[dgant]

"No clinically severe COVID-19 (1) was observed, and no patient was hospitalized"

In other words, this case study is a relatively ordinary result in line with what we know: that the major COVID-19 vaccines greatly reduce the chance of severe illness but leave nontrivial chance of infection and transmission.

[dopylitty]

It’s worth noting that the bar for severe illness is set incredibly high. [1]

All of the major symptoms including high fever, cough, severe fatigue, loss of taste/smell, and shortness of breath still count as mild under their definition. This is very much a disease you don’t want to get, even the so called mild version that happens in vaccinated people.

1. https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/clin...

[version_five]

> Severe Illness: Individuals who have SpO2 <94% on room air at sea level, a ratio of arterial partial pressure of oxygen to fraction of inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2) <300 mm Hg, respiratory frequency >30 breaths/min, or lung infiltrates >50%.

Isn't the point that levels below severe are not generally fatal and don't require hospitalization. Nobody thinks it's good to get sick, but it generally ceases to be a threat to public health with vaccination.

[gibba999]

The million dollar questions include:

- Long COVID post-vaccine. >10% of people have brain damage visible on MRIs, including mild cases.

- Future mutations. People have been overly optimistic for 15 months now, and believed bad things couldn't happen. They do. There's no reason to believe Delta or Gamma are the end, or anywhere close.

[inter_netuser]

brain damage after vaccine, or "mild" disease in vaccinated people?

can you point to that MRI imaging? curious to see.

[gibba999]

This is the major one:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v...

This one scared me since it was a large, relatively unbiased sample, with before-and-after imaging. It also showed brain damage even in mild cases of COVID19 in >10% of cases.

There are a lot of supporting smaller-scale studies too, replicating the same general result. E.g.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/covid-1... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8066611/

If you Google, you'll find dozens of other small-scale studies.

[timr]

> This one scared me since it was a large, relatively unbiased sample, with before-and-after imaging. It also showed brain damage even in mild cases of COVID19 in >10% of cases.

It shows no such thing. It's an analysis of MRIs where the authors infer loss of gray matter in specific regions of the brain. This is in no way "brain damage", and representing it this way is leaping to wild conclusions.

Lest you not believe me, here is a randomized controlled trial, showing that "excessive online video gaming" reduces orbitofrontal gray matter:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29057579/

(...so your Mom was right: gaming is turning your brain to mush!)

Here is a review that shows that similar losses in gray matter are associated with anxiety and sleep loss (two problems that I'm sure didn't affect anyone in 2020):

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29244642/

Similarly: "Profound and reproducible patterns of reduced regional gray matter characterize major depressive disorder"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31341158/

Just for fun: here's a paper that shows that "tooth loss was a causal factor for volume reduction in brain areas related to memory, learning and cognition"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29475808/

(bonus points: can you spot the missing correlate?)

The fact is, you can find research literature associating "loss of gray matter" with pretty much anything. And if a reliable trend does exist across this literature, it seems to be that gray matter changes are often seen in...wait for it: depressed people and the aged.

But I'm sure that Covid has done nothing to depress people or affect the aged, so we can probably safely ignore that little detail.

[eloff]

I couldn't find where it talks about vaccinated patients in the study you linked.

It's not surprising that covid19 can cause brain damage (and heart damage, and death) to unvaccinated people.

[wesleywt]

The article says nothing about vaccinated people.

[peytn]

That first pre-print is wild. 8 pages of methods for 8 pages of results (incl. figures). Quite a "pipeline."

[Tepix]

Interesting!

[dopylitty]

That may be but it’s not a particularly useful definition on an individual level.

If I’m sick in bed for two weeks I can’t work or take care of my family so those mild symptoms very much would be a danger, not to mention the dangers from long COVID which hasn’t been ruled out in vaccinated folks and the dangers of exposing people who can’t be vaccinated.

[spoonjim]

It’s very useful on the individual level. All that sounds bad but not as bad as dying.

[ianai]

There could still be Lewy bodies (dementia) for all I know.

[lugged]

Sure if you don't think permanent social distancing and mask wearing is not a problem.

The severity of mild covid is still potentially long lasting and I'm willing to guess elderly aren't going to handle it well.

