CDC shifts pandemic goals away from reaching herd immunity

[whatbogsends]

Ah, yeah. Claim the evidence is out there but fail to say where. And then blame others for pointing out the fact that it hasn't been seen. Sounds convincing. Or made up. One of the two, at least.

Except that i've provided evidence for you repeatedly. That you continue to choose to play dumb and ask for me to resupply what i've previously provided is on you, not me.

The article you posted is from March. When are you claiming delta became widespread enough to impact vaccine numbers?

Delta became prevalent after his comments, but was identified several months earlier. Perhaps instead of making strong claims about the vaccines, which were later shown to be false, he should have qualified his claims and promoted them with caution rather than reckless optimism.

Piling more assertions on to previous ones isn't exactly convincing.

Your first rebuttal had no teeth and your second rebuttal was absent entirely. You can dismiss the obvious truth that the claims he made were later shown to be false, or you can pretend it didn't happen.

 

[stevil]

Take a look at trajectories.

Denmark, Norway, and Singapore are all currently spiking. Sweden is the lone country which has not had a wave since March 2021. New Zealand is doing very well overall, but is currently in their highest rate of spread of the pandemic (by more than a factor of 2, and appears to still be in increasing).

Take a look at results.

Yeah, NZ is losing the battle to contain Delta, but we have over 90% vaccinated of those eligible (i.e. over 12y), and so the death rate and hospital rate when we open up will be much lower than in the first year when no one was vaccinated. If the disease is going to spread through the community, rather it be now than then.

There really is nothing to be excited about with a community who has natural immunity at the cost of over 15,000 deaths.

 

[whatbogsends]

Take a look at results.

Yeah, NZ is losing the battle to contain Delta, but we have over 90% vaccinated of those eligible (i.e. over 12y), and so the death rate and hospital rate when we open up will be much lower than in the first year when no one was vaccinated. If the disease is going to spread through the community, rather it be now than then.

There really is nothing to be excited about with a community who has natural immunity at the cost of over 15,000 deaths.

Of course, that's only tracking Covid deaths. People died of all kinds of other reasons throughout the pandemic. Lockdowns increased the incidence of people dying from lack of medical care as well as suicides and other causes. Looking at only Covid deaths to determine success or failure of policy is myopic.

 

[KCfromNC]

Except that i've provided evidence for you repeatedly. That you continue to choose to play dumb and ask for me to resupply what i've previously provided is on you, not me.

I think readers are going to catch on that these posts need to resort to flimsy insults rather than just post this alleged evidence.

Delta became prevalent after his comments, but was identified several months earlier.

Looks like the guy was right to be concerned that future events might change what we know about an ongoing pandemic. Not sure why this is remarkable, though - it was a worry expressed by a lot of people, hence the hope to get as much of the population vaccinated as quickly as possible.

Your first rebuttal had no teeth and your second rebuttal was absent entirely. You can dismiss the obvious truth that the claims he made were later shown to be false, or you can pretend it didn't happen.

Which claims are those? The ones where he mentioned the possibility of a more infectious variant becoming prevalent, or the part where he said he didn't have all the answers yet but was hopeful? Yeah, that totally justifies ignoring all the data showing how vaccines reduce the spread of covid, and reduce the severity and risk of death in breakthrough infections. I mean obviously one scientist being optimistic that the vaccine would be useful is a terrific rationalization for ignoring all of that data.

 

[KCfromNC]

Lockdowns increased the incidence of people dying from lack of medical care as well as suicides and other causes.

The data says the opposite about suicides, at least : US suicides dropped last year, defying pandemic expectations

 

[RDKirk]

Herd immunity for covid-19 is a cow that has left the barn and caught the ship to Tahiti.

Notwithstanding the anti-vaxxers in America, the vaccine could not be distributed globally in time to prevent multiple strains from occurring around the world. This is essentially what happened with the initial outbreak of H1N1 (aka, "Spanish Flu").

In that case, medical science knew nothing about viruses before H1N1 mutations made herd immunity forever impossible, and that has become the case with covid-19. At this point, we'll never contain it...we can only try to immunize against each strain as it appears.

What needs to be figured out now is how to set up a global system by which the vaccine for the next new deadly virus to be distributed quickly enough to achieve herd immunity.

