Is there a source for this data? Anything that starts out with "the data should be interpreted with caution" doesn't exude confidence...
Why do you think that ... Case rates in Iceland are now higher in vaccinated children than unvaccinated? What is the simplest explanation? that does not involve the phrase "global elitists"? Spoiler My guess is that the unvaccinated have recently been infected with Omicron variant and recovered.
Apparently people had the same skeptical reaction last year during the delta variant surge. This Reuters Fact Check explanation from back then probably works for the omicron variant. Here's a long excerpt. Fact Check-COVID-19 cases in Iceland are not proof that vaccines are ineffective https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-iceland-vaccines-idUSL1N2P918F ... Others shared seven-day infection date statistics alongside the vaccine update rate, calling it the Iceland “vaccine failure” ( here ), ( here ), ( here ). However, although the statistics are accurate, the rates are not proof that the vaccines are ineffective at countering symptomatic disease and in a country with high vaccine uptake, a higher positive case rate among those vaccinated versus unvaccinated is expected. “In Iceland, 85.3% of people over 16 years old are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and 4.9% are partially vaccinated. It should therefore not come as a surprise that among new domestic cases, most are vaccinated. Since 9 July, 77% of domestic infections were among vaccinated individuals,” Ásthildur Knútsdóttir, Director General of the Ministry of Health in Iceland told Reuters via email. A Public Health England (PHE) study found both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines effective against hospitalization due to the Delta variant ( here ). According to Director General Knútsdóttir, rates of protection against hospitalization following vaccination in Iceland are comparable with the results of the PHE study. “According to the Chief Epidemiologist, evidence shows that the vaccines used in Iceland protect about 60 percent of those fully vaccinated against any kind of infection caused by the delta variant of the virus and over 90 percent against serious illnesses,” she said. “Currently there are 1072 people in isolation due to COVID-19 in Iceland, ten of which are hospitalised. About 97 percent of those infected have mild or no symptoms,” Knútsdóttir added. This latter statistic is not taken into consideration by the alarmist posts on social media. “The fact that many vaccinated people are testing positive after the vaccine with the delta does not mean the vaccine doesn’t work,” Prof Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine and Associate Division Chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, told Reuters. “Many asymptomatic people are tested after vaccination and, without incorporating cycle threshold assessment in the PCR test or using antigen-based testing, we don’t know if that test is really a “case” or a low viral load result from the vaccine fighting the virus in your nose ( here ),” Gandhi said. “Moreover, we are seeing more mild symptomatic breakthrough infections with the delta variant although protection of the vaccines against severe disease seems very high and enduring. Vaccinated people are more likely to seek testing with symptoms than the unvaccinated so the cases may be overrepresented more in the vaccinated,” she added. There was consensus that the vaccines curbed transmission with the alpha variant. VERDICT Missing context. A graph showing rising case numbers in Iceland is accurate. However, it is not proof that vaccines are ineffective at countering symptomatic disease in the country. Vaccines are also not the cause of rising infections. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.
I am not anti-vaxx. I do think that the older you are/the more risk factors you have, the more you should get vaxxed/boostered, to protect yourself from a severe progression of the disease. However, I read this "fact check" explanation, and really don't understand it. "According to the Chief Epidemiologist, evidence shows that the vaccines used in Iceland protect about 60 percent of those fully vaccinated against any kind of infection" It seems fair to say that that is simply not true.
Yes, I'm pretty sure it meant to say "any kind of known Covid-19 related infection" and not intended to mean literally "any kind of infection" or any kind of coronavirus infection, including future ones. I posted this in response to the tweet you posted stating that case rates in Iceland are now higher in vaccinated children than unvaccinated. This article, I think, shows how that can be misleading.
I also don't think it's true for Covid-19 related infections. I do buy the protection from serious illness...but it barely seems to provide any protection for any reasonable period of time from "getting it". Certainly not 60 %.