Letting covid become endemic could reduce our life expecty considerably.

[version_five]

> Sure if you don't think permanent social distancing and mask wearing is not a problem.

I'm confused by this comment. I do think they are a problem, that's why I am encouraged by a vaccine that reduces covid to something that is not life threatening and that we can stop freaking out about.

[throwawayboise]

It always was that for the vast majority of people.

[audiometry]

3mn Indian souls would disagree

[kadoban]

Isn't covid already endemic?

[lugged]

Some claim it can still be irradicated. But those people get banned on YouTube for saying bad words so you probably won't believe me.

[kadoban]

Do they say how? Doesn't seem like it even makes sense anymore. I'm going to guess based on your youtube wording that their answer is not vaccines?

[pas]

> permanent social distancing and mask wearing is not a problem.

It's a problem, but we can manage it better than overflowing morgues. Frequent tests, rapid antigen testing (let's say at the entrance of restaurants, clubs, festivals), encouraging people who feel ill to stay the fuck away from others, and so on.

[kumarvvr]

Whoa, I sometimes get SpO2 around 91 - 94 and I chalk it up to calibration error on cheap SpO2 devices (The ones that clip on to the hand, cost about 20 USD). Have been tested twice per employer requirements and was never positive though.

[rolleiflex]

The cheap SPO2 devices are calibrated on fair skin. If you have a darker complexion there is a known measurement error. If you are at 91% and feeling fine you are probably fine. Your body has a better SPO2 sensor than anything man-made.

[kumarvvr]

Damn, I am brown and I guess I have to take that as a 3 - 5% error?

[rolleiflex]

That is correct. See here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18048893/

[camillomiller]

I got it, and it was annoying, sure, but I had influenza A in the past and boy, was that REALLY bad. I would be totally fine if we get to a point where we consider Covid to be like an endemic seasonal flu for the vaccinated, because I can’t see many ways out otherwise

[foepys]

I think what a lot of people call the flu is actually "the sniffles" which desensitizes people to the danger. Influenza like you had is really, really bad. It takes weeks to recover and the first 1 or 2 weeks are hell.

[Pyramus]

Yes, that is correct. I believe the difference is that most of us were exposed to the flu when we were younger, building immunity to the strains that are seasonal.

This is not the case for new strains. There are reports from the 1918 influenza strain that it killed young people over night: Folks went to bed with fever and didn't wake up the next day.

If you had the flu or know somebody who had, it's no joke.

[blub]

A virus with the flu's potential for damage and the SARS-2 level of infectivity even after a vaccine would be terrible for those getting sick, but even worse for healthcare.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

I had COVID before the lockdowns. It wasn't apparent to me until I started hearing about the symptoms. The fatigue was awful, but on top of that, the night my fever broke I was laying down on my bed during February with a window open and no sheets covering me. All while hyperventilating. I kinda thought this was a weird flu but fortunately I didn't have to worry up front about potential death while having it. Worst case scenario I just wouldn't have woken up.

[codr7]

Yeah, me too.

I traveled by bus all the way from Southern Italy to Sweden just before the virus hit the news, and fell sick with the same symptoms for about a week from the day I arrived.

The fever was nasty, but the one thing I remember most is lying there alone in the middle of the night feeling like I wasn't getting enough oxygen and wondering what the hell was going on.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

I honestly was a little scared because it was so odd. I though it was just gonna be another flu. But of everything, the fatigue was the absolute worst. My spine, neck, and legs just felt like mush for a full week. Existing was effort. Could barely keep food down.

When my fever broke, I went about my life like normal. Still I'd hate to imagine what it would've been like in a not so vaccinated era like the early 1900s. I probably would've died.

[peter_retief]

I had the virus and it was slightly inconvenient, had a slight fever, cough and shortness of breath. Strangly my wife had different symptoms to me, no fever and vomiting. Lasted around 10 days with no lingering symptoms. I think the fever is important because my wife got reinfected but I did not.

[lambdaphagy]

Glad you're ok, but I'm surprised you describe SOB as a slight inconvenience. In general, SOB is a pretty bad sign-- you're having trouble getting the one thing you'll die fastest without. Sure, you can put up with temporary mild SOB if you know it's going to stay mild, but not everyone can know that :/

[peter_retief]

Thanks, I realize I was lucky, it is a wildly unpredictable virus and I am not trying to minimize the possible outcomes.