 

[stevil]

Of course, that's only tracking Covid deaths. People died of all kinds of other reasons throughout the pandemic. Lockdowns increased the incidence of people dying from lack of medical care as well as suicides and other causes. Looking at only Covid deaths to determine success or failure of policy is myopic.

But I'm just directly addressing the points you were making in post #14 of this thread. You were comparing Sweden to Singapore in terms of transmission and death. Sure that is myopic. But you brought it up and so I am addressing this myopic point of yours.

For some reason you were blinkered to look just at recent transmission and death as opposed to all transmission and death. The recent "success" of Sweden has been gained through the cost of a horrific past failure which resulted in at least 10 thousand unnecessary deaths.

So it becomes an equation.
Would you rather have
1. people having the inconvenience of masks and vaccines and then later infections rates once people are vaccinated and generally protected from severe symptoms.
2. people ignoring a deadly pandemic, enduring large loss of life with an unprotected population then gradually gaining natural immunity and later getting less infections.

Option 2 results in 15 times as many dead (per capita) if we take Singapore to be the representative of 1 and Sweden the representative of 2.

Personally I have no idea why anti vaxxers, anti maskers, anti science folk seek to put Sweden as their poster child. Sweden was a complete failure.

 

[KCfromNC]

Personally I have no idea why anti vaxxers, anti maskers, anti science folk seek to put Sweden as their poster child. Sweden was a complete failure.

I'm also kinda surprised how often anti-vaxx arguments veer into anti-masking and anti-lockdown territory. It seems that if there was a legitimate concern about the safety of vaccines, the consistent anti-vaxx narrative would be to continue to stay masked and socially distanced until the question of vaccine safety was resolved instead of promoting behavior even more risky than the alleged super-duper-scary risk of vaccines.

 

[stevil]

I'm also kinda surprised how often anti-vaxx arguments veer into anti-masking and anti-lockdown territory. It seems that if there was a legitimate concern about the safety of vaccines, the consistent anti-vaxx narrative would be to continue to stay masked and socially distanced until the question of vaccine safety was resolved instead of promoting behavior even more risky than the alleged super-duper-scary risk of vaccines.

And their concerns about not knowing the long term affects of the vaccine, but not seeming to have any interest in the short, medium and long term affects of Covid which is killing millions of people.

They also want years of research on the vaccine against Covid but have no concerns taking alternative medicines such as HCQ and Ivermectin which are not for viruses and have not been proven to be effective at all against Covid.

It's kinda like if the house is burning down, mum and dad tell the kids to get the fire extinguisher but the kids say that the fire extinguisher has never been proven to work on a kitchen fire in an English style cottage, so they want to wait a few years until conclusive proof comes in. In the mean time though they will drink some water so that they can get their water percentages up in their body, and put some zinc sunburn cream on their faces making it less likely that they will burn.

 

[whatbogsends]

But I'm just directly addressing the points you were making in post #14 of this thread. You were comparing Sweden to Singapore in terms of transmission and death. Sure that is myopic. But you brought it up and so I am addressing this myopic point of yours.

For some reason you were blinkered to look just at recent transmission and death as opposed to all transmission and death. The recent "success" of Sweden has been gained through the cost of a horrific past failure which resulted in at least 10 thousand unnecessary deaths.

Before you call the death toll in any of the countries complete, let's see how it plays out. As i've noted, Sweden has been at low transmission and death for over 6 months. All of your comparison countries are experiencing their highest rates of transmission of the entire pandemic.

I didn't say the recent transmission levels was a wholistic indicator of success or failure, but i did note that those transmission levels don't remotely correlate with vaccination levels, at least in the way you would like them to. Sweden has the lowest vaccination rate of those countries and currently the lowest transmission. The others are experiencing their highest rates of transmission throughout the pandemic with very high rates of vaccination.

Moreover, Sweden and Denmark are very demographically distinct from Norway, Finland, and Iceland. For example, many more people - relative to population - live with dense contacts in cities.

