This is a public service announcement… with guitars math!
What does it mean when we see headlines about how half of the infections in Israel’s delta outbreak are among the vaccinated? Are the vaccines that ineffective? Should we comfort ourselves with the knowledge that these cases are generally not severe?
No! to the former. And sure, if you want to!, to the latter. The truth is that in a country as highly vaccinated as Israel, this is not only expected, but should be celebrated as evidence of vaccine efficacy. To see why, let’s do a little brunchtime back-of-the-envelope math.
85% of Israeli adults are vaccinated. So let’s imagine a well-attended birthday party with 100 people. 85 are vaccinated, and 15 are not. This party is poorly ventilated and turns into a superspreader event. Every unvaccinated attendee gets sick. Oh no! Even worse, 15 of the vaccinated get sick, too. How effective is the vaccine? Since we’re assuming a 100% exposure rate, and that the unvaccinated population is 100% susceptible, the math is actually very simple. With rate of vaccination r, vaccine “vulnerability” is (1-r)/r. So in this toy example, it’s (1 – 0.85)/0.85 = 0.17, or 83% effectiveness against symptomatic disease. Not quite as high as the effectiveness against wild-type, but hardly something to panic over.
Obviously this is a toy example. This outbreak started with large clusters in schools, and only half those infected are adults, so the population isn’t anywhere near homogeneous. Our toy’s 100% attack rate is also a bit silly. But even this simple calculation gets us admirably close to the real figures. A study by Public Health England found that the two-shot treatment was 88% effective at preventing symptomatic disease from the delta variant. Pfizer claims 90%. (And remember, these breakthrough cases are generally asymptomatic or mild.)
This stuff isn’t always intuitive, so I thought I’d share a little word problem that can help to reconcile these two pieces of news. Get vaccinated!
Baud
I was told there wouldn’t be any math.
debbie
I bow to your math-fu (I have none), but the new cases in Israel are still still discouraging. I heard it was a Delta plus variant that infected the vaccination. We can cut the odds, but are we so sure we can outrun the virus?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I thought about commenting “inb4 ‘I was told there would be no math’” but decided to bet on a different first comment ?
The Moar You Know
My cousin’s wife had a very mild case of covid. She still can’t climb a flight of stairs without running out of breath 10 months later. Destroyed her lungs. She had no idea until they tried to go skiing.
Important to realize the context of the terms.
Very, very important to get vaccinated.
TheOtherHank
My question, speaking as a recipient of the J&J vaccine, how effective is J&J against Delta? Should I go back to wearing a mask indoors? All the reports I’ve seen say things like “the mRNA vaccines are still quite effective against the new variants.” This is not as reassuring as I’m sure it’s meant to be.
Cermet
@TheOtherHank: Try a google search but also, maybe, just show up at a vaccination place and get an mRNA vaccination. Might as well play it safe – there is plenty of vaccine to go around so you aren’t wasting a dose at all.
Major Major Major Major
@The Moar You Know: this is very true re the range of “mild” outcomes. There are lots of good reasons to be cautious when deciding on your personal risk tolerance. The delta variant just isn’t really one of them (for mRNA recipients).
Major Major Major Major
@TheOtherHank: i am not a doctor but I know lots of J&J recipients are getting mRNA boosters. Check with your doctor or a local vax center.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
“Sadly, American democrat corporatist liberal elites are stifling debate by criticizing people who have questions about the vaccine, efficacy of the vaccine, the contents of the vaccine, magnetism and 5G wifi signals. Only by having these important questions aired out by tweets, retweets and breathless articles can a vigorous commons be before us. In this 96 paragraph article, I will endeavor to explain it why it is important to give anonymous YouTube video producer SovereignCitizen1776 equal credibility to scientists from the CDC and NIH, and why commenters at Breitbart and The Daily Caller are correct to say they they’ve been disrespected by Democrat liberal elites.”
– by Glenn Greenwald
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TheOtherHank:
I’ve had both series of Pfizer and Moderna, so if there’s any edge, I’m gonna benefit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Shouldn’t you get the J&J just to be sure?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thinking about it. Call it a booster.
