinated and not to wear a mask, against those that say it is their right to be safer when in public places where social distancing cannot be maintained. That will probably all be sorted and agreed, about the time the Thai Govt regains the trust of the Thai people. 

[SomTum]

2 hours ago, JamesE said:

So, why is the US still doing so much worse than Thailand?

Is it possible we have more of those "co-morbidities" that can cause infected people to have a tougher time of it, so more of us show up for testing? We are bit overfed here.

[Meechai]

2 hours ago, JamesE said:

So, why is the US still doing so much worse than Thailand?

 

1- 300 million vs 70 million

2- Thailand like China are pretty much unbelievable in anything they report

Remember Thailand would have you believe in 2019 & 2020 when the world was dealing with Covid they were covid free

Despite all the Chinese Tourist that were freely traveling during outbreak inside Thailand. They would like you to believe their story that due to temp checks & a phone app they escaped all that. That when the Chinese left they took all their covid infections with them...Like a giant vacuum

Truth is they never tested previously & now that they do are well past their first wave when nothing was ever reported or tested

Edited August 5, 2021 by Meechai

[JamesE]

4 minutes ago, Meechai said:

1- 300 million vs 70 million

328M. But I was comparing unvaccinated populations, not total.

I think a better comparison would be Thailand vs. Florida. Both have "tuned" their reporting to fit a narrative. China, on the other hand, behaved exactly as they did in the first SARS outbreak in 2002. They absolutely can't be trusted.

[Meechai]

5 minutes ago, JamesE said:

328M. But I was comparing unvaccinated populations, not total.

I think a better comparison would be Thailand vs. Florida. Both have "tuned" their reporting to fit a narrative. China, on the other hand, behaved exactly as they did in the first SARS outbreak in 2002. They absolutely can't be trusted.

Yes I was just generally stating the US is 4-5x more pop so more possibilities for spreaders etc

But the rest I still think is obvious about Thailand in 2019 & 2020

[JamesE]

21 minutes ago, SomTum said:

Is it possible we have more of those "co-morbidities" that can cause infected people to have a tougher time of it, so more of us show up for testing? We are bit overfed here.

That's a good point. Having conflicting messages from the various states instead of a single central message probably hurts too. Some governor, Hutchinson from Arkansas, maybe, came out yesterday saying he wished he hadn't signed the legislation banning mask mandates. The Floridiot DeSantis is quoted as saying "Florida's hospitals are open for business." How reassuring.

[BigHewer]

14 minutes ago, Meechai said:

Remember Thailand would have you believe in 2019 & 2020 when the world was dealing with Covid they were covid free

Good post, Meechai. I wonder how the narrative will change if/when the acknowledged start date of infections is pushed back earlier in 2019. 

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

That 97 percent is total bullshit. 90-95 percent of new patients in Israel are vaccinated. The protection is fading fast. They have one of the highest vaccinations rates in the world.

In England more vaccinated people died of delta than unvaccinated. 1416 vaccinated inpatients, 2152 unvaccinated inpatients. 289 vaccinated died, 165 unvaccinated as of July 19th. Technical Briefing 19, Public Health England.

[TiT]

While I keep hearing that the number of infections in the US is 'surging', life around me is entirely normal, just like pre-pandemic.  In fact, I think businesses around here may be even busier than before, the patios and restaurants are full most evenings and every weekend.

I'd rather be here than in Thailand at this present time.  The fear that is permeating SE Asia is worse than the implications of the illness itself for most people.

[JamesE]

45 minutes ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

That 97 percent is total bullshit. 90-95 percent of new patients in Israel are vaccinated. The protection is fading fast. They have one of the highest vaccinations rates in the world.

In England more vaccinated people died of delta than unvaccinated. 1416 vaccinated inpatients, 2152 unvaccinated inpatients. 289 vaccinated died, 165 unvaccinated as of July 19th. Technical Briefing 19, Public Health England.

That is some serious spin. Technical Briefing 20 shows: Cases with Emergency Care Visit: 1,792 Vax, 6,293 Un-vax; Hospital Admission: 773 Vax, 1,738 Un-vax; Deaths <50y.o. 13, >=50, 389 Vax, 48 & 205 Un-Vax respectively.

Briefing 19 showed a similar breakdown. So if you're unvaxxed, you are 3 times more likely to end up in the ER, 2+ times more likely to require hospitalization, and almost 4 times more likely to die if you're under 50.

Without knowing the breakdown of the over-50s it's impossible to know the context. Some age subgroup is doing less well but all the other metrics from the reports you quoted indicate that vaccination is a good thing.

