New scientific findings in the prestigious Lancet Infectious Diseases journal blow a hole in the argument that workers need to get vaccinated to protect those around them. The findings prove the foolishness of forcing police and other public employees to get jabbed or lose their pay. And President Joe Biden should retract his order to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to compel large employers to mandate vaccines.
The journal reported Thursday that COVID-19 vaccines have “minimal” impact on preventing transmission of the delta strain. Delta is the COVID strain currently causing over 99% of U.S. cases.
Vaccines protect the people getting the shots from serious illness, but they don’t stop the delta variant from spreading to others.
Don’t get me wrong. Americans should choose to get vaccinated. The key word is “choose.” Though shots are no guarantee against getting infected and spreading it to others, they provide significant protection (90% or more) against hospitalization and death. I’m triple jabbed.
...
The groundbreaking findings in Lancet show that fully vaccinated people who came down with COVID infected others in their household at the same rate (about 25%) as unvaccinated people did (about 23%). The vaccinated had just as much viral load in their upper respiratory tract, making them just as contagious.
McCaughey: New vax science shows mandates unwise
I believe this is the what is being referenced in the Lancet:
COVID-19 vaccines that have obtained WHO emergency use listing appear to have high efficacy against severe disease and death, but lower efficacy against non-severe infections, and emerging evidence suggests that protection against non-severe disease declines faster following vaccination than that against severe disease and death. What is less clear is whether vaccination not only directly protects individuals but reduces the risk of infection among the contacts of vaccinated people, particularly with respect to the now dominant delta variant. Before the emergence of the delta variant, it was reported that after at least one dose of the mRNA vaccine by Pfizer or the adenoviral vector vaccine by Astra Zeneca, the risk of symptomatic cases in household contacts of vaccinated cases was about 50% lower than that among household contacts of unvaccinated cases.1
The now globally dominant delta variant is more transmissible2
and associated with reduced vaccine effectiveness, particularly against mild breakthrough infections, whereas protection against severe disease is not greatly reduced.3
Data are lacking on whether the effect of vaccination on transmission is lower for the delta variant and new insights on this are provided by a study done in the UK when the delta variant was the predominant strain, reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.4
...
To address the primary study outcome to establish the secondary attack rates (SARs) in household contacts, the vaccination statuses for 232 contacts exposed to 162 epidemiologically linked delta-variant-infected index cases were analysed. The SARs in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% in vaccinated and 38% in unvaccinated contacts. These results underpin the key message that vaccinated contacts are better protected than the unvaccinated. All breakthrough infections were mild, and no hospitalisations and deaths were observed. But these results also highlight that breakthrough infections continue to occur in the vaccinated, with an attack rate of 25%. Time since vaccination in fully vaccination contacts was longer for those infected than those uninfected, suggesting that waning of protection might have occurred over time, although teasing out general waning versus reduced vaccine effectiveness due to delta is challenging owing to so many confounding factors.
SAR among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases (25%; 95% CI 15–35) was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases (23%; 15–31). Obviously, infection might also have occurred beyond the household level with unknown exposure in the community. Indeed, genomic and virological analysis confirmed only three index-contact pairs. Owing to the small sample size, the authors were not able to establish the vaccine effectiveness against asymptomatic infections versus symptomatic infections. This limitation together with the unconfirmed source of transmission in many of these index-contact pairs, suggests that the low SAR reported here should be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, the findings raise concern that the effect of vaccination on reducing transmission might be lower for the delta variant compared with the variants that circulated in the UK before the emergence of delta.
...
Although preventing severe disease and deaths remains the primary public health goal in the acute phase of the pandemic, and is still being achieved by available COVID-19 vaccines despite the emergence of the delta variant, addressing SARS-CoV-2 transmission is a crucial additional consideration. Reducing transmission is necessary to reduce virus circulation, reach herd immunity and end this tragic pandemic. This study confirms that COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and also accelerates viral clearance in the context of the delta variant. However, this study unfortunately also highlights that the vaccine effect on reducing transmission is minimal in the context of delta variant circulation. These findings have immediate public health implications. Higher vaccination coverage rates need to be achieved because indirect protection from vaccinated to unvaccinated people remains suboptimal. The question of whether booster doses will improve the impact on transmission should be addressed as a top priority.7 Research efforts should be directed towards enhancing existing vaccines or developing new vaccines that also protect against asymptomatic infections and onward transmission. Until we have such vaccines, public health and social measures will still need to be tailored towards mitigating community and household transmission in order to keep the pandemic at bay.
