For the first time, the majority of people dying from COVID-19 in America have been vaccinated.

People who had been vaccinated or boosted made up 58% of COVID-19 deaths in August, the analysis showed. The rate has been on the rise: 23% of coronavirus deaths were among vaccinated people in September 2021, and the vaccinated made up 42% of deaths in January and February of this year, the [ Washington ] Post reported.

[ Most of the unvaccinated who were at high risk are now dead might be an explanation.]

A new study by a team of researchers from Harvard University and Yale University estimates that 94% of the U.S. population has been infected with COVID-19 at least once, leaving just 1 in 20 people who have never had the virus. [ Way to Go, USA! ]

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20221127/more-vaccinated-people-dying-of-covid-as-fewer-get-booster-shots

On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 6:40:04 AM UTC-5, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 9:56:09 PM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > For the first time, the majority of people dying from COVID-19 in America have been vaccinated.
> >
> > People who had been vaccinated or boosted made up 58% of COVID-19 deaths in August, the analysis showed. The rate has been on the rise: 23% of coronavirus deaths were among vaccinated people in September 2021, and the vaccinated made up 42% of deaths in January and February of this year, the [ Washington ] Post reported.
> >
> > [ Most of the unvaccinated who were at high risk are now dead might be an explanation.]
> >
> > A new study by a team of researchers from Harvard University and Yale University estimates that 94% of the U.S. population has been infected with COVID-19 at least once, leaving just 1 in 20 people who have never had the virus. [ Way to Go, USA! ]
> >
> > https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20221127/more-vaccinated-people-dying-of-covid-as-fewer-get-booster-shots
> https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
>
> says that 69% of the US population has been fully vaccinated. Vaccination just primes your immune system against the virus, and if you are old enough that your immune system isn't up to much, vaccination isn't going to help much. Getting infected should help almost as much, and 94% infected beats 69% by quite a wide margin.

Getting infected is the original whole virus vaccine, except without the immune activating adjuvant, which you disparaged in previous posts.

>
> The article says as - "People who are at the greatest risk of dying from COVID-19 are more likely to be vaccinated and boosted, such as the elderly."
>
> It's still a good idea to get vaccinated and boosted, but it's an even better idea not to get infected.
>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 03:39:59 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

<snip>
>
>It's still a good idea to get vaccinated and boosted, but it's an even better idea not to get infected.

.. . . . or not to pass your infection around.

RL

On 30/11/2022 15:20, legg wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 03:39:59 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>
>> It's still a good idea to get vaccinated and boosted, but it's an even better idea not to get infected.
>
> . . . . or not to pass your infection around.

That is harder to do than you might think with a disease like Covid
where something like a third of all carriers are entirely asymptomatic.

That is one of the reasons why it is so hard to stop it spreading.

The other is that even the best Covid tests have false negative rates of
around 20% (and that is even worse in self administered ones).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 8:13:13 AM UTC-5, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 11:17:27 PM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 6:40:04 AM UTC-5, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 9:56:09 PM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > For the first time, the majority of people dying from COVID-19 in America have been vaccinated.
> > > >
> > > > People who had been vaccinated or boosted made up 58% of COVID-19 deaths in August, the analysis showed. The rate has been on the rise: 23% of coronavirus deaths were among vaccinated people in September 2021, and the vaccinated made up 42% of deaths in January and February of this year, the [ Washington ] Post reported.
> > > >
> > > > [ Most of the unvaccinated who were at high risk are now dead might be an explanation.]
> > > >
> > > > A new study by a team of researchers from Harvard University and Yale University estimates that 94% of the U.S. population has been infected with COVID-19 at least once, leaving just 1 in 20 people who have never had the virus. [ Way to Go, USA! ]
> > > >
> > > > https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20221127/more-vaccinated-people-dying-of-covid-as-fewer-get-booster-shots
> > > https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
> > >
> > > says that 69% of the US population has been fully vaccinated. Vaccination just primes your immune system against the virus, and if you are old enough that your immune system isn't up to much, vaccination isn't going to help much. Getting infected should help almost as much, and 94% infected beats 69% by quite a wide margin.
> >
> > Getting infected is the original whole virus vaccine, except without the immune activating adjuvant, which you disparaged in previous posts.
> Which doesn't work all that well, because you develop antibodies to a bigger chunk of the viral shell, which mutations can change faster than just the Covic-19 spike protein, parts of which are highly conserved. The Covid-19 genome encodes a couple of extra proteins that don't get build in the replicated virus particles and seem to mess with the human immune system to some extent.