I reread the passage I think you were referring to. I was wrong to say all covid-19 related infections. It's just infection caused by delta. Here it is. “According to the Chief Epidemiologist, evidence shows that the vaccines used in Iceland protect about 60 percent of those fully vaccinated against any kind of infection caused by the delta variant of the virus and over 90 percent against serious illnesses. Anyways, I don't understand why you would be skeptical that it protected 60% of Icelanders in this specific manner. And at the same time, I guess you have no problem with the tweet that states that unvaccinated children in Iceland show higher protection from the virus than vaccinated children.
I thought that it is well known that the mRNA vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity. They seem to work fairly well against serious illness, but the protection against infection was initially vastly overstated. I mean, this is extremely anecdotal, but I know so many people who got boostered and still got infected (including myself). If the vaccine actually provided 60 % protection against infection, that would not be the case. Similarly, if you look at Gibraltar, they have a close to 100 % vaccination rate, and yet, they have record incidences. Again, if the story about 60 % protection against infection were true, this would not be the case. Israel - similar.
The 60% refers to the situation in Iceland, but even if it were the case where you live, it does still leave a 40% chance of infection, no? That might explain the anecdotal evidence of seeing so many vaccinated people around you getting infected. Also, the 60% effectiveness would mean a high vaccination rate does not guarantee no or almost no infection cases, especially since new variants will continue to emerge. It would explain your examples of Gibraltar and Israel. But as you probably know, there is strong evidence that vaccination lowers the fatality rate from the virus and the possibility of serious symptoms in the event of infection. It's similar to the flu shot, which I get almost every year. Sometimes I still get sick, but I notice that the symptoms are much milder. However, it doesn't make me disbelieve the flu shot or suspect foul play.
Iceland has been a vaccination success. Why is it seeing a coronavirus surge? A view of downtown Reykjavik in Iceland. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) By Reis Thebault August 15, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT What happened to Iceland? The island nation that has been praised for its coronavirus response and its world-leading vaccination rate is now seeing its highest levels of infection since the start of the pandemic. Just one month after the government scrapped all covid-19 restrictions, masks, social distancing and capacity limits have returned. And U.S. authorities last week warned Americans to stay away. Vaccine opponents have gleefully pointed to Iceland as proof that the shots are a “failure.” But contrary to online misinformation and conspiratorial social media posts, infectious-disease experts say Iceland’s outbreak actually illustrates how effective the vaccines are at preventing the virus’s most severe impacts. Many of the country’s recent infections have occurred among vaccinated people, but they’ve been overwhelmingly mild. So even as new cases multiplied, Iceland’s rates of covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths have remained low. Of the 1,300 people currently infected, just 2 percent are in the hospital. The country hasn’t recorded a virus death since late May. Iceland, the experts say, is providing valuable information about breakthrough infections in the fully inoculated. Yet it also remains a vaccine success story. Without vaccines, Iceland’s outbreak “would be catastrophic,” said Pall Matthiasson, chief executive of the country’s largest hospital. The evidence from Iceland comes at a precarious point in the pandemic. The more contagious delta variant is fueling rising cases in countries that have barely begun to vaccinate their populations, as well as in countries where the pace of inoculation is leveling off. Even highly vaccinated communities have been surprised to find themselves becoming virus hot spots. Spread of delta variant ignites covid hot spots in highly vaccinated parts of the U.S. Iceland stands out as one of the world’s most vaccinated countries, with nearly 71 percent of its population fully inoculated, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. With fewer than 360,000 residents and a nationalized universal health-care system, the country was able to quickly distribute vaccines when the first doses arrived in the final days of last year, and inoculation continued at a rapid pace. Bars in Reykjavik reopened in May after a two-month closure due to the coronavirus. (Haraldur Gudjonsson/AFP/Getty Images) Iceland has also had a sophisticated system for testing, tracing and sequencing the virus since early in the pandemic. That surveillance — the result of a partnership between Iceland’s health department and the Reykjavik-based human genomics company deCODE — led to some of the first important revelations about the way the virus spreads, including that many infected people have no symptoms and that children were less likely than adults to get sick. It continues to provide Iceland a clear picture of what it is facing, in contrast to a country like the United States, which is testing a far smaller share of its population. The mystery of why covid cases in Britain are plummeting Iceland’s leaders thought the country was in a good position when they made a triumphant announcement at the end of June: no more masks, distancing, limits on gatherings or operating hours, and no testing for vaccinated travelers. “We are regaining the kind of society which we feel normal to live in and we have longed for,” Svandis Svavarsdottir, the minister of health, said at the time. Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir added: “The situation here is among the best in the world.” Less than a month later, however, the number of new cases shot up — and kept rising. The country’s top health officials linked most of the cases to nightclubs and to residents who traveled to London to attend Euro 2020 soccer matches that some warned would be “a recipe for disaster.” On June 25, Iceland had recorded just 1.6 new infections per 100,000 people over the previous 14 days. As of Thursday, that number had risen to more than 421, far higher than the country’s previous waves. So much for ‘post-pandemic’ travel. E.U. weighs restrictions on American tourists, while U.S. says avoid Europe. The absolute numbers are still relatively small, but Iceland’s tiny population and low starting point make the recent increase appear particularly sharp. As new coronavirus variants emerge and the longevity of vaccine protection remains unknown, scientists are researching how booster shots could work. (John Farrell/The Washington Post) Adjusted for population, both Iceland and the United States are reporting new cases at clips that rank among the top two dozen countries in the world, but the United States probably has many more infections that are going undetected, because of lower rates of testing. Iceland quickly became a go-to talking point for the anti-vaccine movement. Fox News’s Laura Ingraham aired a segment in which a guest posited that “it’s almost as if the vaccine invited this explosion of cases” in Iceland. Such observations are false, said Philip J. Landrigan, an epidemiologist and the director of Boston College’s Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good. They omit the fact that the vaccines are “providing almost absolute protection against death,” he said. The Iceland outbreak shouldn’t be surprising, Landrigan added. When a high percentage of the population is vaccinated, it’s more likely that the people who test positive are inoculated. “We’ve seen in many places the so-called breakthrough cases, but invariably the rate of serious disease and death is exceedingly low, and that really is the core message here,” he said. Matthiasson, the Icelandic hospital chief executive, said he had not expected this latest upswing in cases, especially when it seemed the country had vanquished the virus. His hospital has been stretched thin, even though it only treats two to three dozen covid-19 patients at once, because it always operates near capacity. Of the 65 virus patients admitted during this wave, he said, 40 percent are unvaccinated — more than four times the overall share of unvaccinated Icelanders. The data is clear, Matthiasson said: “Being vaccinated reduces the likelihood of admission manyfold.” Iceland is also set to become an early test of booster vaccinations. The majority of residents received a two-dose regimen of an mRNA vaccine, mostly the Pfizer shots, but the 53,000 who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson jab should get an additional shot at least eight weeks later, authorities announced. Like the real-world case of Provincetown, Mass., what’s happening in Iceland makes a strong case for continuing targeted mitigation measures, said Brandon Guthrie, an epidemiologist and global health professor at the University of Washington. How Provincetown, Mass., stress-tested the coronavirus vaccine with summer partying and delta The government of Iceland has reinstated mask requirements for some indoor spaces and a 200-person capacity limit, which will both be in place until at least the last week of August. The measures took effect in late July, and the rise of new infections appears to have slowed in recent days. The case of Iceland should also reframe the idea of a successful public health campaign, Guthrie said. “We’ve handicapped ourselves in what the definition of success is,” he said. Scientists originally hoped for vaccines that were 50 percent effective, he said, and the goal was to prevent death and severe disease — not to provide blanket protection against any chance of infection. “The goal line has been shifted here because they are so effective, especially with the earlier variants,” Guthrie said. “Having few deaths or severe cases of illness in the context of large surges should absolutely be seen as at least a partial victory.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d88d04-fabd-11eb-911c-524bc8b68f17_story.html
Well well well, the tide is turning. I’m a big fan of the horse dewormer, got myself a big stash. For you haters here, too bad.
cancun cruz and seven other retrumplican senators support criminals disrupting airline flights because they don't want to wear masks... Cruz, other GOP senators oppose no-fly list for convicted unruly passengers They say it would be wrong to treat those against mask-wearing like terrorists. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cruz-gop-senators-oppose-fly-list-convicted-unruly/story?id=82907388