Mel
@The Moar You Know: This. Even people who exhibit very mild symptoms can develop Long Covid.
Get vaccinated, obviously, but until the vaccination rate goes up significantly or we get highly effective boosters for the variant strains, and stop the tspid development of new mutations, masks are still important, especially for people with high risk conditions.
Long Covid is not to be taken lightly. It took my very healthy sibling nearly a year to see real improvement, and an acquaintance lost their (recently transplanted) kidney due to lasting inflammatory problems from Long Covid, and had to have a second transplant.
A colleague’s young, healrhy kid who had had asymptomatic Covid later experienced sudden cardiac arrest and was in a coma for several weeks due to brain damage from lack of oxygen – residual heart inflammation from Long Covid was the culprit. He’s still struggling to recover.
Vaccinating is absolutely essential. But please, please still use those masks in any questionable situation. Better safe than sorry.
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
You must really be shocking your immune system.
Major Major Major Major
@Mel: we have highly effective boosters against the variants, they’re called “the second shot of your mRNA vaccine”. But yes, caution is good! I just want to make sure everybody understands the actual risks and not just the scary headlines.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: My god that man is an idiiot
dmsilev
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: You may be confusing vaccine shots with Pokémon. Easy mistake to make, I know.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“Next, on a very special episode of Hoarders….”
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: lol!
Catherine D.
I’m more concerned that surveillance testing has dropped off sharply. Can’t trace what you’re not looking for. Fortunately, I can easily get tested at work, which I’m doing every 10 to 14 days, but not many people are.
ian
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He is just spoofing him.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@debbie:
Actually, the worst was Moderna #2. Pfizer #1 produced a little fatigue, but Pfizer #2 was barely a stingey blip.
Erin
@TheOtherHank: If I had had J&J, I would ABSOLUTELY go get one mRNA shot. All indications are there is no harm, and possibly a lot of good. Angela Merkel herself got one AZ and one Pfizer. I think it’s worth it. See this article for good science-y info. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01359-3
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
After J&J comes Novavax.
If you had to work in my filthy courthouse with the sort of people that pile through there, you know that aside from the lawyers and judges, 90% are unvaccinated.
My main attendance point is served by six elevators in a bank, and the stairs from upper levels are only ope to lower levels in the event of fire, for the sake of security. Means every trip is by elevator, with filthy people. Pre-covid, I had constant colds, and one time in 2019, I noticed that somebody had dropped a deuce in the corner of an elevator that I was going to enter.
zhena gogolia
@TheOtherHank:
I know what you mean. My husband got a J&J that was originally meant for me, because I had already gotten an appointment (non-transferable) for Pfizer. Now I feel guilty
ETA: And we asked our PCP, and she said not to get another shot.
Mel
@Major Major Major Major: Already had both doses, of course, as I stated. My point was about Long Covid, Delta variants, and about taking a little extra care in high risk situations.
After seeing the results of studies by Johns Hopkins, etc., (brought to my attention by my doctors), I’m also well aware that people who are immunocompromised / immunosuppressed can have a pretty high rate of non-response even to the two dose series on mRNA vaccines.
Unfortunately, I’ve been a vaccine non-responder even before being on immunosuppressive meds (three series of HepB vaccine while I was working in a high risk environment – not a blip of antibody developed), so there is a not insignificant chance that I have no immunity to Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated.
That means that I am still at a higher rusk of getting Covid-19, even from a vaccinated person with a mild case. It also means, horribly enough, that I am thus at a higher risk of transmitting Covid before being aware that I might be infected (even Covid that causes an asymptotic infection in a vaccinated, immunocompetent person), if I am infected by someone.
I am NOT okay with taking that chance with anyone’s health, so I am double masking for the foreseeable future, despite being fully vaccinated and extremely careful.
I have lost two loved ones to this awful disease, and have several others who are dealing with disability from Long Covid. Two people dead and gone. Three disabled.
