Changing the quarantine

[Mik]

What's odd is that you only have to quarantine for five days, but you have to wear a mask for five more.

[LuFins Dad]

@jolly said in Changing the quarantine:

Bottom Line?

We're fucked, vaccination status irrelevant. Vaccine effectiveness against Omicron looks to be only 70%, at best.

I thought 70% was supposed to be really good? The J&J vaccine was hailed as a game changer at 70% efficacy?

[Jolly]

J&J was around 66% at preventing COVID infection, with another 30% claimed mild symptoms. That's single shot.

Moderna and Pfizer were around 94%. They're only about 70% against Omicron.

[LuFins Dad]

@jolly said in Changing the quarantine:

J&J was around 66% at preventing COVID infection, with another 30% claimed mild symptoms. That's single shot.

Moderna and Pfizer were around 94%. They're only about 70% against Omicron.

Right, when J&J came out the general public acted disappointed that it was so low in efficacy, but a whole bunch of epidemiologists came out telling us that 66% was really good, and the facts that it only needed a single dose and no special handling meant it would have a huge global impact.

So set scoff at 70% now? Though I assume that 70% is recently boosted? Which would put the unboosted somewhere around 2%?

[Doctor Phibes]

I’m only a humble engineer, but 70% sounds a lot better than 0%

[89th]

@doctor-phibes said in Changing the quarantine:

I’m only a humble engineer, but 70% sounds a lot better than 0%

I was about to say, I'd take 10%. Or 70, or 90.

[Axtremus]

@lufins-dad said in Changing the quarantine:

I thought 70% was supposed to be really good? The J&J vaccine was hailed as a game changer at 70% efficacy?

The J&J's "game changer" moniker came not from its 70% efficacy but from it's logistical simplicity -- J&J vaccine was thought to require only "one shot" (as opposed to "two shots" like Pfizer and Moderna), and J&J vaccine can be stored/transported at higher temperatures than Pfizer/Moderna -- these two factors were expected to make the J&J vaccine's distribution, storage, and administration a lot easier, especially for poorer countries. A lot of that "game changer" talk happened before the 70% efficacy number came out, and the "game changer" talk has died down quite a bit since.

With the original SARS-CoV-2's transmissibility, "70%" is actually not that bad, especially if 100% of the population take the vaccines. But two things happened: less than 70% of the US population want to be vaccinated (so 70% x 70% = 49%; too low for herd immunity); then Delta and now Omicron came along, their increased transmissibility raised the threshold for herd immunity.

So the J&J vaccine is not longer getting much love, and the US government has since advise those who received only one shot of J&J to go get another shot.

[Jolly]

I don't think herd immunity exists with COVID.

[LuFins Dad]

@jolly said in Changing the quarantine:

I don't think herd immunity exists with COVID.

Not without a monthly shot with the current vaccines. The Walter Reed and other vaccines still in development may yet change that story. Of course, COVID may have evolved into the common cold by the time they arrive.

[Mik]

You can get pretty much anything you want. I've had 3 Pfizers and am considering a Moderna.

[George K]

Ah, Dr. Fauci explains.

It's about keeping society functioning.

Economics is a science, right?

[LuFins Dad]

You have got to be freaking kidding me.

[Mik]

So to keep people from missing work we shortened the quarantine? Show me the math.

[Jolly]

Math.

Shirley, you jest.

[Mik]

[George K]

(Correction: Great Britain dropped it to 7 days with a negative test)

[Mik]

In other words, there is no agreement and no standard.

[George K]

@mik

[Copper]

You have got to be freaking kidding me.

[Jolly]

@mik said in Changing the quarantine:

Same reason the NFL has shortened things up. The spectre of some really good teams getting whacked by ten day quarantines was too much to bear...It's all about the