CDC report on large scale events and transmission in Barnstable County, Massachusetts

tall73

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Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Infections, including COVID-19 ...

In July 2021, following multiple large public events in a Barnstable County, Massachusetts, town, 469 COVID-19 cases were identified among Massachusetts residents who had traveled to the town during July 3–17; 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated persons. Testing identified the Delta variant in 90% of specimens from 133 patients. Cycle threshold values were similar among specimens from patients who were fully vaccinated and those who were not.


What are the implications for public health practice?


Jurisdictions might consider expanded prevention strategies, including universal masking in indoor public settings, particularly for large public gatherings that include travelers from many areas with differing levels of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
 
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Tanj

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The problem nowadays with these studies is that people are going to read what you posted and other parts of that article and come away with the impression it somehow proves vaccines don't work, and a large number of them will develop selective blindness at lines 3-4 of the discussion:

"data from this report are insufficient to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, including the Delta variant, during this outbreak"
 
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JustSomeBloke

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jacks

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What are the implications for public health practice?
Perhaps that vaccinated people should just consider it one of multiple mitigations against infection. I think vaccinated people tend to be more careless about social distancing and mask wearing. The vaccine helps, but it isn't a full proof shield against infection, especially with the Delta variant.
 
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FireDragon76

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I'm not the least bit surprised that:
1. The experience of the Israelis, who have found that the vaccines aren't working very well at all, is now being replicated elsewhere.
2. The CDC is desperate to try and delay the point in time, when they have to admit that the vaccination programme has been an abject failure.

"Abject failure"

Look, that's flat out not true and it's irresponsible on your part. Just because there is diminished effectiveness due to new strains does not translate to abject failure.
 
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PloverWing

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What are the implications for public health practice?

Our bishop is having us return to masking at indoor worship gatherings. Our parish was going to have some in-person social events this month, but we've cancelled them. Dang, I'm tired of this pandemic. :(
 
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tall73

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Breakthrough Covid cases: Data shows how many vaccinated Americans have tested positive

NBC News contacted health agencies in 50 states and the District of Columbia to collect information in the absence of comprehensive data from the Centers for Disease Control on breakthrough cases.

CDC spokesperson Jasmine Reed told NBC News in an email that "state and local health departments continue to report breakthrough cases to CDC to identify and investigate patterns or trends among hospitalized or fatal vaccine breakthrough cases" but the agency stopped publicly releasing that data on May 1, saying it was focusing instead on cases resulting in hospitalization or death.

CDC's most recent published data says that as of July 26 there have been 6,587 hospitalizations among fully vaccinated Americans and 1,263 deaths. Research by NBC News indicates that the number who have been hospitalized or died has already passed 7,300 in just the 30 states providing data.
 
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Aldebaran

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"Abject failure"

Look, that's flat out not true and it's irresponsible on your part. Just because there is diminished effectiveness due to new strains does not translate to abject failure.

When 74% of infected people were vaccinated people, that is an abject failure. At best, with numbers like that it looks like the unvaccinated people were more resistant to Covid. At worst, the "vaccine" (are we still willing to call it that?) has no effect at all and is no better than a placebo to make those who got it feel better.
 
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Tanj

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When 74% of infected people were vaccinated people, that is an abject failure. At best, with numbers like that it looks like the unvaccinated people were more resistant to Covid. At worst, the "vaccine" (are we still willing to call it that?) has no effect at all and is no better than a placebo to make those who got it feel better.

Except the paper you are quoting disagrees with you.

It's a new low, this selective cherry picking. You are now ignoring or paying attention to individual sentences in an article based on whether they agree with your preformed conclusion.

Imagine if people did that with the Bible? You'd have like 30 000 denominations based off the same Holy Book...oh, now I understand.
 
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PloverWing

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At best, with numbers like that it looks like the unvaccinated people were more resistant to Covid.

This does not follow. Massachusetts has a pretty high vaccination rate (the paper says it was 69% as of July 3), so the numbers are reflecting the vaccinated/unvaccinated levels in the general Massachusetts population.

It does mean that even vaccinated people are vulnerable to this new variant, so the recommendation is that we go back to some of our earlier precautions, like masking, in indoor situations. (Remember that the vaccine was developed for the initial strain; the delta variant is a newer mutation. We're still learning how much protection the vaccine for the original virus can offer against this related but new virus.) I'm encouraged, though, that the number of hospitalizations in this new outbreak is low, and there have been no deaths.
 
