Before COVID, there were three viruses I ever tested for myself: flu, RSV and HIV.
HIV was the only asymptomatic one, and that’s only because of a public health program, I hated doing that shit. Women get HPV testing done asymptomatically but that’s an OBGYN cervical cancer screening tool.
I did work in one department that had access to a ‘BIOFIRE’ testing system that tested sick kiddos for a whole bunch of viruses to try to rule out a serious bacterial infection, but that’s symptomatic. You can test for herpes too I think? Not sure, I don’t do that.
The research, led by the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit, looked at data involving more than 340,000 women who gave birth in England between the end of May 2020 and January 2021.All women were tested for the virus when they were admitted for births - whether they had symptoms or not.
The study found:
3,527 had positive tests
Of those, 30 had stillbirths (deaths occurring after 24 weeks of pregnancy)
Scientists calculate 8.5 per 1,000 women who had a positive test went on to experience a stillbirth
This compares to 3.4 per 1,000 women who had a negative test
12% of women who had a positive coronavirus test gave birth prematurely (before 37 weeks)
This compares to 5.8% of women who had negative tests
It was more common for women who had Covid-19 at the time of birth to be younger and from a black, Asian or other minority ethnic background
Let’s assume the chance of transmission is also a log.
So the vaxxed maybe spread on the order of 1% of the unvaxxed. We can quibble a bit on the numbers but certainly contribution to R is tiny. And chance of being a super spreader is small enough to likely be ignored (but yes a breakthrough vaxxed person could rarely infect an unvaxxed person who then becomes a superspreader, but again that will happen at a small small fraction of outcomes).
Remember spread is dramatically influenced by the infected particle density. By getting overall case density down it becomes that much harder for the virus to get a foothold. Now we need an unvaxxed unmasked superspreader in the presence of a population with unmasked non-immunes. I like our collective chances. (Now if I belonged to a church of idiots I’d not feel so good)
Now there are 330 million in US and 8 billion on the planet. Certainly the stars are going to align for local outbreaks. But I fell pretty confident that the added risk of non-masked vaxxed people is very small compared to the unvaxxed spreading it around.
PS I didn’t read much other than Johnny’s reply to me.
Yeah, this exactly. Thinking that human beings are not naturally “vigilant” is fundamentally misunderstanding human nature. That “too much vigilance” often takes the form of some ugly societal behaviors, such as systemic racism in policing, etc.
Yeah but that’s wildly different. Those weren’t things we “didn’t know” in the sense that “we didn’t know for sure.” Those were things that legitimately could have gone either way based on the unknown characteristics of the virus at the time. Characteristics that could have gone either way becuase other viruses throughout human history have gone either way (some are spread more through smear, others are spread more through aerosols, etc. etc.).
The “vaccine unknown” is positing that this virus somehow acts differently then every other virus that has ever existed. I mean, sure, I guess it’s possible, but it’s not comparable to the unknowns above.
Edit: Except for the kids can’t contract or transmit it thing. That was always obviously bullshit.
No, it doesn’t depend, it’s extremely low. There’s a growing body of evidence along with basic germ theory to show this. I’m fine with you saying it’s not low enough for you to start letting down your guard but stop misrepresenting where the science is at.
not as much anymore, but very much in a lot of parts. It’s only purple lately bc the unpopularity of trump, and because a few of the larger cities with large immigrant populations are turning it more blue. It’s got a lot of old money and it’s very very red.
