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Comment by littlestymaar | Hacker News Reader

> I don’t think people are paying enough attention to Delta

In the US probably. In Europe Delta has been followed closely even in mainstream media for at least a month.

In the US the Delta variant has been in the news non-stop for months.

Once the vaccines began bringing the pandemic under control here, the Delta variant as the new big risk is what the news media began focusing on heavily. That began shortly after case counts exploded dramatically higher in India and gained coverage the further it spread around the globe.

The Netherlands has a decent vaccination rate (38.5% fully vaccinated, something like 66% has received their first shot). The delta variant is wreaking havoc here. The number of cases went from 500 to 10 000 in 3 weeks... Yes this coincided with very poor decision making on the government side (deciding to open all clubs/bars for people who had a negative tests), but still something to be taken serious.

So far the # of hospitalizations have stayed low, but if the delta variant continues to spread through groups of people who have been reluctant to vaccinate, this might change.

> wreaking havoc

> the # of hospitalizations have stayed low

Who shall I believe?

Check back in a week ;)

The spike in cases is very recent, most hospitalizations occur between 3-10 days of onset. [1] reports 31 hospitalizations yesterday (preliminary), a 3-fold increase over last-week's average.

[1] https://coronadashboard.rijksoverheid.nl/landelijk/ziekenhui...

5 deaths yesterday, for reference.

I would consider the abrupt cancellation of all festivals that had merely weeks ago been granted permission by the government to go ahead, as well as yet another imposed restriction on horeca to be wreaking havoc.

What will likely come soon is reimposed restrictions on Dutch travelers by other European countries, just as people had been given the go ahead.

The government’s test-for-entry system has also shown itself to be problematic.

It is fantastically disruptive. “Wreaking havoc” is certainly accurate.

And doesn't the delta variant break through the first shot immunity (after a few weeks) but 2nd dose provides durable immunity.

And parts of the use (including my county) have >70% of 2 doses. (parts of) the US are in a completely different place vaccine wise compared to most of europe.

I recognize that the Delta variant is serious topic for much of the world, but as a vaccinated person in the US it feels more like media hysteria than anything else.

As the article states, for vaccinated people, the risk is low and the Delta variant is likely of little concern, especially when cases are as low as they've been since the start of the pandemic here in the US. However, it seems that the media is pushing the Delta variant as a narrative to help get people vaccinated but it's all falling on deaf ears of those who are specifically choosing not to get vaccinated. The stronger media coverage winds up making those who are vaccinated overly concerned about it, when they as protected as they will be from the variant.

For the unvaccinated countries and people, the Delta variant is definitely something to be concerned about. What we should be doing is trying to get vaccines rolled out to as many countries and people as possible, as that's our best tool for getting things under control.

The difference between 95% protective and 88% is more significant than you think if you live in a low vaccinated area. The more exposure to the virus you have the more likely it is you will get infected. It’s the spread we need to concern ourselves with, not just personal protection.

To level set, my comments were mainly targeted at the US coverage of the Delta variant where the vaccination rates are largely due to choice rather than accessibility.

>The difference between 95% protective and 88% is more significant than you think if you live in a low vaccinated area.

..but if I live in a low vaccinated area, the only thing that will help me after getting vaccinated is other people getting vaccinated. Also, the 88% effective rate of the mRNA vaccines against the delta variant is still significantly higher than the non-mRNA vaccines like Astrazeneca against the primary strain. Is 95% better than 88%, sure, but as far as vaccines go 88% is still very effective. The FDA was originally targeting 50-65% effectiveness in their initial approval guidelines.

>It’s the spread we need to concern ourselves with, not just personal protection.

Those two concepts are interlinked. If people are not concerned with personal protection, then it's highly unlikely that they will be concerned about the spread. The best thing to minimize the spread and protect yourself is to get the vaccine. It's that straightforward.

>The more exposure to the virus you have the more likely it is you will get infected

This is the same for everything, not just Covid. As I mentioned, the numbers in the US are very low, so my chance of exposure is already low. In a nation of 330 million people the total number of cases over the last week can fit in a football stadium. In regards to the exposure risk in the US it's fairly minimal.

As a vaccinated person - the risk of dying is quite low. That isn't the only criteria i use to decide if something should concern me.

As a vaccinated person, I've never really paid much thought to other diseases that could make me, at worst, mildly ill. One may have to enlighten me as to why this one should be different from, say, influenza in my day to day activities at this point.

My current thinking is for the unvaccinated, its a terrible thing not to be able to take advantage of the vaccine and I tend to wear masks even being vaccinated because of this.

I initially thought that all the vaccine refusenics were politically motivated but I've revised that after actually talking to some folks about why they don't want it.

Still even with me still masking up in many situations, its probably a futile gesture on my part as not many folks share this view. Probably at this point my actions are more symbolic than anything else.

