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Yes, good thing the Pfizer vaccine isn’t showing significant loss of antibody neutralization against the delta variant, isn’t it? It feels good to be an American 😎
It’s a fall from 95% to 75% effectiveness, which is manageable at least. The phizer vaccine is showing a similar response to the delta variant as it did to the beta variant. The real worry is countries that use the AstraZennica vaccine, because if that responds to the delta variant in the same way it responded to the beta variant, it becomes practically useless with 10% effectiveness (see my other comments in this thread).
Yes, and the key word there is manageable. Although the Pfizer drop off isn’t as bad as for AZ, this aspect isn’t cause for celebration for how the US might fare in the next few months. The recent federal position has implied that the government basically considers Covid to be done and dusted at this point. Sleepy Joe isn’t going to interrupt his hot wet American summer for anything.
The increase in reproduction rate through weakened vaccine response considered in the context of the abandonment of non-pharmaceutical interventions is bad news. Whilst this particular variant might not directly neutralise the Pfizer vaccine, given distancing and masks are now a thing of the past it’s still going to lead to more deaths and also increase the chances of a more effective variant emerging.
Of course it’s still a probability game and maybe we’ll get lucky and we won’t get an escape variant of significance for a long time, but the likelihood is increasing :sadness:
But what’s to say the same thing can’t happen in the USA in the future? As someone that has seen my country turn a shipment of vaccines back due to this, the situation is very volatile globally. The effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine after two does still drops to 75% against the beta and delta variants. Obviously that’s manageable and no where near as bad as 22%, but it still shows how volatile everything is