Sweden does have about twice the population of each of its three immediate neighbors, and 28 times that of Iceland. It also has a lot more foreign-born residents relative to its population than Denmark and Finland, and somewhat more than Norway and Iceland, which could factor into the effectiveness of public-health efforts. Iceland, the standout here in a positive sense, has the advantage of being an island.
...
Sweden’s relative performance is actually better than the chart indicates, given that it has been more aggressive than most countries in attributing deaths to Covid-19. By the estimates of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Sweden’s reported Covid deaths account for about 90% of excess deaths (that is, deaths above normal levels) during the pandemic. For France that’s 78%, for Germany 68% and for the Netherlands only 58%. (Denmark, Finland and Norway all have lower reported-to-excess-deaths percentages than Sweden too, but not nearly enough lower to come close to bridging the mortality-rate gap.)
...
In sum, Sweden stood out early in the pandemic for its public-health policies, but not so much since last fall. On the whole, it doesn’t look especially remarkable for either its success or failure in combating Covid-19 or its economic performance over the past year-and-a-half. Maybe it’s time to retire its status as a pandemic lightning rod.

So Was Sweden a Covid Success or Failure?

So it becomes an equation.
Would you rather have
1. people having the inconvenience of masks and vaccines and then later infections rates once people are vaccinated and generally protected from severe symptoms.
2. people ignoring a deadly pandemic, enduring large loss of life with an unprotected population then gradually gaining natural immunity and later getting less infections.

Option 2 results in 15 times as many dead (per capita) if we take Singapore to be the representative of 1 and Sweden the representative of 2.

Option 1 comes with significantly more economic impact, and more collateral health impacts outside of Covid.

Singapore isn't a realistic representative to compare with Sweden. If we're going to make arbitrary comparisons, we might as well compare it to France.

Population:
France: ~67.4 million
Sweden: 10.35 million

Deaths:
France: 118,271
Sweden: 15,051

France had serious lockdowns, yet had 175 deaths per 100,000 vs. Swedens 145 per 100,000. France has a slightly higher vaccination rate.

Again, the closest outside comparison to Sweden is Denmark, which fared better than Sweden in terms of "Covid deaths", but the overall difference between the two doesn't show Sweden to be the "complete failure" you claim it to be.

Personally I have no idea why anti vaxxers, anti maskers, anti science folk seek to put Sweden as their poster child. Sweden was a complete failure.

Sweden wasn't a complete success nor a complete failure. Your insistence on painting it as a complete failure doesn't align with the evidence.

 

[stevil]

I didn't say the recent transmission levels was a wholistic indicator of success or failure, but i did note that those transmission levels don't remotely correlate with vaccination levels, at least in the way you would like them to. Sweden has the lowest vaccination rate of those countries and currently the lowest transmission.

You need to look at immunity as a whole.
Percentage of population who are vaccinated + percentage of population who have recovered from Covid = percentage of population with levels of immunity.

I don't know how these totals stack up in Sweden vs Singapore.
But what I do know is that the "percentage of population who have recovered from Covid" is probably much higher in Sweden than Singapore but it came at the cost of over 15,000 people's lives
The percentage of population who are vaccinated is higher in Singapore and it didn't come at a cost of lives.

So Was Sweden a Covid Success or Failure?

If you base it off human lives, then Sweden was a complete failure.

Singapore isn't a realistic representative to compare with Sweden. If we're going to make arbitrary comparisons, we might as well compare it to France.

But then why were you comparing the two countries in your earlier posts in this thread?
Now you are moving the goal posts.

 

[whatbogsends]

You need to look at immunity as a whole.
Percentage of population who are vaccinated + percentage of population who have recovered from Covid = percentage of population with levels of immunity.

I don't know how these totals stack up in Sweden vs Singapore.
But what I do know is that the "percentage of population who have recovered from Covid" is probably much higher in Sweden than Singapore but it came at the cost of over 15,000 people's lives
The percentage of population who are vaccinated is higher in Singapore and it didn't come at a cost of lives.

I compared vaccination levels and transmission rates. I didn't call either a success or failure, and it's obvious that different countries have different inherent challenges. What is clear is that vaccination rate doesn't correlate with transmission rate.

If you base it off human lives, then Sweden was a complete failure.

You're not basing your decision off "human lives", you're basing it off "Covid deaths", not overall mortality.

But then why were you comparing the two countries in your earlier posts in this thread?
Now you are moving the goal posts.

My goal posts remain entrenched.