[peteretep]

> but I'm surprised you describe SOB as a slight inconvenience

Ever been to a high altitude city? I was short of breath for my first week in Mexico City, and my lungs hurt after exercise. It’s very disconcerting, but also just a slight inconvenience.

[lambdaphagy]

Yes, it's a minor inconvenience when it's expected and you have confidence in a good prognosis. It can be tortuous when you don't know whether it's about to get worse.

[JeremyNT]

i.e., it's like the common cold +/- a bit. Also keep in mind that many people are mostly asymptomatic entirely, even the unvaccinated.

Sure, try not to get sick. Understand that there is some risk of symptoms. But getting COVID once you've had the vaccine shouldn't really be a concern worthy of altering any behaviors to avoid for healthy people.

[ianai]

What I wonder is the other symptoms like long covid. We’d hope the vaccines would diminish the incidence of that, but I’ve not heard it. Probably too early for the newer variants.

[Ostrogodsky]

I suppose those miners are strong healthy men, wouldnt we expect the same results if they were exposed to the virus while being not-vaccinated?

> In other words, this case study is a relatively ordinary result in line with what we know: that the major COVID-19 vaccines greatly reduce the chance of severe illness but leave nontrivial chance of infection and transmission.

I dont think this particular case is a proof of your claim at all.

[throwawayboise]

From the study: "Mine workers were mostly men (42/44); median age was 53.3 years. Eighteen of the workers had risk factors for severe COVID-19: high blood pressure (11/44), diabetes mellitus (4/44), or obesity (4/44)."

[Ostrogodsky]

What is your point? You are not comparing against the general population to see if there is a difference.

Also from the study:

> Such a low vaccine efficiency against infection by the Gamma variant was not expected because in vitro studies have shown a similar reduction of neutralization for Beta or Gamma variants by BNT162b2-elicited antibodies (5) and a conserved CD4+ T-cell response against spike proteins from the Beta variant (6).

So, no, this was not "business as usual", in fact the results are so shocking that the investigators wrote:

> Given the surprisingly high attack rate, we hypothesized potential dysfunctions of conservation or administration of vaccines, but the absence of traceable cold-chain interruption and the use of different batches seemed to refute this hypothesis.

So the study so far suggests that the Pfizer vaccines may well have an actual low effectivenes rate against this virus variant.

[throwawayboise]

It was in response to "I suppose those miners are strong healthy men"

They were not. They were obese and hypertensive. That is unhealty no matter what vaccines you take.

[pixl97]

Well, isn't something like over half of America obese?

[fh973]

No, just around 36%:

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

[spfzero]

Also the median age seemed pretty high for miners in a country with lots more young people than old.

[naturalauction]

Small nitpick but French Guiana isn’t its own country, it’s a part of France. That being said their population does seem to trend young when compared to the rest of France or other western countries.

[touisteur]

From family experience it seems miners these days tend to be in the old, lifer side. Once you've adapted to the hardship, you mostly keep at it. Can be well paying jobs too, in an area with not a lot of jobs...

[8note]

Depending on the mine, I'd guess miner is a prexisting condition in and of itself

[peteretep]

> those miners are strong healthy men

I think mining is exceptionally poor for your health, esp re respiratory disease, lack of vitamin D, and also usually highly correlated with near poverty (and the health issues that’s associated with)

[wesleywt]

Miners are not healthy or young.

[chrisco255]

The key point: The attack rate was 15/25 (60.0%) in fully vaccinated miners, 6/15 (40.0%) in those partially vaccinated or with a history of COVID-19, and 3/4 (75%) in those not vaccinated. Attack rate was 0/6 among persons with a previous history of COVID-19 versus 63.2% among those with no previous history (Table).

In other words, natural immunity from previous Covid case was the only protection and the vaccinated miners were not statistically different than the unvaccinated (sample size of 25 vaccinated at 60% attack rate vs sample size of 4 at 75% attack rate is inconclusive).

[tinus_hn]

It should become obvious by now: As long as you care about detected infections the only solution is infinite lockdowns.