Yeah it all comes down to how vaccines from decades ago hold up. If we start seeing it show up in wastewater samples in other counties, it’s time to get boosted.
The vax ramp will have some logistical issues, but this seems pretty straightforward to vax against then vaxxing against our existing pandemics.
Is there evidence of this spreading outside of the Orthodox Jewish community yet? I’m sure that’s inevitable, but people (understandably) tend to talk a bit cryptically about where exactly these outbreaks are occurring.
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Yeah it’s not a coincidence it was Rockland. There will be some small communities in Orange and Queens too. It’s very much centered around that weird sect
You’re kind of leaving out an important piece of information here. The reason why we converted is that there was a small risk of the oral vaccine causing polio. The risk of that happening with IPV is nil. When the incidence of polio is low (as it was and still is at the moment), then the risk of getting it from the vaccine is more of a risk than getting it from the community. So, naturally, you stop using the vaccine that could (very rarely) give someone polio.
Right, of course. What I’m saying is that if it starts spreading more widely again due to anti-vaxxers, we still aren’t switching back.
Well, let’s say it became available so you could choose which one you get. Would you take it?
No, because I know the likelihood is no more than 10% of the population is taking any vaccine for polio right now and at best 60-70% if it gets bad. So it’s pointless to take on any extra risk in the interest of society at large.
As jman pointed out, we blew this like 10-20 years ago. Maybe we’ll luckbox it and the vaccines actually hold for life.
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The article indicates this is how the person in NY got it, spread from a recently vaccinated person.
All we have right now is one positive cases and wastewater samples indicating community spread.
Paging @SweetSummerChild
Over/Under on how many people end up paralyzed before we successfully ramp up vaccination/boosters if it turns out that these vaccines do in fact wane? Over/under on number of deaths?
Looks like the R0 is 5 to 7, and paralysis occurs in 1 to 5 cases per 1,000 with a similar mortality rate. Looks like it takes about 10 days for each generation of the virus to transmit. So does that mean a 5xing every 10 days or is my math on this rusty since 2020?
If we’ve got 100 cases now and vaccines aren’t providing lasting protection, you’re going to see 500 cases in mid August, 2,500 in late August, 12.5K in mid September, 62.5K in late September…
The panic and mass vaccination probably starts around 10K cases, so maybe we only get to like 300K-1.5M cases in such a scenario.
That would put the o/u at around 2,700 dead and 2,700 paralyzed.
But that’s all if vaccines wane to no protection for ~all adults. Those are two huge and likely incorrect assumptions. They likely still at least provide some protection against infection and a decent amount against severe outcomes, and if that’s the case the functional Rt should be pretty low and hopefully < 1 outside these anti-vaxx communities when allowing for people under a certain age having full protection.
Roughly 15-20% of the population should have full protection due to recency of vaccination. The target number is around 80-88% to get the Rt<1 so if the vaccines do wane they may still be effective enough to keep the Rt<1.
The fact that we aren’t seeing any news out of the UK after a few cases 4-6 weeks ago seems encouraging for the durability of the vaccines.
All that said, it seems like offering the adult booster to everyone in Rockland and Orange counties might be a good idea. Why risk it? And why not give people an option? Surround the anti-vaxx communities with as many recent shots in arms as possible.
Fucking polio. Seriously.
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The worst part of this is that the anti-vax movement is absolutely going to spin this that this particular outbreak was caused by vaccines. And that will technically be true!
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If I wanted to get the polio vaccine, can I?
Yeah. If you go to your doctor and tell them you’re not sure if you were vaccinated fully as a child. Medical records from back then are likely gone depending on how old you are, or at least not easily accessible.
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If we keep this pace up I’m going to add a category to UP dedicated to pandemic threads only. JFC.
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Measles is going to happen at some point. We’ve dodged a couple bullets already.
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Polio is magnitudes worse than measles unfortunately.