The background reasons for not wanting to get vaccinated are not medically indicated. Unless you have a PEG allergy (which means you need to get Janssen instead of Pfoderna) the CDC has zero contraindications for the vaccine.

If somebody doesn't want the vaccine, that's on them. I have family members who won't get vaccinated and will give you a shopping list of reasons why they "can't". They're all bullshit.

I do feel frustrated with the vaccine hesitancy but I'm finding that folks fears are real, if not completely rational.

I would think that a straightforward comparison of the risks of getting vaccination versus getting infected would be enough, but I also understand that sometimes fears are simply not based on rational thought.

In my case, one aspect of wearing a big scary kn95 mask is my way of reminding the unvaccinated that this virus is still around, heh maybe thats me being a bit of a pain by intruding into folks fantasy of the virus not being a thing anymore.

Right now, my county of residence has a vaccination rate of under 40 percent among folks 60 years or older and thats crazy, but cases have been at zero for a bit. I'm thinking that this won't last, and this county I live in is a giant target for the delta variant. I hope wearing a big ugly mask about town might remind folks that covid19 is still a thing to think about.

I think major reasons in general are personal understanding of one's religion, distrust in pharma companies, distrust in media and health institutions, and reported adverse effects of vaccines (clots, heart inflammation, long-COVID like symptoms, even deaths).

These are very real reasons. You may not put much weight on those personally but many people do.

>You may not put much weight on those personally but many people do.

And that is fine. I have no real moral issue with people not getting vaccinated. I also don't care if they get sick or if they can't ever leave their houses again.

Sitting here in my house with my thumb up my ass until 2027 waiting for the entire world to die, get covid, or eradicate it is not an acceptable tradeoff for me. More people die of acute lead poisoning from gun violence in my city every day than die of covid. It certainly doesn't stop me from leaving the house out of fear of getting shot.

Many possible responses, but I'll stick to one.

Because it isn't just about you. This is a public health matter that is a different situation. We have a rapidly decreasing chance of making this NOT be the next influenza, killing many people every year. This thing, in theory, could have been basically stopped by now, regionally at the very least, but folks want to party and go to restaurants and can't be bothered to get a vaccine.

I'm very glad you got the vaccine. If everyone who could get it did get it, then (at least in the U.S. where it's free and available everywhere) we'd probably be at herd immunity by this point and this would be in the rearview mirror. Then do that for the rest of the globe before variants get too out of hand, wasting all of the previous effort.

At this point it will probably have to be considered endemic like other coronavirus that circulate like colds. Eradicating it is unlikely to happen.

There are plenty of other factors in determining concern including one's individual risk factors. But there's also a difference between concern and fear. Unfortunately I've seen people who are vaccinated express fear and reluctance to participate in normal activities with other vaccinated individuals due to the Delta variant. If we're looking for zero risk from Covid, we won't be finding it for years.

So you would advise those people not to fear the Delta variant, because catching it is inevitable, and probably won't kill you?

I would advise people to get vaccinated, as that's the best protection against all strains of COVID and the best chance for the pandemic to be brought to an end.

I'm not sure why you seem so insistent that I should be fearing the Delta variant, but if you're convinced that you should, then by all means.

I mean, thank you for demonstrating

Can't everybody get vaccinated in the US unlike the EU where you have to wait for your turn and can't buy vaccines? That would explain the difference

In the EU for major countries you can get vaccinated any time, it's the same reasons as in the US some people just don't want to.

What major countries? I live in Spain and in most regions people under 30 still can't get vaccinated.

According to a few news sources, those in their twenties can now get vaccinated in Catalonia, Canary Islands, Castilla-La Mancha, Baleares/Navarra, and Madrid.

I don't know how accurate that is. It may depend on where/how you book the vaccine. I'm in my 40s and live in Madrid, and only got my first dose last week in the local health center rather than a large vaccine hub, because it hasn't been very well advertised. I assumed I still wasn't eligible.

You should just try booking a vaccine, worst that can happen is the system won't let you.

Right now in Germany vaccines are available in abundance, just today Berlin opened a Drive-In Vaccination Center at a furniture store and at Vaccination Centers in Saxony appointments are not needed anymore [1].

[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/newsticker/liveblog-coronavirus-di...

I've been able to book a time for vaccination for weeks now but the first free time wasn't until the end of July.

We're also about 7.75% ahead of the US when it comes to the percentage of the total population who has gotten their first dose, with the trend still being upwards. So I'd say that the problem isn't really willingness.

It's a bit more complicated. In France vaccination has only been open to everyone one month ago, (and those people − including me − only had one dose so far) and in the UK the waiting time between the first and second dose is roughly twice higher than in most countries, which means there's still a significant fraction of the population that just can't get fully vaccinated yet (my brother must wait another month before getting his second shot).

Some regions fast forwarded the government given the prevalent hesitancy among vulnerable populations.

Here it was open to everyone 2 months ago.

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