General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUS CV-19 Fifth Wave
Well as of Friday it looks like the fifth wave is here (79K daily cases per JHU). The number of cases and rate of exponential growth is similar to this time last year (the second wave), if not a bit more severe.
The UK may be an ominous bellwether, which means the peak here may reach or exceed the heights of the third wave (250K - 300K daily cases).
Vaccination rates are dropping off dramatically, implying that naturally acquired immunity is the only herding path open to the unvaccinated.
Phoenix61
(16,949 posts)In general the research saw a correlation between disease severity and lasting immune response. Over 90 percent of asymptomatic cases showed no measurable immune response six months later. A quarter of symptomatic cases lacked lasting immunity six months after infection.
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/vaccine-immunity-stronger-than-natural-infection-covid/
Shermann
(7,355 posts)My understanding is that the actual protection offered by the immune system can't accurately be measured.
But perhaps Oxford has cracked the code with this "novel machine-learning approach".
Yonnie3
(17,376 posts)There are ethical considerations that preclude deliberately attempting to infect a study group with COVID19.
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)You take a volume of serum, add a known quanity of virus, and see how much falls out as a precipitate.
That measures how many of the viral particles the immune system cells recognized, attached to and neutralized.
Where it most likely gets tricky is the relationship between how much precipate is produced vs how symptomatic an individual would be is likely nonlinear, and could be different by a variant's ability to invade a cell.
Yavin4
(35,354 posts)July 15, 2021, the 7-day moving average for cases in the U.S.: 27,806
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases
More importantly, cases are not the metric to watch. The vaccines never promised zero cases. Vaccinations are about limiting the negative outcomes from being positive. For example, look at deaths from a year ago:
July 15, 2021, the 7-day moving average for cases in the U.S.: 223
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases
If you are looking for zero covid cases, that may never happen. We have to learn to live with it.
Shermann
(7,355 posts)So the averaged daily case count hasn't caught up yet. It is possible that it won't, but I doubt it. My point stands.
Daily case counts are certainly an important metric here, although the lower death count can be seen as a silver lining.
LisaL
(44,962 posts)NT
Yavin4
(35,354 posts)Which is not true at all. It's not similar to last year nor is it as severe. The vaccines are doing what they're supposed to do. Posts like yours gives oxygen to the antivaxxers by providing misleading information.
beaglelover
(3,435 posts)Johonny
(20,676 posts)You're assuming the waves started at the exact same date as 2020 and 2021. Where they're saying the numbers are similar to the second wave of last year, which occurred at similar times (the summer season), but the second wave actually started in June of 2020 about 2 weeks after many states opened up. This wave in 2021 seems to be coming on about 2 weeks after 4th of July. You're information, thus, doesn't negate the original statement. Given vaccination numbers and the new variants I don't know exactly how good a model last season will actually be. One assumes the CDC is correct and this wave will mostly cut through the unvaccinated and vaccinated will get mild or no symptoms. We can also assume most vaccinated will not bother to get covid tests this summer and so the exact infection rate among the vaccinated will not be well known.
We appear to be halfway there already, and this wave a little behind (timewise) but it's going to catch up.
Shermann
(7,355 posts)Misleading information my ass.
VMA131Marine
(4,123 posts)according to worldometers and the the numbers are rising rapidly. I would not want to be in Florida right now although I am vaccinated.