Covid-19 response

Or is it that they mainly prevent you from becoming seriously ill with it?

My sister was hospitalised with it despite being fully vaccinated and now suffers from long Covid, but she's convinced that if she hadn't been vaccinated she'd have died.
Likewise. Death might have been a possibility instead of an unpleasant hospital stay for any of us admitted to hospital. We can never know for sure but I’m glad I’d had all my jabs and feel it more than likely lessened the severity, enough that death wasn’t on the cards.
 
Please clarify your statement “a vaccinated person will still show a positive test regardless” - of what?
I mean, if a vaccine doesn't stop infection (which I thought was the usual way they work -- e.g they instead help fight infection after it enters the body) then even the vaccinated will still test positive (for active or inactive virus) if they contract the virus.
 
To prevent infection you'd need antibodies in the mucus of your nose and lungs, and you're not going to keep those for very long even for an infection which you've had that way.
Interestingly, Fauci said something similar not long ago. That the flaw with the current mrna vaccines is that they don't provide the protection where needed for a respiratory virus e.g in the upper mucosal pathways. He said future ncov vaccines would need to be more focussed on the respiratory mucosa.

 
Interestingly, Fauci said something similar not long ago. That the flaw with the current mrna vaccines is that they don't provide the protection where needed for a respiratory virus e.g in the upper mucosal pathways. He said future ncov vaccines would need to be more focussed on the respiratory mucosa.

Yes, and they also note that it's hard. And now much of the money's gone, and we have these very effective mRNA vaccines (and others like Novavax) so there's strong competition for new vaccines.

I'm sure there's some demand for vaccines that don't require injections and I'm sure there'd be demand for vaccines that could more effectively protect against infection for various respiratory viruses, but companies have to balance that against the risks of trying to produce such things (in that there's no certainty that they'll succeed).
 
I mean, if a vaccine doesn't stop infection (which I thought was the usual way they work -- e.g they instead help fight infection after it enters the body) then even the vaccinated will still test positive (for active or inactive virus) if they contract the virus.
Err yes if you have the virus in your body you will test positive whether you’ve been vaccinated or not. Did you really think a vaccinated person couldn’t test positive? I think your question is more about can a vaccinated person have the virus in their body in the first place, and yes they can.

Vaccines are thought to be sterilizing (100% effective at preventing infection in everyone) by many, including yourself apparently, but in reality that’s hardly ever true. Even the measles vaccine isn’t perfect despite its great success. Nor was the smallpox one. And this misconception is a large part of why so many rail against the covid vaccines, because they dont understand how they are actually expected to work. This article is an oversimplification but might explain it better than I will tempt to. https://www.theatlantic.com/science...izing-immunity-myth-covid-19-vaccines/620023/

What they do is prime the immune system. Sometimes enough to fight off the first viral particle it finds (as we’d like every vaccine to do in a perfect world) and entirely prevent the infection taking hold in the body - thus giving a negative test, sometimes it takes a bit longer and some reproduction takes place, and sometime long enough to actually allow the infection to take hold and result in disease/infection to some degree or another but the body’s immune system will usually still react faster and better than without that priming of the system. Certain diseases and medications can block vaccines working as they should eg immunosuppressants. Different vaccines are closer to the ideal than others and it will also vary person to person as well, depending on their health of their immune system and the amount of exposure etc etc.
 
I always believed the purpose of a vaccine is to provide the body with the 'blueprint' for a virus so that when it encounters the real thing it will recognise it and the immune system response will be faster than if it had never seen the virus before, but I accept that that's a layman's understanding and it's probably more complicated than that.
 
I always believed the purpose of a vaccine is to provide the body with the 'blueprint' for a virus so that when it encounters the real thing it will recognise it and the immune system response will be faster than if it had never seen the virus before, but I accept that that's a layman's understanding and it's probably more complicated than that.
It sounds pretty accurate in simple terms to me. And the “better” it is the faster it reacts to a virus but none are perfect consistently.
 
if you have the virus in your body you will test positive whether you’ve been vaccinated or not.
Then we agree. How then would we expect vaccination to put an end to positive tests, the basis of the televised test/pandemic? We were all treated to 24hrs a day of "case" numbers every day from March 2020 onwards. It seems the issue is testing, not the virus?
 
