Norovirus

[danny.]

On 22/03/2024 at 23:46, dsr-burnley said:

10% of what?  Is it that vaccinated people who get flu average 90% of the symptoms of unvaccinated people who get flu?  Or that 10% fewer vaccinated people get flu than unvaccinated people?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_efficacy

[dsr-burnley]

2 hours ago, danny. said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_efficacy

So 10% reduction in people with observed symptoms, if I read it right. Isn't that a bit irrelevant? What's more important is how serious the symptoms are. What is the vaccine's efficiency at preventing death in the elderly? That's it's main purpose. 

[danny.]

37 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

So 10% reduction in people with observed symptoms, if I read it right. Isn't that a bit irrelevant? What's more important is how serious the symptoms are. What is the vaccine's efficiency at preventing death in the elderly? That's it's main purpose. 

It’s the main metric used to measure the effectiveness of vaccines. If you think 10% is worth it then get yourself a jab each year 🤷 I wouldn’t bother myself for the potential side effects. Maybe it’s worth it if you’re immunocompromised or very old. 

[dsr-burnley]

1 hour ago, danny. said:

It’s the main metric used to measure the effectiveness of vaccines. If you think 10% is worth it then get yourself a jab each year 🤷 I wouldn’t bother myself for the potential side effects. Maybe it’s worth it if you’re immunocompromised or very old. 

It is the main metric, but it's of very dubious value.  After all, a vaccine can do literally nothing to prevent people contracting an airborne disease.  It isn't designed to.  So measuring its effectiveness by how many times it stops someone contracting the disease, is (as I said) of limited value.  A person who dies and a person who coughs a little will both count as having covid, and it may be (I don't say it is, but it may be) that a person who would have died has instead had two days off work - but it makes no difference to the score.

 

The covid virus, as I understand it, takes about 5 days to manifest symptoms, and it takes about 5 days before a vaccinated person's antibodies get to work, but about a fortnight before an unvaccinated person's antibodies get to work.  So after 5 or 6 days, when the symptoms start to appear, there will be little or no difference in the results of the vaccinated or unvaccinated person, hence the small 10% difference in symptomatic numbers.

 

But what about a week later?  The vaccinated person's antibodies are in full swing, the unvaccinated person's are just starting up.  That's where, in theory at least, the vaccinated person has the advantage; not in the early stages.  If there are statistics that show just a 10% benefit of less serious illness or 10% reduction in likelihood of death, then that would be a stat worth listening to.  Does that stat exist?