I would make this a daily or weekly topic but I think I would get sick of it too quickly. It's like shooting fish is a barrel.
Dr. Fauci: "COVID-19 numbers are getting better. But where they go from here will depend on vaccinations, Fauci says."
vs
Science: "Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States."
I suggest you read the closing "Interpretation" section of that paper, not just the title. In short, while vaccines don't last as long as we had hoped, nor as effective against the new strains as we had wished, the paper still recommends pursuing vaccination for two reasons: (1) less effective than expected isn't the same as not effective, and (2) they also reduce the likelihood of severe symptoms and hospitalization.
ReplyDeleteSubmarianian doesn't so much say that vaccination is useless as much as it needs help from other forms of protection. He concludes strongly recommending vaccination efforts continue:
"In summary, even as efforts should be made to encourage populations to get vaccinated it should be done so with humility and respect. Stigmatizing populations can do more harm than good. Importantly, other non-pharmacological prevention efforts (e.g., the importance of basic public health hygiene with regards to maintaining safe distance or handwashing, promoting better frequent and cheaper forms of testing) needs to be renewed in order to strike the balance of learning to live with COVID-19 in the same manner we continue to live a 100 years later with various seasonal alterations of the 1918 Influenza virus."
>>>Submarianian doesn't so much say that vaccination is useless
DeleteIrrelevant. What Fauci was talking about is the # of cases of covid, not how long the vaccine protection lasts, not whether you should get vaccinated, not whether it keeps you out of the hospital. Nice try putting words in his mouth to try to get him to make sense, but I'm afraid it's a miss.
Fauci: “If we don’t do very well in that regard, there’s always the danger that there will be enough circulating virus that you can have a stalling of the diminishing of the ****number of cases*****"
I agree, his promise turns out to be unfulfilled. But I think the gist of his words is true: If it's serious, dangerous, Covid that you're worried about, it seems clear that vaccination is very effective protection.
ReplyDeleteI saw a good pshat in why that is true in the WSJ a month ago.
Part of the problem is that coronaviruses replicate in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts.
“We have good circulation in our lungs and body, but not on the surfaces of our nostrils,” Dr. Slifka said. “We can block severe disease because there are antibodies in the lower respiratory tract.”
But the risk of low-level infections in the upper respiratory tract can persist.
The difference between you and Micha and me is that I expect the **actual words** spoken by someone who is paid to communicate clear information to the public to be correct and accurate. I guess I've set the bar too high.
Delete>>> But I think the gist of his words is true: If it's serious, dangerous, Covid that you're worried about, it seems clear that vaccination is very effective protection.
So places which have high vaccination rates should have fewer serious cases and fewer cases overall. Just like Singapore -- not. "The rapid pace of new COVID-19 infections and a doubling of seriously ill patients in Singapore have raised unexpected hurdles to reopening plans for the vaccination frontrunner, where 81% of the population is fully vaccinated." https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/seriously-ill-covid-19-patients-double-vaccine-pace-setter-singapore-2021-09-13/
I know -- 81% not good enough. It has to be 95%. And when that's not good enough, it's because it wasn't 99.99% And when that's not good enough it's because you only got 3 shots and not 4. Or 4 and not 5. Or 5 and you double masked instead of triple masked. And it's all the fault of the unvaccinated anyway...
"COVID-19 numbers" need not mean the number of new "positive"-test results, nor need it mean the infection rate; and sorry, RCB, but just because you say it means "the # of cases of covid" doesn't mean that's what the speaker meant. And guess what? Dr. Fauci is NOT "paid to communicate clear information to the public"; and those who are, our beloved elected pol.s, are usually not nearly as accurate OR correct as you expect Dr. Fauci to be. And guess some more? I don't expect you to agree with me, because you've already shown your readers that you selectively choose which statistics to trumpet and how to phrase your disagreement with the current drive to reach "herd immunity" (even as anecdotal evidence tells me that this particular virus will turn out to be similar to influenza in that annual shots will only help the community & will not eliminate the bug/bring the rate down to 0 everywhere).
ReplyDelete>>>and sorry, RCB, but just because you say it means "the # of cases of covid" doesn't mean that's what the speaker meant.
DeleteThe only problem is that he did not use the vague term "Covid 19 numbers," which you put in quotes, but is not in fact a quote of what he said. Anyone can click the link and check.
I really don't know what to make of someone who accuses me of distorting things and then makes up a quote. Strange.
Just to follow up further, Fauci has said this same thing before, clearly referring to cases, not "numbers," the word you, not he, chose to use in order to be able to create ambiguity and attribute some misinterpretation to me.
Deletehttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-fauci-dark-winter/
On "The Takeout" podcast this week, chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett recalled that in late 2020, President Biden had warned that the U.S. was headed for a "very dark winter" because of the *****rising COVID cases*****. He asked Fauci if the prevalence of the Delta variant and the 70 million Americans still refusing a vaccine could result in the same forecast this winter.
"You know, if we don't get people vaccinated who need to be vaccinated, and we get that conflating with an influenza season, we could have a dark, bad winter," Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden, said.
> The only problem is that he did not use the vague term "Covid 19 numbers," which you put in quotes, but is not in fact a quote of what he said. <
DeleteIn other words, when you post the following...
---
Dr. Fauci: "COVID-19 numbers are getting better. But where they go from here will depend on vaccinations, Fauci says."
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...you're not actually quoting him. Hmmm, maybe you should learn why quotation marks are so named before utilizing them...and before you respond that your readers should follow your hyperlinks (on your BlogSpot, which I'm using for these replies, I see that "Dr. Fauci" is hyperlinked to a Webpage where "COVID-19 numbers are getting better. But where they go from here will depend on vaccinations, Fauci says" is the headline), forgive me for not noticing the hyperlink in the email alert to your 'blog post that I received two days ago. Bottom line: _you_ quoted a Webpage headline and placed it into the proverbial mouth of Dr. Fauci without clarification, so _you_ are guilty of repeating that inaccuracy (what on another forum would be called retweeting :)).
Moving on....
R' Chaim: One wonders how you would react to someone who didn't formally study halakhah who feels they know enough from the press and from web searching to second-guess and then question the competency of gedolei haposqim.
ReplyDeleteDo you think medicine is that much simpler than pesaq that you think it is amenable to you doing the same, and being more right than the experts? Or perhaps you are simply misled, and are potentially misleading people on issues where חמירא סכנתא מאיסורא?
So, for example, since I dont have an advanced degree in economics, am I not allowed to have an opinion on whether the latest spending plan being debated in Congress is good or bad for the country?
DeleteBut more to the point, Michah -- what am I second guessing? You did this before and now you are doing it again. You choose to attack a straw man rather than what I actually wrote about, namely, true or false: will increasing the number of people vaccinated reduce the # of cases? That's all. You don't need a noble prize in medicine -- just the ability to read. The answer is black on white in the study I cited. Don't you trust the experts?
Instead of addressing that point, you decided that it's important to tell people that 1) vaccination is recommended; 2) it is effective in keeping people out of the hospital; 3) we have no right to question experts. Y'yasher kocacha. Now can you maybe talk about what I actually wrote?