 

[stevil]

I compared vaccination levels and transmission rates. I didn't call either a success or failure, and it's obvious that different countries have different inherent challenges. What is clear is that vaccination rate doesn't correlate with transmission rate.

If a person is trying to understand the impact of vaccination rates vs transmission and does that by comparing different countries to each other, that person (if they have honest intentions) also needs to account for natural immunity too.
To understand if immunities contribute to a slowing rate of transmission you need to know the total percentage of immunities (natural and vaccine)

I personally would expect a population with 90% natural immunity to have a similar transmission rate in comparison to a similar population with 90% vaccine immunity.

But as I have already pointed out, the one with 90% natural immunity got to that point via the cost of lots of people's lives. The one with 90% vaccine immunity did not have that cost.

You're not basing your decision off "human lives", you're basing it off "Covid deaths", not overall mortality.

There is no context to this chart.

 

[whatbogsends]

If a person is trying to understand the impact of vaccination rates vs transmission and does that by comparing different countries to each other, that person (if they have honest intentions) also needs to account for natural immunity too.
To understand if immunities contribute to a slowing rate of transmission you need to know the total percentage of immunities (natural and vaccine)

I personally would expect a population with 90% natural immunity to have a similar transmission rate in comparison to a similar population with 90% vaccine immunity.

But as I have already pointed out, the one with 90% natural immunity got to that point via the cost of lots of people's lives. The one with 90% vaccine immunity did not have that cost.

I would expect there to be significantly less transmission with 90% natural immunity vs. 90% vaccination rate. Vaccination doesn't provide immunity from infection at the same rate as natural immunity.

Model 1 compared 16,215 people in both the vaccinated and natural immunity groups and found that cases in the vaccinated group (n=238, 1.5%) were 13 fold more likely to experience a breakthrough infection than the natural immunity group (n=19, 0.12%). The majority of the cases were symptomatic. There were very few hospitalizations in either group with only 8 in the vaccine arm and 1 in the natural immunity arm.

Model 2 compared 46,035 people in both the vaccinated and natural immunity groups, and found that cases in the vaccinated group (n=640, 1.4%) were 6-fold more likely to experience a breakthrough infection than the natural immunity group (n=108, 0.23%). The majority of the cases were symptomatic. There were very few hospitalizations in either group with only 21 in the vaccine arm and 4 in the natural immunity arm.

Model 3 compared 14,029 people in both the natural immunity and infection-vaccine groups and found that cases in the infection-vaccine group (n=20, 0.14%) had about half the risk of experiencing a breakthrough infection than the natural immunity group (n=37, 0.26%). There was one hospitalization in the natural immunity group.

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 Natural Immunity to Vaccine-Induced Immunity: Reinfections versus Breakthrough Infections | NCRC

Note: Model 3 was both previously infected AND vaccinated. In the 2 groups comparing previously infected vs. vaccination, previously infected showed substantially less rates of infection than vaccinated-only.

There is no context to this chart.

The chart contained rates of cumulative excess mortality, and that Sweden, despite your insistence, hasn't simply sacrificed thousands of people. Their overall health outcomes are still generally very good, even if their Covid numbers look drastically worse than other Scandinavian countries - although i will state again that this is not over, and current trends are better for Sweden compared to its Scandinavian peers, although obviously, that can very well change.

 

[stevil]

The chart contained rates of cumulative excess mortality, and that Sweden, despite your insistence, hasn't simply sacrificed thousands of people. Their overall health outcomes are still generally very good, even if their Covid numbers look drastically worse than other Scandinavian countries - although i will state again that this is not over, and current trends are better for Sweden compared to its Scandinavian peers, although obviously, that can very well change.

Reality doesn't show at all what you are attempting to portray by that chart.
Typically if you are going to present something like this you ought to provide a link to your source, so that we can see for ourselves the context.

