Quote:There is no significant difference in COVID-19 viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, symptomatic or asymptomatic, who test positive for the virus, according to a new study out of UC Davis.

Because higher viral loads may make the virus more transmissible to others, the abstract for the pre-print article — which has not yet been peer reviewed — is blunt: “Given the substantial proportion of asymptomatic vaccine breakthrough cases with high viral levels, interventions, including masking and testing, should be considered for all in settings with elevated COVID-19 transmission.”

That message is not really new for this community, where masking is universal indoors and Healthy Davis Together has been urging weekly asymptomatic testing for everyone for many months. But it underscores the message Davis residents have been hearing for a while and one the researchers hope will be spread more widely: “The data gathered in this study during the surge of the Delta variant strongly support the notion that neither vaccine status nor the presence or absence of symptoms should influence the recommendation and implementation of good public health practices” including masking and testing.

“We really wanted to focus on this public health message, which is that our data show there are a lot of asymptomatic people that have high viral loads, there are a lot of vaccinated people that have high viral loads and there are kids that have high viral loads,” said David Coil, a project scientist with the UC Davis Genome Center and one of the study’s authors.

Coil noted that there are misconceptions that children aren’t necessarily spreading the virus or that if someone is vaccinated and not showing symptoms they’re fine, “but the fact that we see really high viral loads in all these different populations suggests that public health messaging should be more universally applied.”

That public health messaging, however, varies around the state. Some counties, like Yolo, require everyone to wear masks in indoor public places regardless of vaccination status. Other counties require masks only for unvaccinated individuals.

The COVID-19 vaccines provide excellent protection against infection, severe illness, hospitalization and death, but breakthrough cases among vaccinated individuals do occur.

There had been speculation that fully vaccinated individuals with those breakthrough infections, particularly asymptomatic infections, might have lower viral loads and thus be less likely to transmit the virus to others.

Thanks to the enormous volume of asymptomatic testing done in Yolo County via Healthy Yolo Together — including among children — researchers had a wealth of data to look at in determining whether that was the case.

The researchers actually looked at data from two distinct populations: a community-based testing site in the Mission District in San Francisco and Healthy Yolo Together testing through UC Davis.

Data was collected from individuals who voluntarily sought COVID-19 testing from June 17 to Aug. 31 and a total of 869 positive samples were used — 500 from Healthy Yolo Together and 369 from the Mission District site.

All of the HYT samples were from asymptomatic individuals and 75 percent of the positive samples were from unvaccinated individuals. Samples from the San Francisco site were from both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals.

The findings: “In our study, mean viral loads… were similar for large numbers of asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals infected with SARS-Cov-2 during the Delta surge, regardless of vaccine status, age or gender.”

Coil cautioned that a higher viral load doesn’t necessarily equate directly to transmissibility. And research done elsewhere has indicated that the viral load in vaccinated individuals may drop much more quickly than in unvaccinated individuals.

That said, “there’s a good correlation between how much virus we can detect and how much virus a person is likely to be shedding,” said Coil.

“A transmission event requires a certain number of things to happen and the more virus particles that are in play, the more likely that is to happen,” he added. “Someone has to breathe in some as-of-yet-unknown amount of virus to establish an infection, so the more a person is shedding, the more probable that outcome becomes.”

Not addressed in the data is the fact that vaccinated individuals are highly protected against even getting the virus to begin with.

“Yes, we see the same amount of virus in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, but the probability of any given person getting infected isn’t the same,” Coil noted.

The bottom line: “Mask requirements shouldn’t be just based on symptoms and vaccination status because someone that is vaccinated or asymptomatic or both may still be shedding a significant amount of virus and a mask would dramatically limit their ability to do so,” said Coil.

Likewise, testing.

“There’s just a lot of people who carry the infection asymptomatically and they have comparably high viral loads to people who are symptomatic,” he said.

“Again, we don’t know that that results in a comparable rate of transmission; probably not, just because if one of your symptoms is coughing, coughing is a really good way to eject viral particles out in the air. When you’re asymptomatic and just breathing, you’re probably doing less of that. But you still have a lot of virus replicating in your upper respiratory tract that you could be shedding. So I think this highlights the importance and need for testing, because you can’t just wait for symptoms. Everybody should be testing regularly.”

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Pretty much what most of the intelligent people on this forum have been saying for months.

Vaxxed people are spewing covid.

Is it any wonder that covid spikes going on right now are amongst the states with the highest vax rates?

Also, New Zealand is ending their current 7 week long lockdown, as it is proving not to be effecting in stopping the spread.

And yet employers and governments are still actively discriminating against those who refuse the jab because they supposedly are the spreaders.

Seems to be the only spreading going around in this country by the government and media is fertilizer.

Nobody knows anything anymore. We are witnessing technology moving backward for the first time since the fall of Rome.

(10-05-2021 01:00 PM)EverRespect Wrote:  Nobody knows anything anymore. We are witnessing technology moving backward for the first time since the fall of Rome.

now you fully understand the premise of al gore’s internutz…

tech is advancing … it’s the brains that are now mush…

(10-05-2021 01:04 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(10-05-2021 01:00 PM)EverRespect Wrote:  Nobody knows anything anymore. We are witnessing technology moving backward for the first time since the fall of Rome.

now you fully understand the premise of al gore’s internutz…

tech is advancing … it’s the brains that are now mush…

Aside from iPhones, tech isn't advancing at all. We are no closer to artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc than when they first promised it in the 80s and they still haven't built a better robot than the one that appeared in Rocky IV. Our jets and carriers don't work or last like the used to. Not to mention all our shite is getting hacked. Medicine is indeed moving backward. Not only is everyone fat and sick with mental health issues, but they can't even make a vaccine that works anymore. Also curious how lung cancer rates are going up since they shamed everyone out of smoking. And finally, we clearly forgot how to build quality buildings.