Since you didn't read the reports here are the links.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005517/Technical_Briefing_19.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1009243/Technical_Briefing_20.pdf

Edited August 6, 2021 by JamesE
Added clarifier

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

Israel with 133 doses administered per 100 people, one of the highest (UK 126, Germany 112, US 105) went from 250 cases in June 15th to over 28 000 currently. The vaccines are at best somewhat useful but for very limited time.

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

15 minutes ago, JamesE said:

That is some serious spin. Technical Briefing 20 shows: Cases with Emergency Care Visit: 1,792 Vax, 6,293 Un-vax; Hospital Admission: 773 Vax, 1,738 Un-vax; Deaths <50y.o. 13, >=50, 389 Vax, 48 & 205 Un-Vax respectively.

Briefing 19 showed a similar breakdown. So if you're unvaxxed, you are 3 times more likely to end up in the ER, 2+ times more likely to require hospitalization, and almost 4 times more likely to die if you're under 50.

Without knowing the breakdown of the over-50s it's impossible to know the context. Some age subgroup is doing less well but all the other metrics from the reports you quoted indicate that vaccination is a good thing.

You are the one spinning with that over 50 bullshit ("Without knowing..") but still use the under 50. You "forgot" to mention: 389 vaccinated over 50 died vs 205. "Four times more likely" with under 50 means 48 vs 13. Out of f***ing 265 000 cases! Are you f***ing serious?!

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by JackIsAGoodBoy

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

26 minutes ago, JamesE said:

That is some serious spin. Technical Briefing 20 shows: Cases with Emergency Care Visit: 1,792 Vax, 6,293 Un-vax; Hospital Admission: 773 Vax, 1,738 Un-vax; Deaths <50y.o. 13, >=50, 389 Vax, 48 & 205 Un-Vax respectively.

You got it there wrong. It is 1249 (one or two dose) vs 1738. Total cases 117K vax vs 151K un-vax. The vaccines are very leaky.

Edited August 6, 2021 by JackIsAGoodBoy

[JamesE]

12 minutes ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

Are you f***ing serious?!

Always.

And, Mr. I-Don't-Want-To-Be-Bothered-To-Think-For-Myself (or-even-read-the-post-I'm-quoting). Those 389 vs. 205 numbers are in my post.

[SomTum]

1 hour ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

That 97 percent is total bullshit.

That's the figure generally reported in the U.S. Is there an updated figure?
 

1 hour ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

In England more vaccinated people died of delta than unvaccinated. 1416 vaccinated inpatients, 2152 unvaccinated inpatients. 289 vaccinated died, 165 unvaccinated as of July 19th. Technical Briefing 19, Public Health England.

I think you are referring to Table 5 of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005517/Technical_Briefing_19.pdf

Whoops, seems there is a newer Technical Briefing, so this is obsolete.

There seems to be an age effect here. 98.1% of the unvaccinated people who tested positive are under the age of 50, and we know that younger people are likely to have a less severe course. On the other hand, among the fully vaccinated who tested positive, 53.3% are under 50 and 46.7% are 50+.  When you compared fully vaccinated (2 doses) and unvaccinated within age brackets, the rates of hospital admission and death look like this:

 

Under 50	Hospitalized (% of Infected)	Died (% of Infected)
* Unvaccinated	0.928%	0.029%
* Fully Vaccinated (2 doses)	0.671%	0.026%
50+	Hospitalized (% of Infected)	Died (% of Infected)
* Unvaccinated	8.387%	5.605%
* Fully Vaccinated (2 doses)	2.763%	1.638%

 

This data shows that full vaccination continues to provide useful protection against hospitalization and death, but during this period, the benefits were only dramatic for older folks (67% reduction in risk of hospitalization, 71% reduction in risk of death) .

UK-Tech19-Table1-Age-Bracketed.xlsx

Edited August 6, 2021 by SomTum
Intermediate reply

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

9 minutes ago, SomTum said:

That's the figure generally reported in the U.S. Is there an updated figure?
 

I think you are referring to Table 5 of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005517/Technical_Briefing_19.pdf

Whoops, seems there is a newer Technical Briefing, so this is obsolete.

There seems to be an age effect here. 98.1% of the unvaccinated people who tested positive are under the age of 50, and we know that younger people are likely to have a less severe course. On the other hand, among the fully vaccinated who tested positive, 53.3% are under 50 and 46.7% are 50+.  When you compared fully vaccinated (2 doses) and unvaccinated within age brackets, the rates of hospital admission and death look like this:

Under 50	Hospitalized (% of Infected)	Died (% of Infected)
* Unvaccinated	0.928%	0.029%
* Fully Vaccinated (2 doses)	0.671%	0.026%
50+	Hospitalized (% of Infected)	Died (% of Infected)
* Unvaccinated	8.387%	5.605%
* Fully Vaccinated (2 doses)	2.763%	1.638%

This data shows that full vaccination continues to provide useful protection against hospitalization and death, but during this period, the benefits were only dramatic for older folks (67% reduction in risk of hospitalization, 71% reduction in risk of death) .