Here is a site for you
Sweden: death rate 2010-2020 | Statista
It shows the total deaths in Sweden for years 2011-2020. We won't count 2021 because it is only a partial year.
2011 - 89,938
2012 - 91,938
2013 - 90,402
2014 - 88,976
2015 - 90,907
2016 - 90,982
2017 - 91,972
2018 - 92,185
2019 - 88,766
2020 - 98,124

It is quite clear looking at these facts that 2020 was an obvious outlier with the previous years ranging from 88,766 to 92,185 and giving an average yearly death rate of 90,674. 2011-2019 A range of 3,400 over a period of 9 years with no clear upward or downward trend. But then all of a sudden 2020 came (with the Covid pandemic) and there was the highest death rate of the previous 9 years with 98,124 which is well above the average by 7,450 and above the max from the previous 9 years by a staggering 5,939 and an increase on the previous year by 9,358.
By overall deaths Sweden had a disastrous year in 2020. If someone looked at these stats and didn't know about the pandemic, they would immediately point to 2020 and ask "What the hell happened there?" - this was most likely due to the pandemic and Sweden's disastrous do nothing response to the pandemic.

When you look to what happened in Denmark over the same period
Denmark: number of deaths 2020 | Statista

2011 - 52,516
2012 - 52,325
2013 - 52,471
2014 - 51,340
2015 - 52,555
2016 - 52,824
2017 - 53,261
2018 - 55,232
2019 - 53,958
2020 - 54,645

The 9 years of 2011 to 2019 gave a range of 3,892 from 51,340 to 55,232 and an average yearly death rate of 52,942. 2020 for Denmark did not reach the maximum of the previous nine years which happened in 2018. It was an increase on the previous year by 687 and an increase on the average over the past 9 years of 1,702. 2020 was not an outlier. A person looking at these stats would not be immediately drawn to 2020.

The data for Norway shows a better story for 2020 than for Denmark
2020 was not an outlier, the highest death rate year was 2012 of 41,992 whereas the death rate in 2020 was 40,612 which was lower than the previous 5 years.

The data shows a similar story for Finland although the chart is per 1,000 inhabitants rather than a total count
Finland - death rate 2010-2020 | Statista
2020 was not an outlier, 2018 had a higher death rate.

By all accounts Sweden failed its people in 2020 by doing almost nothing to combat the deadly pandemic leading to several thousands of unnecessary deaths.

 

[whatbogsends]

Reality doesn't show at all what you are attempting to portray by that chart.
Typically if you are going to present something like this you ought to provide a link to your source, so that we can see for ourselves the context.

Here is a site for you
Sweden: death rate 2010-2020 | Statista
It shows the total deaths in Sweden for years 2011-2020. We won't count 2021 because it is only a partial year.
2011 - 89,938
2012 - 91,938
2013 - 90,402
2014 - 88,976
2015 - 90,907
2016 - 90,982
2017 - 91,972
2018 - 92,185
2019 - 88,766
2020 - 98,124

It is quite clear looking at these facts that 2020 was an obvious outlier with the previous years ranging from 88,766 to 92,185 and giving an average yearly death rate of 90,674. 2011-2019 A range of 3,400 over a period of 9 years with no clear upward or downward trend. But then all of a sudden 2020 came (with the Covid pandemic) and there was the highest death rate of the previous 9 years with 98,124 which is well above the average by 7,450 and above the max from the previous 9 years by a staggering 5,939 and an increase on the previous year by 9,358.
By overall deaths Sweden had a disastrous year in 2020. If someone looked at these stats and didn't know about the pandemic, they would immediately point to 2020 and ask "What the hell happened there?" - this was most likely due to the pandemic and Sweden's disastrous do nothing response to the pandemic.

When you look to what happened in Denmark over the same period
Denmark: number of deaths 2020 | Statista

2011 - 52,516
2012 - 52,325
2013 - 52,471
2014 - 51,340
2015 - 52,555
2016 - 52,824
2017 - 53,261
2018 - 55,232
2019 - 53,958
2020 - 54,645

The 9 years of 2011 to 2019 gave a range of 3,892 from 51,340 to 55,232 and an average yearly death rate of 52,942. 2020 for Denmark did not reach the maximum of the previous nine years which happened in 2018. It was an increase on the previous year by 687 and an increase on the average over the past 9 years of 1,702. 2020 was not an outlier. A person looking at these stats would not be immediately drawn to 2020.

The data for Norway shows a better story for 2020 than for Denmark
2020 was not an outlier, the highest death rate year was 2012 of 41,992 whereas the death rate in 2020 was 40,612 which was lower than the previous 5 years.

The data shows a similar story for Finland although the chart is per 1,000 inhabitants rather than a total count
Finland - death rate 2010-2020 | Statista
2020 was not an outlier, 2018 had a higher death rate.