So yes, I would love to see people err on the side of caution, because I do not want anyone to lose their life to this virus, or to lose their livelihood, hope, and quality of life to its aftermath.
My original point was simply that the vaccines are fantastic, and highly effective, but that even healthy vaccinated people should still consider masking in high-risk situations, because we DO NOT have herd immunity yet and we don’t yet have the spread of the virus under enough control to stop rapid mutations, and because Long Covid can result from mild infectiins as well as from severe infections.
You are usually such a lovely person. I’m not sure why you felt the need to be snarky at me for making the above point, but I stand by it. There has been far, far too much loss from this pandemic already. If taking e few extra precautions in high risk situations can prevent people from experiencing more suffering, it seems only logical to do so.
Mousebumples
The WHO has now recommended even vaccinated people wear masks in public, indoors, because of the risk of the Delta variant.
If I’m around friends and family that I know are vaccinated, I’m not worrying about that. But at Costco? Yup, I’m masking up.
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Just to be clear, these are not actual statements by GG, they’re parodies and should somehow be labeled as such.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@ian: Still an idiot
Major Major Major Major
@Mel: I felt the need to respond that way because the sole thesis of my post is that the mRNA vaccines are highly effective against variants, and your comment talked about waiting until there were vaccines that are highly effective against variants. Your other points as I said are well taken.
i have been irritable lately though so sorry for that.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@zhena gogolia:
Hey, I work hard to establish GG’s fistworthy smug tone. I leave it to the reader to discern whether he said it or not.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
“The vaccines are terrible and the government is stifling that news. You can have great prophylactic protection from COVID-19 all year long and save considerable money by buying 12 doses of HEARTGARD® Plus (ivermectin/pyrantel) and enjoying a $15 rebate: Simply download the coupon and take it to your vet.”
– by Matt Taibbi and Joe Rogan
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5z5y/why-is-the-intellectual-dark-web-suddenly-hyping-an-unproven-covid-treatment
lowtechcyclist
OK, this is making no sense to me. M^4, what do you mean, “vaccine vulnerability”?
Whatever you mean by that, it must be independent of how contagious the virus is, or how effective the vaccine is at protecting you from it, because there’s no variable for either in there. The only input into the formula is r, the vaccination rate.
I also found this example confusing because the only numbers that are doing anything in this example are that there are 100 people, 85 of whom are vaccinated, and 15 of whom aren’t. I kept on trying to make sense of what role all the other 15’s (the number of vaccinated people who got sick, and the number of unvaccinated people who got sick) are playing in this example, until I realized they were just bystanders. But if they had been doing anything, it would have been hard to tell which 15 was going into a formula.
Mel
@Major Major Major Major: Please re-read. I never said that anyone should wait to be vaccinated. Absolutely not!!!
I simply said that we should still be reasonably cautious (masking i high risk situations, etc.) even though fully vaccinated, UNTIL we have reached herd immunity, or until we have boosters available to address the emergent variants.
I stand by that. Everyone should be vaccinated by now. Many idiots are not. So, a little extra caution is not a bad thing.
Vaccinations will protect the vast majority of the population from serious illness or hospitalization. The vaccines are absolutely stellar. But breakthrough infections do still occasionally happen across the general population (to be expected – happens with flu vaccines, too. I got a breakthrough flu infection a few years ago, but having been vaccinated meant the difference between feeling a little under the weather for a few days versus a likely hospitalization if I hadn’t been vaccinated. Like I said vaccinations are a must and a literal life saver.). Covid-19 is a bit of a different animal, though, because of the risk of Long Covid, even from mild breakthrough infections.
Knowing a healthy 30 year old who goes from living his best life one day as an artist and a new Dad, to being in the ICU, in a coma and on life support 16 hours later will drive home just how serious the lingering after-effects of Covid-19 can be.
Again, I’m not saying that Long Covid will happen frequently. I’m not at all saying that it will be as severe in most people as it has been in several people I know who are struggling to live with Long Covid disability.
What I am saying is that a little extra caution can help ensure that someone else’s loved one doesn’t that kid on life support.