UK-Tech19-Table1-Age-Bracketed.xlsx 11.72 kB · 0 downloads

Except Israel went from 250 cases in June 15 to over 28000, despite very high vaccination rate, 133 doses per 100 people, USA is at 105, Germany 112. Delta variant itself is a tamer virus. Vaccines helped a bit but not much. There were 2670 alpha variant related deaths before Feb 1 in England (0-20 percent vaccination rate) and so far 1614 alpha deaths since Feb 1. Latest technical briefing 20.

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

26 minutes ago, SomTum said:

That's the figure generally reported in the U.S. Is there an updated figure?
 

It cannot be 97 percent when England is reporting with delta 40 percent and Israel 90 percent vaccinated inpatients. No way.

[SomTum]

2 minutes ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

Except Israel went from 250 cases in June 15 to over 28000, despite very high vaccination rate, 133 doses per 100 people, USA is at 105, Germany 112. Delta variant itself is a tamer virus. Vaccines helped a bit but not much.

I'm not sure what you mean by tamer. Delta reproduces much faster in the body because, for some reason, it enters cells faster. This could be due to one of the mutations on the receptor binding domain. This faster reproduction seems to outrun the residual antibody army left from vaccination or prior infection.

What Israel's data showed is that the longer since your second dose, the more likely you were to reach virus counts high enough to detect in a PCR test. Fortunately, the immune system is able to ramp up antibody production fairly quickly in people who have been vaccinated. After a few days, it starts clearing the virus more quickly than the immune system of an unvaccinated person. You can see that in this pre-print from Singapore (chart on page 16):

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1.full.pdf

That should keep more people out of the hospital. The chart I've seen (via https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1418669720874721283?lang=en) shows that vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization and death is holding up well, so the experimental data seem to be borne out in the real world.

 

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

5 minutes ago, SomTum said:

I'm not sure what you mean by tamer. Delta reproduces much faster in the body because, for some reason, it enters cells faster. This could be due to one of the mutations on the receptor binding domain. This faster reproduction seems to outrun the residual antibody army left from vaccination or prior infection

Well, there is this. Pfizer supposedly has admitted that the protection lasts only for about 180 days and then starts to fade rapidly. And the virus arms race...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/5/biden-teams-misguided-and-deadly-covid-19-vaccine-/

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by JackIsAGoodBoy

[SomTum]

16 minutes ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

Well, there is this. Pfizer supposedly has admitted that the protection lasts only for about 180 days and then starts to fade rapidly. And the virus arms race...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/5/biden-teams-misguided-and-deadly-covid-19-vaccine-/

 

The body does not keep stockpiles of antibodies indefinitely. If there are antibodies that have not proven to be needed, those will be disassembled and the proteins will be used for other needs. The body's memory B cells retain the recipe for producing new antibodies if the person encounters the virus. The formula for the killer T cells also is retained long term. I don't think boosting with the identical vaccine makes any sense for people with a normally functioning immune system. Boosters similar to annual flu shots that cover the latest season's mutations might be useful, but we don't know.

There is a lot in that article which seems... unfounded... but it's true that the U.S. is not an island so no matter what we do, the SARSCov2 virus and its future mutations will continue to circulate through our population for the foreseeable future. Eventually, everyone will be infected at least once, and probably multiple times.

Regarding policy, the authors want to let nature take it course? That is the experiment we have been conducting for the past several months since most of the people eager to get vaccinated have done so and those who won't, have not.

 

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

16 minutes ago, SomTum said:

Regarding policy, the authors want to let nature take it course? That is the experiment we have been conducting for the past several months since most of the people eager to get vaccinated have done so and those who won't, have not.

We let the nature take it course with very similar Hong Kong pandemic of 1968-1969. Very few cared and even Woodstock happened. This all has been an overreaction to a pandemic that has killed mostly very old people with median age of 83 and most with 2-3 comorbidities. End-of-lifers with 1-2 years to go at best and most of it bedridden.

About 5000 have died in England so far when during a bad winter flu season there are over 40 000 excess deaths! You could save a lot more people with a tax-free home insulation renovation campaign!

Edited August 6, 2021 by JackIsAGoodBoy