‘I’m sorry but it’s too late’ a doctor on treating unvaxxed dying Covid patients | Hacker News Reader

‘I’m sorry but it’s too late’ a doctor on treating unvaxxed dying Covid patients

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Since this is here, I wanted to repost something I shared a few months ago about COVID vaccines (I sincerely hope it helps someone out there).

My brothers Mother in Law died due to COVID, and she got COVID a week after her first vaccination (it was one of the two dose vaccines). I do not know the exact circumstances about how she got it, but I got the impression that she and her husband thought they were "okay" just because they got their first dose.

You are not out of the woods just because you got your first dose COVID vaccine! It will take time for it to take affect, do your research on it!!

This is the study that I first posted that comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26224519

I'm very sorry. Unfortunately that is a misunderstanding that has been common. One is most certainly not immediately protected. It's something of a threshold effect, rather suddenly (over a period of some hours to a couple days) you go from very little to a meaningful level of antibodies. This occurs anywhere from some hours to as much as a couple weeks after vaccination. And of course the second dose re-challenge used in most of the vaccines, improves the strength and durability of the immunization. So yes, please give it a few weeks to do its work.

The Pfizer trial showed strong effects, on the aggregate level, starting 10-15 days after the first dose. Suggesting that mere hours may be sufficient is at best misleading.

Okay? And the Astrazeneca vaccine shows a detectable level of antibodies and possible protection within 24 hours in some people. There are like a dozen COVID-19 vaccines in use right now, all of which likely have slightly different properties in this regard.

Which brings me to the bottom line of my last comment, again. Wait at least several weeks, because there is absolutely no guarantee that would happen for you, or for the particular vaccine you got.

Yeah so sorry to hear that. The effectiveness is 2 weeks after the second dose.

I hope everyone keeps that in mind

And with delta and lambda on the prowl, some strains are becoming vaccine resistant.

Stay safe. Wear masks.

Good reminder that the vaccine does not work right away.

As for vaccine resistant strains, the status is that vaccines are still effective in dealing with known variants.

Here is a study for the Lambda variant and the efficacy of the vaccines.

https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210705/Study-says-mR...

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The ethics of deciding whether to get vaccinated is different than the ethics of whether to wear a helmet or seatbelt too: if you go without a helmet, you will only hurt yourself, and we can still harvest your organs. So go right ahead. But if you refuse to get vaccinated, you could be responsible for the sickness and possible death of hundreds of strangers. So that is really quite immoral.

How does not being vaccinated put anyone else’s life in danger? As far as I am aware, the vaccine does not prevent you from getting or spreading it, only reduces the symptoms drastically.

It absolutely does prevent you from getting it and spreading it. That’s the whole point of herd immunity. It’s the point of vaccines in general. How do you think we got rid of smallpox? People got vaccinated, and it died out. Now there is no such thing as smallpox, so nobody even has to get a smallpox vaccine anymore. We won.. There hasn’t been a case of smallpox since 1978. A disease that killed hundreds of millions, and it’s gone forever. We could do the same to covid.

Usually but not always and it depends on the variant. If you still get it then you are less likely to spread it - https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-ri...

How has that worked out for Influenza? Wiped out yet? We've only been vaccinating for it for 75 YEARS!

We're not likely to wipe out SARS-Co-V2 or similar viruses. Like the flu, "Covid" or some other mutation of the Wuhan virus will most likely be with us for thousands of years.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-ri....

Epidemiology is all about the statistics of infection and transmission.

Being vaccinated greatly reduces the probability you will get infected, and if you do become infected, it greatly reduces the viral load and thus your ability to infect others.

Nothing is perfect, but being vaccinated strongly reduces your chances of a) getting infected in the first place; and then b) thus passing it on to someone else.

It absolutely doesn’t reduce your chances of getting infected.

> Research from the CDC has found that the mRNA vaccines ... reduce the risk of infection by 91 percent in people who are fully vaccinated.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/getting-a-pfizer-or-m...

> A new CDC study provides strong evidence that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections in real-world conditions

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacci...

In my country, the age group that took up the most hospital beds was the 45 - 64 year olds. [1] This is probably true for your country too.

The vaccine will prevent you from being hospitalised and burdening the healthcare system. This will allow cancer diagnosis/treatments, surgery and other life saving procedures to go ahead for other people.

[1] https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker...

Scroll to “ New Hospital Admissions by Age Group” and change to “In Total”.

Ok, so as long as I am not hospitalized with covid I am not putting anyone else’s life in danger. I’m lucky I am in one of the least effected demographics then. Of course no one knows whether or not they’ll have a good response but that’s a risk I’m willing to take based on the data I’ve seen.

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