And I never, ever said that anyone should “wait” to be vaccinated. Quite the opposite, in fact.
zhena gogolia
OT, I just saw someone on twitter call Sinema Senator Lululemon. Pretty good.
Major Major Major Major
@Mel: I never said you did. I don’t really feel like litigating this but this is what you did say:
And since this was a comment on a post about how we already have those… I pointed out that we do. Again, apologies for tone but I’m sure you can understand how it was a little exasperating.
patrick II
From NBC Boston:Vaccination
lowtechcyclist
@TheOtherHank: Seconding what the others have said about getting a dose of Pfizer or Moderna. Just do it!
But I wanted to say something about this:
They have to talk in a greater degree of generality about how the vaccines are doing in fending off newer variants. The drug companies spent most of 2020 doing large-scale clinical trials of their vaccines in order to verify that they were both effective against Covid as it was in 2020, and safe in the sense of minimal side effects.
I don’t know if they’ve been able to do any controlled studies of vaccines versus the assorted variants that have cropped up in the past six or eight months, but even if so, they certainly haven’t been on the same level as the original trials.
But given that practically everyone who’s gotten hospitalized with Covid recently has been unvaccinated, it seems pretty obvious that the vaccines are holding up well against the variants as well as the original strain.
So the scientists have to speak in more general terms about the success of vaccines against the variants than against the original strain, but they’re on pretty solid ground in saying they’re working well against all variants so far.
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
How the fuck did Joe Rogan get to be someone who knows anything? The bar cannot get lower.
ian
@debbie:
Please stop taking the poster seriously today. He is devolving into troll.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@ian:
Please review the recent collected works of Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Joe Rogan, Michael Tracey, David Sirota, et al., and get back with me on how my feeble attempts at parody are more troll-like than what they routinely say in reality.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Oh, yeah. You should consider a rabies vaccine too.
jonas
In MMM’s example, when he says that 15 vaccinated people got sick, does he mean *infected* or *actually presented with symptoms/fell ill*? Because from what I’ve been reading, most of the vaccinated Israelis, for example, who tested positive for the delta variant were completely asymptomatic — they didn’t even realize they had it.
rikyrah
Protect yourself from the lying unvaccinated?
WaterGirl
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: May I just say that when you use quotation marks, it’s not clear that what you are quoting is parody.
Perhaps adding a “, probably” or something of that nature after the name(s) you are apparently quoting would be helpful.
jonas
@debbie:
A walking example of Asimov’s observation that a lot of stupid people still believe that “democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Mel
@rikyrah: ❤️
J R in WV
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
So, when you looked for your second set of a different mRNA vaccine, did anyone ask if you already had the other one? Which one did you get first?
Just asking because, though I’ve had both Moderna shots as of last March, I’m tempted to look for Pfizer shots just for the hell of it…
Tho most sites don’t specify which vaccine they’re administering. How did you find the other vaccine after you were all set with your first vaccine? Phone into the pharmacy?
Fair Economist
I will point out that all vaccines are even more effective against death and hospitalization than they are against infection in general, and that for mRNA vaccines, that protection is more robust against variants because it involves killer T cell activity, which is very resistant to mutation. That is showing up in the UK, where deaths, while up, are definitely going up less than cases.
Still, nothing is perfect; masking is easy and I intend to do it when practical indefinitely.
Cermet
@lowtechcyclist: As for the current mRNA vaccines and their effectiveness against the new variants they have tons of data that is far, far better than their original trials – this data, unlike their original data is taken from the real world where millions have been vaccinated (and they know which) and then tested for covid and type; this data clearly shows what they are saying is true for variants.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Absolutely !! WV started out pretty well on the vaccination front, but hit the limit of everyone willing to get a shot(s) pretty quickly.
Now we are told that unvaccinated people should still wear a mask out in public. Yet when I am out in public, almost no one is wearing a mask. Since 60% of the population is unvaccinated, the vast majority of the unmasked people are falsely acting as if they are vaccinated, when they know full well that they are NOT vaccinated at all.
Makes those of us who ARE vaccinated pretty angry.
