COVID vaccine works - we're saved!

I think everyone here understands the "contagious before symptoms" issue. Covid provided an excellent example. Why do you think anyone here doesn't understand this?In the case of covid we dealt with this by asking people who learned that they'd been exposed to covid to isolate for while, I think a week or so. Last year this happened to me and my wife several times. Research indicates that masking has strong efficacy, but their performance in real life is tempered by the large number of people who don't mask properly. The ways masking can go wrong that I can think of at the moment:

• Wearing a cloth mask
• Wearing a surgical mask instead of an N95
• Wearing the same mask many times
• Not bending the little metal strip around the nose (surgical mask)
• Wearing the mask upside down so that the little metal strip is on the bottom
• Wearing the mask below the nose
• Wearing the mask on the tip of the nose
• Permitting large gaps on the sides

Your personal example of working in a clinical setting for 30 years and never catching influenza is anecdotal and not epidemiological. You're like the smoker who says, "I've smoked all my life and never been sick a day." Yes, that happens. It's statistical. Single examples tell us nothing.If you have some useful information to share I wish you'd just do that instead alternating questions with taunts and insults. How about just be a decent person.--Percy

Do you know so little that you're forced to fill your posts with taunts rather than information and discussion? If you're trying to be obnoxious and unlikeable you're doing a great job. As mentioned a couple times previously, in California this approach had the unintended consequence of not improving the HIV infection rate while criminalizing a disease. They're currently taking a "middle ground" approach. Sure, in the interests of public health. This would expose prison populations to contagions. Legally enforced isolation and treatment seems preferred. Since intentional spread of contagion is rare, I agree that in the larger scope of things that the impact is not large. A larger impact might be present in that legal consequences might convince people of the serious consequences of disease spread. Which is worse, temporarily shutting down portions of the economy that contribute most to spread (crowded indoor venues like restaurants, bars, concert halls, etc.) or allowing that spread at the cost of greater illness and death..3% of the US population died of covid. 5% still suffers from long covid. Where do you draw the line? If shutting down all bars and restaurants had reduced the death rate from, just say for example, .4% to the actual .3%, would that have been worth it? I certainly don't know the answer of how to balance life against money.--Percy

I think you already gave us a clear picture of your ability to explain Haldane's stuff back in the Rebuttal To Creationists - "Since We Can't Directly Observe Evolution..." thread. In this thread you've been talking about drug resistance evolution and failing cancer treatments, so it might be best to stick to that.--Percy

This is a perfect example of the anecdotal. There's an influenza wave nearly every winter. When the possibility of respiratory transmission exists, research shows that masking is prudent.The red states are full of anecdotal stories about how covid measures don't help. The red states also tend to have the highest covid case and death rates. Worst states in the country for covid right now? Montana and Texas.--Percy

This makes no sense. Shutting down places where people congregate like bars, restaurants and concert halls wouldn't affect food production, and no one ever proposed shutting down farms, slaughter houses or food production lines.The question you didn't address was how you balance life against money.--Percy

Concerning drug resistance, I think everyone here understands evolution, adaptation and descent with modification.Concerning how that's a factor in "cancer treatment failure," it might help if you provided an example of the kind of cancer treatments you're talking about. Probably most people's general knowledge in this area is that medicine has impressively improved its record of success in treating cancer over the past couple decades.--Percy

But covid shutdown rules only affected places where people congregate, not food production farms or facilities. How are covid policies interfering with food production? The biggest factors I see behind increasing food prices are droughts out west, supply chain problems, labor shortages, energy prices and the Ukraine war.--Percy

By "these people" I guess you meant physicians, not the people seeing physicians. I have no idea of physician incidence rates, but aren't people in the medical field more likely than most to get the annual influenza vaccine? If that's the case then their influenza rate could well be lower than the general population, though you also have to take into account their likely higher exposure rate, so I don't know how those two effects would balance out.--Percy

Sure, but how does that tie in to HIV and all those questions you asked regarding locking up contagious people, which is where you started. I thought your evolution/cancer points would tie back to that somehow. Did you change subjects?--Percy

Your claim that I claimed that is incorrect. Sure, everything's interconnected, but covid shutdowns are not one of the significant contributors to increased food costs. Drought, labor shortages, supply chain issues and the Ukraine war are the significant contributors, just as I said. Which still doesn't support the case that covid shutdowns are a significant factor in food production. Sure, everything's interconnected. This still doesn't make the case that covid shutdowns are a significant impactor on food production. Again, still not a case that covid shutdowns are a significant impactor on food production.I'm not arguing for or against shutdowns, only saying that you can't blame declines in food production on covid shutdowns to any meaningful extent.--Percy

From your Message 670:

Kleinman in Message 670:

---

There is not a wave of disease hitting these people despite their close contact with people with infectious diseases.

---

But as I said, I see now that you meant physicians when you said "these people."--Percy

This is a Coffee House thread on Covid. Your Rebuttal To Creationists - "Since We Can't Directly Observe Evolution..." thread over in the Biological Evolution forum where you last discussed this topic is probably more appropriate. It's still open. Or you could propose a new thread.--Percy

If you still want to discuss this then the appropriate thread is the one where you were originally discussing it. Please don't turn this thread into another discussion of the same thing.--Percy

I'll recuse myself from discussion for the requisite two days then assume moderatorship of this thread.--Percy

This seems relevant to covid, so I'll comment.A vaccine ramps up the immune system to target a specific type of pathogen. The immune system is a complex system that can maintain, to varying extents dependent upon pathogen, a history of past infections.Because the cells of the immune system exist only within the body, they cannot mount a defense against a pathogen until it enters the body and is detected by the immune system. In other words, the immune system cannot begin to do it's job until you're already infected.What usually happens with a successfully vaccinated person is that the pathogen enters the body and is detected by the immune system, which then fights it off. Oftentimes the person does not even know he was ever infected.Whether a pathogen spreads through a population is dependent upon many factors, including existing immunity (which doesn't really mean immunity in this context), the vaccination rate, the effectiveness of the vaccine, the effectiveness of its administration, and individual response to the vaccine.This is all information that has been presented in this thread before. See Message 254 for a better explanation of immunity and how the immune system works.--Percy