By all accounts Sweden failed its people in 2020 by doing almost nothing to combat the d
deadly pandemic leading to several thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Sweden was 7,450 over their 9 year average or an 8.22% increase from that average.
Denmark was 1702 over their 9 year average or a 2.01% increase from that average.
France was 729,000 over their 9 year average or a 12.49% increase from that average.

Was France lax in combatting the pandemic?

(deaths in thousands)
2011 - 545.1
2012 - 569.9
2013 - 569.2
2014 - 558.7
2015 - 593.1
2016 - 593.2
2017 - 605.6
2018 - 608.9
2019 - 612.5
2020 - 657

Number of deaths in France | Statista

As the article i already cited shows, while Sweden did worse than its Scandinavian neighbors, it didn't do poorly compared with Europe or other parts of the west.

And again, i will emphasize that the pandemic is not over, and judging performance thus far as if it were final is premature.

I have agreed with you that Sweden had more Covid deaths thus far than it's Scandinavian neighbors, but that one measurement alone isn't enough to say Sweden's response was a "complete failure".

 

[stevil]

And again, i will emphasize that the pandemic is not over, and judging performance thus far as if it were final is premature.

You were the one that wanted to compare Sweden to Singapore by focusing on current reported infection cases whilst ignoring the death rate that gave Sweden their current levels of immunity.

Singapore is undeniably a success case in comparison to the disaster that is Sweden

Shifting the goal post to compare Sweden to France or even to USA is something quite different.
Noone has considered France or USA to be even close to having a decent Covid response.

 

[whatbogsends]

You were the one that wanted to compare Sweden to Singapore by focusing on current reported infection cases whilst ignoring the death rate that gave Sweden their current levels of immunity.

Singapore is undeniably a success case in comparison to the disaster that is Sweden

Shifting the goal post to compare Sweden to France or even to USA is something quite different.
Noone has considered France or USA to be even close to having a decent Covid response.

Current reported infection rate of Singapore showed that high vaccination rate does not stop the spread of Covid. Sweden was brought in as a contrast to Singapore in a country with a lower vaccination rate and now having a long trend of low infection rate.

You were the one who tried to shift the discussion into success/failure of response to Covid rather than the topic at hand, which is herd immunity will not be reached even with universal vaccination because the vaccines don't actually stop the spread of Covid.

 

[stevil]

Current reported infection rate of Singapore showed that high vaccination rate does not stop the spread of Covid. Sweden was brought in as a contrast to Singapore in a country with a lower vaccination rate and now having a long trend of low infection rate.

You were the one who tried to shift the discussion into success/failure of response to Covid rather than the topic at hand, which is herd immunity will not be reached even with universal vaccination because the vaccines don't actually stop the spread of Covid.

This is what you posted previously

Sweden took their lumps early (fewer social restrictions), has a lower vaccination rate (a good bit higher than the US, but significantly lower than Singapore), and has had lower Covid numbers - both in transmission and deaths - than Singapore is now experiencing. They've been really good since June from rate and deaths, an pretty good since March from a deaths perspective.

I was responding to this and saying that Sweden isn't a poster child, that to get to where they are today they have had to essentially sacrifice the lives of thousands of their citizens. It's not something to be proud of and it's not something to be held up as a poster child.
Their approach was a disaster.

 

[whatbogsends]

This is what you posted previously



I was responding to this and saying that Sweden isn't a poster child, that to get to where they are today they have had to essentially sacrifice the lives of thousands of their citizens. It's not something to be proud of and it's not something to be held up as a poster child.
Their approach was a disaster.

The pandemic is not over.

There were 41 countries with higher Covid deaths per capita than Sweden thus far.

Recently, there are 69 countries with higher Covid deaths per capita than Sweden including:

Denmark, Norway, Singapore , UK, Canada, France, Ireland, US

Covid deaths per million last 7 days:

India 1.41
Sweden 2.82
France 3.73
Canada 4.47
Denmark 5.5
Ireland 8.7
Norway 8.79
UK 12.36
Singapore 12.45
Germany 13.83
US 22.5

COVID-19 deaths per capita by country | Statista

On a side note, India has less than 30% vaccination and has been another country with one of the best current trends.