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jacks

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Research by NBC News indicates that the number who have been hospitalized or died has already passed 7,300 in just the 30 states providing data.
To keep things in perspective; 7,300 represents 0.000046341 of the approximately 164 million people vacinated. And as the article states "The 125,682 "breakthrough" cases in 38 states represent less than .08 percent of the 164.2 million-plus people fully vaccinated since January."
 
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FireDragon76

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When 74% of infected people were vaccinated people, that is an abject failure

Look at the number of deaths, not the number of infected.
 
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Aldebaran

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Look at the number of deaths, not the number of infected.

Infected means being a carrier that can allow mutations to happen. At least that's what I keep being told here.
 
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sfs

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1. The experience of the Israelis, who have found that the vaccines aren't working very well at all, is now being replicated elsewhere.
2. The CDC is desperate to try and delay the point in time, when they have to admit that the vaccination programme has been an abject failure.
When 74% of infected people were vaccinated people, that is an abject failure. At best, with numbers like that it looks like the unvaccinated people were more resistant to Covid.
Holy cow are those gross misunderstandings of this report(*)

Here are some facts:
1) The outbreak took place during 'bear week' in Provincetown, which means it was about the most extreme conditions possible. (If you don't know what bear week is or what 'bear' means in the context of Ptown, well, I'm not going to be the one to fill you in.) This involved masses of unmasked people packed tightly into bars and clubs for hours, singing and dancing, and repeated for multiple days.

2) Almost everyone present was vaccinated. I hear that places were being quite careful in checking for evidence of vaccination before they let anyone in. That doesn't mean there were no unvaccinated present, but the bulk of the crowd was vaccinated.

From those two facts, two conclusions follow.
First, in the face of the delta variant, vaccination alone is not enough to prevent a substantial transmission rate. Vaccination is great but it has its limit, and this was clearly beyond that limit.

Second, the study doesn't tell us anything about how likely the vaccinated are to become infected compared to the unvaccinated. If only vaccinated people are exposed, only vaccinated people will be infected. Concluding from this that vaccination is an abject failure is absurd.

The surprising thing in the report is really the high viral loads seen in the vaccinated people. Now this may only represent virus replicating in the nasal passages rather than the lungs, which would be good for those infected, but I don't know how much difference that makes in terms of the likelihood that they will transmit the virus.

(*) I see that the report includes me in the acknowledgements, which is a little silly since I didn't work on the report or the analysis of these samples, but the whole sequencing team is there. (Apparently I would have been in the author list if the CDC hadn't used a draft version. Whatever.)
 
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PloverWing

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The outbreak took place during 'bear week' in Provincetown

I hadn't caught that detail in the reports I'd read! I had read, though, that 60,000 people were in Provincetown that week, which is an awful lot of people to squoosh into a small town.

I see that the report includes me in the acknowledgements, which is a little silly since I didn't work on the report or the analysis of these samples, but the whole sequencing team is there. (Apparently I would have been in the author list if the CDC hadn't used a draft version. Whatever.)

Thanks for bringing your expertise to the discussion.
 
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busrider

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The problem nowadays with these studies is that people are going to read what you posted and other parts of that article and come away with the impression it somehow proves vaccines don't work, and a large number of them will develop selective blindness at lines 3-4 of the discussion:

"data from this report are insufficient to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, including the Delta variant, during this outbreak"

There is also a problem with not quoting enough of the article, most will not look at the article and then go off one little section as if they know the whole thing.
 
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tall73

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There is also a problem with not quoting enough of the article, most will not look at the article and then go off one little section as if they know the whole thing.

The site limits the amount you can quote as a general rule.
Terms of Service and Christian Forum Rules | Christian Forums

Quoted portions of any work should not exceed 20% of the total work. Materials owned by the Associated Press must be quoted using only one sentence. All quoted copyrighted material must be linked to the web page from which it was taken. Do not violate the copyrights of others or promote another work as your own.

With government work product in theory I should be fine under copyright law, but the forum rules in this case may still preclude it.
 
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busrider

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The site limits the amount you can quote as a general rule.

Quoted portions of any work should not exceed 20% of the total work. Materials owned by the Associated Press must be quoted using only one sentence. All quoted copyrighted material must be linked to the web page from which it was taken. Do not violate the copyrights of others or promote another work as your own.

With government work product in theory I should be fine under copyright law, but the forum rules in this case may still preclude it.
Okay I am sorry about that. Thank you
 
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