'Britain's carefully researched battle plan was binned in favour of more draconian and — as events have proved — more destructive measures to close down national life,' Professor Robert Dingwall

 
How then would we expect vaccination to put an end to positive tests,
We didn’t. We expected it to reduce the number of positives tests/infections and to make those that did happen less severe.

Cases were positive results. Positive results mean the infection was in the body. And I’m not sure how you’ve managed to turn vaccines into your usual “cases” debate. Although every vaccine is hoped to block all infection we’ve just discussed how they don’t, and what they do achieve. We’ve endlessly discussed “cases”. It seems you’re happy to ignore all that and keep reverting to square one of your questions/problems.

The issue is you not understanding what these things actually mean
 
'Britain's carefully researched battle plan was binned in favour of more draconian and — as events have proved — more destructive measures to close down national life,' Professor Robert Dingwall

can I borrow your Time Machine please? You seem to be able to predict alternative futures and pasts without having experienced them.
 
can I borrow your Time Machine please? You seem to be able to predict alternative futures and pasts without having experienced them.
You've answered your own question. Neither did they (have a time machine), but instead of choosing the sensible option of advising those who are sick to stay at home and shield the vulnerable, they locked everyone in. Devastating the economy for generations. They knew at the time the effects of what they were doing.
 
You've answered your own question. Neither did they (have a time machine), but instead of choosing the sensible option of advising those who are sick to stay at home and shield the vulnerable, they locked everyone in. Devastating the economy for generations. They knew at the time the effects of what they were doing.
Sensible in your opinion. A lot disagree(d). Many of which were a lot more qualified and expert than you, or me.

And again without that Time Machine you don’t know what the results of doing so much less, as you suggest, would have been for lives, long term health or the economy. We already did what you suggest and more yet the deaths and long term health effects are pretty dire even so. Doing less would make them worse still.
 
If you don’t catch the virus - because of the vaccine - you can’t pass on what you don’t have. Earlier in the pandemic the vaccines were a lot more effective against catching it at all then they’ve ended up being with later variants
 
Not in my opinion. Of course it's sensible to advise those with symptoms, coughing and sneezing to stay at home.
Sigh. It’s your opinion that that precaution alone would have been enough. (And yes I know there are others that agree with you as well as the many that don’t).

No one said it wasn’t a sensible precaution in and of itself, more that it wasn’t enough alone in the opinion of many many more. Can I word it say it more times any clearer?
 
If you don’t catch the virus - because of the vaccine - you can’t pass on what you don’t have.
There was also some evidence that vaccinated people cleared the infection a little earlier. I imagine that effect reduced after repeated infections (for the survivors of repeated infections, that is), but early on I remember there being some opinion (and some evidence, I think) that people who'd been vaccinated were (on average) safer to be around.
 
There was also some evidence that vaccinated people cleared the infection a little earlier. I imagine that effect reduced after repeated infections (for the survivors of repeated infections, that is), but early on I remember there being some opinion (and some evidence, I think) that people who'd been vaccinated were (on average) safer to be around.
I agree. The vaccinated were/are slightly less infectious than non vaccinated according to the evidence I saw. And almost added that information to my post, but honestly thought it would just open another repetitive can of worms.
 
And almost added that information to my post, but honestly thought it would just open another repetitive can of worms.
Sure, and I'm not at all sure how strong those factors are. I think the basic problem is that transmission is hard to measure observationally or experimentally (ethically, anyway), so there was (and still is) lots of uncertainty.

And there was (and is) lots of rather confused public health messaging. The idea that venues (including workplaces) would accept either being vaccinated or a negative test that morning doesn't really make a whole lot of sense (and adding the option of having recovered from infection within a few months doesn't help). Nor is it the case that hand hygiene is significant for this virus (it's generally important for public health, but just not that important for this virus, whatever UKHSA and others like to say, as far as I'm aware anyway).
 
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