I still wear a mask when I’m out shopping. Will for a very long time. If anyone says anything, I’ll probably totally ignore them. Or ask why they think I should ignore my wife’s faulty immune system…
Sally FakesWell
Just putting this out there, getting the 2nd Moderna shot triggered reactivation of the Epstein Barr Virus I originally contracted in 2002. When we saw what was happening to people with long covid, we started thinking that is what had happened to us. For me and another family member our health had never been the same since EBV. Dysautonomia, POTS, unmasked Ehlers-Danlos, also autoimmune & clotting disorders. Since the vaccine, it feels like wearing a couple of dental aprons as capes. Going to get titer’s tested tomorrow.
Appreciated the posted research regarding the connection of long covid with ebv. Would I still have gotten the vaccine? Oh hell yeah.
Seeing the research that the new virus symptoms is triggering will ultimately shed light for a lot of folks with what seemed before to be very mysterious illnesses.
I do feel like I’m going to have continue to take extra precautions and really limit contact because if I do get in that 12% of breakthrough cases, it could be a much worst outcome than those without a pre-existing condition.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@J R in WV:
Nobody asked. Wife looked specifically for Pfizer at CVS – there was a filter on her searches, and it isn’t available in every store. Basically, she’d gotten done up at the mass vax site for doing volunteer work there; she wasn’t happy with the state of her CDC card (in illegible scrawl) and was concerned that electronic confirmation wasn’t as easily available to her as it was to me.
We both looked for negatives to getting a second series of shots after getting Moderna and couldn’t find any.
Mel
@J R in WV: Thank you for doing this. You’re keeping someone dear to you safe, but you’re also keeping yourself safe for all the people in your life who love you – just as important!
Where I’m at, the rate of vaccination (calculated including as “vaccinated” people who have only had one shot of the two shot series – a pretty slapdash measure) is only about 45%, which is bad enough as it stands.
Yet, only about 1 out of every 25 people I’ve seen in pharmacies, grocery, etc. are masked. Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
Major Major Major Major
@jonas: I don’t have it handy but a significant number were asymptomatic. The Pfizer and UK figures I cite are for “any symptomatic disease”
lowtechcyclist
@Mel:
Breakthrough infections are fairly common for influenza, but that’s to be expected: the flu virus has had over a century to mutate and spin off new strains, and it’s damn near impossible to create a vaccine that protects against all of them.
As I understand it, each year’s flu vaccine is created several months in advance of flu season, based on virologists’ informed guesses about which strains will be the major strains in the coming year.
One silver lining of Covid-19 being a novel coronavirus is that it hasn’t had time to do much evolving and mutating yet. And that’s probably having a lot to do with the variants still staying within range of what the vaccines are effective against.
Sparkedcat
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
You are correct. The second shot of Moderna kicked my ass for 60 hours.
Almost Retired
Pretty much everyone seems to be still wearing masks in Coastal Los Angeles, although I have not checked in with pretty much everyone. For us, we are reconsidering a road trip next month for a memorial service in Utah and a wedding in Missouri. Based on the Mayo Clinic Covid map, it’s as though I submitted a request to AAA to prepare a TripTik to hit the most affected Counties.
Major Major Major Major
@Almost Retired: perhaps because the people live near the highways? Or is it per capita.
JMS
Also look at the conditions on the ground. My county is down to 4 positives per day in a county of 830,000 people. We could all cough at each other without masks and even most unvaccinated people won’t get Covid. That could change in the future, which I’ll monitor but until then I’ve mostly stopped wearing a mask.
lowtechcyclist
@J R in WV:
Here in Maryland, I knew when I made my appointment at the local CVS that they had Moderna, and Moderna only.
And when my wife made her appointment at the Walgreens about a half-hour down the road, she knew that they had Pfizer, and that only.
And of course we knew the kiddo was getting Pfizer, since that was the only vaccine with an EUA for the 12-15 age range.
Anyway, it was pretty straightforward to find out which pharmacies locally had which kind of vaccine. 2-3 months ago, the hard part was getting an appointment at all. Now it’s easy-peasy, of course.