Yeah, and? Those less than ideal antibodies targeting the virus shell (capsid) are also effective in removing virus particles ( virions) from circulation. The reason they go after the S-proteins (spike) is because they're essential for ACE2 receptor bonding and thereby cell fusion. Therefore the S-protein antibodies are more effective in stopping the virus in its tracks.

>
> The immune system activiting adjuvant in the vaccine makes the antigen the vaccine produces go a bit further. A Covid -19 infection produces a lot more antigen (as well as the extra proteins which presumably got selected in because they distract the immune system in some way).

The adjuvant is critical in inducing an adaptive immune response ( antibodies and CTLs type response). Without it you would just end up with very little to none adaptive response and all non-specific innate immune response. It's a lot more to it than just letting the antigen protein go a "little bit further." The adjuvant and dosage of antigen producing vaccine do their best to throw your system into the midst of a full blown serious infection to challenge the immune system. Of course they do this without causing all the damage a real infection would such as killing lung cells and destroying endothelial cells in critical parts of your vascular system.

>
> I'm not sure what you means when you say "I disparaged the adjuvant". It certainly isn't what makes the mRNA vaccines better that natural infection or the Chinese de-activated whole virus vaccine as antibody generators. You do seem to want to puff whatever the US vaccine manufacturers are selling, and presumably that includes their choice of adjuvant.
> > > The article says as - "People who are at the greatest risk of dying from COVID-19 are more likely to be vaccinated and boosted, such as the elderly."
> > >
> > > It's still a good idea to get vaccinated and boosted, but it's an even better idea not to get infected.
>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 15:42:18 +0000, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

>On 30/11/2022 15:20, legg wrote:
>> On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 03:39:59 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>>
>>> It's still a good idea to get vaccinated and boosted, but it's an even better idea not to get infected.
>>
>> . . . . or not to pass your infection around.
>
>That is harder to do than you might think with a disease like Covid
>where something like a third of all carriers are entirely asymptomatic.
>
>That is one of the reasons why it is so hard to stop it spreading.
>
>The other is that even the best Covid tests have false negative rates of
>around 20% (and that is even worse in self administered ones).

Masking while visiting indoors, or in a shared vehicle, seems to be
the generally accepted method of reducing spread, whether or not
you think you've got it. Not outdoors, not in your home.

At work or in class is harder. . . .

The same goes for the flu, which is making a reapearance.

But don't worry - deaths of <3ppm/day is considered acceptible and
doesn't, alone, indicate heathcare services in crisis - they
handle that normally, just from cancer.

Our unmasked Thanksgiving dinner infected three generations, but
no symptoms greater than a bad cold. - 87yr old grt grandma
came down with it first (testing at the first symptoms), followed
by everyone else in the next few days. Knowing we had it from
self-testing, syptoms or otherwise, meant staying at home for
~10 days. Rescheduled flights etc. Two of the party had quick
flights across country the same evening, before tesing positive . .
.. .

RL

On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 7:24:05 PM UTC-5, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 7:42:01 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 8:13:13 AM UTC-5, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 11:17:27 PM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 6:40:04 AM UTC-5, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> > > > > On Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 9:56:09 PM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> <snip>
> > > The immune system activiting adjuvant in the vaccine makes the antigen the vaccine produces go a bit further. A Covid -19 infection produces a lot more antigen (as well as the extra proteins which presumably got selected in because they distract the immune system in some way).
> >
> > The adjuvant is critical in inducing an adaptive immune response ( antibodies and CTLs type response). Without it you would just end up with very little to none adaptive response and all non-specific innate immune response.
> So how comes natural infections are so good at producing an adaptive immune response. They don't come with any adjuvant.