DEFINE_ME
The journal reported Thursday that COVID-19 vaccines have “minimal” impact on preventing transmission of the delta strain. Delta is the COVID strain currently causing over 99% of U.S. cases.
Vaccines protect the people getting the shots from serious illness, but they don’t stop the delta variant from spreading to others.
Don’t get me wrong. Americans should choose to get vaccinated. The key word is “choose.” Though shots are no guarantee against getting infected and spreading it to others, they provide significant protection (90% or more) against hospitalization and death. I’m triple jabbed.
...
The groundbreaking findings in Lancet show that fully vaccinated people who came down with COVID infected others in their household at the same rate (about 25%) as unvaccinated people did (about 23%). The vaccinated had just as much viral load in their upper respiratory tract, making them just as contagious.
McCaughey: New vax science shows mandates unwise
I believe this is the what is being referenced in the Lancet:
COVID-19 vaccines that have obtained WHO emergency use listing appear to have high efficacy against severe disease and death, but lower efficacy against non-severe infections, and emerging evidence suggests that protection against non-severe disease declines faster following vaccination than that against severe disease and death. What is less clear is whether vaccination not only directly protects individuals but reduces the risk of infection among the contacts of vaccinated people, particularly with respect to the now dominant delta variant. Before the emergence of the delta variant, it was reported that after at least one dose of the mRNA vaccine by Pfizer or the adenoviral vector vaccine by Astra Zeneca, the risk of symptomatic cases in household contacts of vaccinated cases was about 50% lower than that among household contacts of unvaccinated cases.1
The now globally dominant delta variant is more transmissible2
and associated with reduced vaccine effectiveness, particularly against mild breakthrough infections, whereas protection against severe disease is not greatly reduced.3
Data are lacking on whether the effect of vaccination on transmission is lower for the delta variant and new insights on this are provided by a study done in the UK when the delta variant was the predominant strain, reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.4
...
To address the primary study outcome to establish the secondary attack rates (SARs) in household contacts, the vaccination statuses for 232 contacts exposed to 162 epidemiologically linked delta-variant-infected index cases were analysed. The SARs in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% in vaccinated and 38% in unvaccinated contacts. These results underpin the key message that vaccinated contacts are better protected than the unvaccinated. All breakthrough infections were mild, and no hospitalisations and deaths were observed. But these results also highlight that breakthrough infections continue to occur in the vaccinated, with an attack rate of 25%. Time since vaccination in fully vaccination contacts was longer for those infected than those uninfected, suggesting that waning of protection might have occurred over time, although teasing out general waning versus reduced vaccine effectiveness due to delta is challenging owing to so many confounding factors.
SAR among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases (25%; 95% CI 15–35) was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases (23%; 15–31). Obviously, infection might also have occurred beyond the household level with unknown exposure in the community. Indeed, genomic and virological analysis confirmed only three index-contact pairs. Owing to the small sample size, the authors were not able to establish the vaccine effectiveness against asymptomatic infections versus symptomatic infections. This limitation together with the unconfirmed source of transmission in many of these index-contact pairs, suggests that the low SAR reported here should be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, the findings raise concern that the effect of vaccination on reducing transmission might be lower for the delta variant compared with the variants that circulated in the UK before the emergence of delta.
...
Although preventing severe disease and deaths remains the primary public health goal in the acute phase of the pandemic, and is still being achieved by available COVID-19 vaccines despite the emergence of the delta variant, addressing SARS-CoV-2 transmission is a crucial additional consideration. Reducing transmission is necessary to reduce virus circulation, reach herd immunity and end this tragic pandemic. This study confirms that COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and also accelerates viral clearance in the context of the delta variant. However, this study unfortunately also highlights that the vaccine effect on reducing transmission is minimal in the context of delta variant circulation. These findings have immediate public health implications. Higher vaccination coverage rates need to be achieved because indirect protection from vaccinated to unvaccinated people remains suboptimal. The question of whether booster doses will improve the impact on transmission should be addressed as a top priority.7 Research efforts should be directed towards enhancing existing vaccines or developing new vaccines that also protect against asymptomatic infections and onward transmission. Until we have such vaccines, public health and social measures will still need to be tailored towards mitigating community and household transmission in order to keep the pandemic at bay.
DEFINE_ME