Michael Cain
I admit that I was only going masked now when I knew things would be crowded. Going to have to be more conscientious since 75% of the new cases in Colorado are the delta variant.
Almost Retired
@Major Major Major Major: The Mayo Clinic tracks average daily cases by County (and State), as well as the rate per 100,000 people. The lesson seems to be to fill up the car in St. Louis, and keep the windows rolled up through SW Missouri.
lowtechcyclist
@Cermet:
How are they getting all these Covid tests of already-vaccinated people? The only reason I’ve had a Covid test since then is that I’m about to have surgery. Are they getting a convenience sample, however large, of people like me who, for whatever reason, have had a Covid test required of them post-vaccination? Or have they somehow been able to survey and test a representative sample?
Since sample design has occasionally been part of my day job, I must admit that I’m curious. I really don’t see how they could have come up with better data now than the controlled tests they did before the vaccine was released to the general public.
ian
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I need do no such thing. I am not comparing you to them. I hold you to the standards of a normal human being. Using blockquotes and hyperlinks to assert that people said a thing that they did not in fact say is poor spoofing at best, and is strawman and sockpuppetry at worst. The pity is the collective group of fools you misquote could easily be ripped apart using their actual words.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Sparkedcat:
My ass kicking was 30 hours. Fatigue, headache, earache, and a rekindling of dive-related tinnitus.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@ian:
Did one hyperlink to a much broader story that I found through LGM indicating a pack of grifters selling Ivermectin as a COVID prophylactic. As I remember, that was the only one.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
Curious whether my vaccinated kid will be routinely tested when school resumes in August. Had something like two dozen tests her freshman year, some were for all students and extra ones for the sporty kids.
To my knowledge none of her teammates caught Covid.
trollhattan
@JMS:
My county has 49 in hospital, 19 of them in ICU, numbers that have moved little the last couple months. 1.7% test positivity, so better than Texas at least. Still under 50% fully vaccinated.
trollhattan
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“Praise Jesus, my tapeworm is gone!”
J R in WV
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Thanks for the update. Will look around when I’m going to town…
Doug R
Just like Angela Merkel and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, I’m a Astra Zeneca/Moderna shots.
Geminid
@trollhattan: The wife of a local college field hockey coach told me that her wife had been tested 54 times over the course of the season. Plus they had all the players in one dorm and tested the sewage.
J R in WV
And M^4 — thanks for the math work, made good sense to me, but then I took many hours of math for the degree… was hard, I’m so not a natural at math.
They Call Me Blue
@Fair Economist:
This.
I didn’t start umpiring this year until I was fully vaccinated, and only did a game or two masked (per Seattle Elite Baseball’s rules, which were written early in the year) before the CDC updated guidance re: vaccinated people and outdoor activity.
But the Delta variant does make me wonder about the wisdom of hovering unmasked over the shoulder of 16 or 18 year old catchers for a couple of hours several times a week. It’s hard enough to project my voice from behind an umpire mask, throw in a cloth mask and I might as well just be mumbling to myself, so I’ll probably just live with that risk. But going to a grocery store for 20 minutes? Why wouldn’t people wear a mask given what we’ve all been through?
PS it’s frickin’ hot today in Seattle.
Immanentize
85% of Israelis vaccinated excludes those in the West Bank and Gaza who are not allowed to be “Israeli.” That is about 4.5 million people — now about the same number as “Israelis.”* Israel refused to vaccinate Palestinians who worked or regularly travelled to Israel (were not citizens or residents of East Jerusalem) until about April this year. Most recent estimates of overall vaccination rates in Israel including the occupied territories is difficult to figure out, but generally believed to be under 65%.
*Cf. Just thinking about another thing or two for some reason: In the slaveholding states in 1860, only about 1/4 of the population were slaves. But in South Africa, apartheid ended when the black population (Bantustans included) was over 75%. There is always a tipping point, but it is not clear beforehand what it looks like.
raven
@Immanentize: hey brah
Geminid
@Immanentize: According to Wikipedia, the population of Israel as of July, 2020 was 9,227,000. That includes just under 1,900,000 Arab citizens.
UncleEbeneezer
@TheOtherHank: I got J&J and will talk to my doctor about getting Pfizer/Moderna unless she says I don’t need it. But from what I have read, J&J is only 6% less effective against Delta as it is against the original strain.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Israel does indeed have a fair number of Arab citizens: Arabs who lived in Israel prior to the 1967 war, and their descendants.
However, the Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza are, by and large, not recognized as citizens by Israel. These are two different categories.
dmsilev
Via the Post, breaking news:
Trump Organization attorneys given Monday deadline to persuade prosecutors not to file charges against it
Get the popcorn ready.
trollhattan
@dmsilev:
That wraps my brain around its spindle (yup, checked and I have one) Trump is giving the Trump attorneys until Monday to fix everything?
And if charges are filed on, say, Wednesday, Trump no longer has attorneys?
LiminalOwl
@Immanentize: Good to see you back! Please get in touch if you have time. (WaterGirl, feel free to give Im my email if he wants it; thanks.)
dmsilev
@trollhattan: The prosecutors in NY are giving TrumpCo attorneys until tomorrow to respond to a ‘why shouldn’t we criminally charge you?’ homework assignment.
Benno
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: This! I got the Sputnik while overseas for work and have not found one doctor back in the states willing to give me an opinion on whether I should (or it’s safe to) get jabbed again now that I’m back in the states. I’m just glad to hear somebody has gotten multiples and not become some terrible kind of x-man.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I understand this. I was stating the population of Israeli citizens. And I know that this counts 600,000 Israeli citizens living in the occupied West Bank.
There are plenty of good arguments to be made against Israeli policies. And some arguments can be made against it’s existence as a Zionist state. But we might as well make the arguments from an accurate base of facts.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Benno:
I’ve been a little disappointed that I didn’t turn into Magneto or Deadpool.
Didn’t get the fancy 5G cable package either.
Robert Sneddon
The UK currently has vaccination rates of over 60% of adults fully (2-dose) vaccinated and approaching 85% having received at least one dose (well over 95% of people aged 60 and over are fully vaccinated). We’ve also got a shitload of new cases being reported each day right now in a third wave of infection, ten times the rate compared to only a few weeks ago. This third wave is due to the Delta variant of COVID-19 which is, according to the boffins at COVID HQ, making up about 95% of all new cases detected.
Hospitalisations and deaths are well down given the corresponding numbers of cases compared to the second wave of the past winter. This is probably attributable to the high vaccination rate which is suppressing the worst effects of the disease in sufferers even though the Delta variant is significantly more transmissible than the original COVID-19 virus and the earlier common variants like Alpha.
It appears that high vaccination rates stop the Delta variant from seriously impacting people’s health statistically speaking although some individuals will suffer badly and even die from its effects. My uninformed speculation is that lower vaccination rates will mean higher numbers of serious cases as Delta spreads and becomes the dominant variant in any given country or region.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: How do you persuade prosecutors not to file charges against you?
Say “pretty please”?
Matt McIrvin
@Robert Sneddon: The map of vaccination in the UK fascinates me:
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#vaccinations
in that it’s the opposite of the US pattern: the lowest vaccination rates are in cities, presumably because it’s limited by supply and access rather than by demand suppressed by deranged politics.
The only places where you see that pattern in the US are some poor, minority-heavy urban areas with blue-state surroundings.
Glen Tomkins
@debbie: The only means we have to slow the rate at which the virus generates more variants like delta that are better adapted to infecting humans, is to deny it as many human petri dishes as we can. The only two means we have to deny it fresh human petri dishes is to get people vaccinated, and to do more rigid social distancing.
Humans don’t have as a viable option outrunning the virus by making ourselves run faster in terms of mutations successful at resisting the virus with biological abilities we are born with. We can only adapt at the high speeds necessary to outrun the more genetically nimble coronavirus if we use biologic and social engineering as noted above, vaccines and social distancing.