Natural infections are real pathogens, not bits and pieces of an antigen, or dead and weakened replicas of the pathogen. They're spreading, replicating disease organisms. That's how they induce the strongest possible immune mobilization.

Vaccines can't introduce a whole living pathogen for obvious reasons of safety. So they have to do something to accelerate the immune response process above and beyond the natural intensity and time scale of events.

Skip down to 1-7 and the dendritic antigen presenting cell, part of the interface between innate and adaptive immune cells.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK27090/

Then scan the write-up on adjuvants to get a general idea of why they're needed and what they do, and how they can fail.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK27131/

Nothing there pertains specifically to the later adjuvants used by the COVID vaccines ( book is over 20 years old ). From the time the mRNA is administered it's a race against the clock, because the mRNA, and its spike proteins, start to go away for various reasons, in a timescale of a few days. So they need to stimulate a strong immune response very quickly. I as of yet don't see a write-up of exactly what is being alerted by a synthetic triple spike protein bonded to the membrane of a muscle cell. That seems pretty harmless to me, so they've done something to make it look threatening to immune surveillance, maybe something along the lines of inducing the cell to release distress cytokines to draw attention to itself- who knows.

> > It's a lot more to it than just letting the antigen protein go a "little bit further." The adjuvant and dosage of antigen producing vaccine do their best to throw your system into the midst of a full blown serious infection to challenge the immune system. Of course they do this without causing all the damage a real infection would such as killing lung cells and destroying endothelial cells in critical parts of your vascular system.
> Really?
>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

On 30/11/2022 23:15, legg wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 15:42:18 +0000, Martin Brown
> <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 30/11/2022 15:20, legg wrote:
>>> On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 03:39:59 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>>
>>>> It's still a good idea to get vaccinated and boosted, but it's an even better idea not to get infected.
>>>
>>> . . . . or not to pass your infection around.
>>
>> That is harder to do than you might think with a disease like Covid
>> where something like a third of all carriers are entirely asymptomatic.
>>
>> That is one of the reasons why it is so hard to stop it spreading.
>>
>> The other is that even the best Covid tests have false negative rates of
>> around 20% (and that is even worse in self administered ones).
>
> Masking while visiting indoors, or in a shared vehicle, seems to be
> the generally accepted method of reducing spread, whether or not
> you think you've got it. Not outdoors, not in your home.
>
> At work or in class is harder. . . .
>
> The same goes for the flu, which is making a reapearance.

Flu infections in the UK are already a factor of two higher in the UK
than it has ever been even in a pandemic year. Unclear as yet how it
will play out around Xmas time which is our maximum risk turkey dinner.

Assuming here that there are any turkeys left to eat by then - half of
the free range flocks have already succumbed to bird flu and been
slaughtered. My region is now a bird flu containment zone.

I knew several families who caught Omicron at their Xmas festivities
both last year and the year before.
>
> But don't worry - deaths of <3ppm/day is considered acceptible and
> doesn't, alone, indicate heathcare services in crisis - they
> handle that normally, just from cancer.

UK healthcare system is now in permanent crisis :(
Mainly due to insufficient investment in social care for the elderly,
and a shortage of trained medical staff partly caused by Brexit.

> Our unmasked Thanksgiving dinner infected three generations, but
> no symptoms greater than a bad cold. - 87yr old grt grandma
> came down with it first (testing at the first symptoms), followed
> by everyone else in the next few days. Knowing we had it from
> self-testing, syptoms or otherwise, meant staying at home for
> ~10 days. Rescheduled flights etc. Two of the party had quick
> flights across country the same evening, before tesing positive . .
> . .

Not surprised. You are at your most infective with respiratory viruses
just prior to showing any symptoms at all. The travel factor on public
transport also greatly amplifies transmission (at least with the grade
of mask the general public are likely to use).

The saving grace is that Omicron is more infective but a factor of two
less deadly than Delta and with vaccination an order of magnitude less
of a threat to life than the original strains at the outset.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown