As a recent medical grad, I think asymptomatic spread is complete bullshit. When you are asymptomatic, it means that your viral load is low and having a high viral load is what makes you infectious.
Think HIV, where the viral load is measured regularly to see if your HIV is under control. With an undetectable viral load, your ability to infect someone else is far under 1%. Coronavirus is still a virus and thus still operates by the standard framework of virology and medicine, so it would still follow these basic principles.
Isn’t HIV a perfect example of asymptomatic transmission? There are drugs that can lower the viral load, but there are also those from early during epidemic that only helped ease symptoms. There were many times people were not exhibiting symptoms yet they were spreading the virus at incredibly high rates. I’m not claiming to be a doctor but I think you are misunderstanding the relationship between viral load and symptoms…
HIV is different because it doesn't cause you to have a cough, or fairly visible symptoms, instead it shreds your CD4 count and makes you immunosuppressed. This is why many people can have high viral loads and while themselves and others are not be able to tell that they are sick.
Because it would manifest by them having a higher chance of getting things like lymphadenopathy (hard to detect sometimes), diarrhea (non specific, some people would brush it off), and things like candidal infections (it is natural flora but our immune system keeps it under control, unless you are immunosuppressed)
The other big one is body aches. How many people have chronic body aches? This is why you can technically be having symptoms but not have them be severe enough to catch your attention. - this is what people may call asymptomatic, but the likely reality is that they are not aware of their symptoms bc HIV can be "low key".
isn't the whole basis for these vaccines is that they suppress the symptoms?
I don't know what to trust anymore - some doctors saying the vaccines are supposed to be priming your body's immunity system to respond to the infection.
Okay, if that's so than your body shouldn't be tolerating any significant viral load without triggering an immune response.
So in theory the "inactivated" spike protein in the vaccines is what primes your body to create antibodies to it, leading to some type of immunity.
The main issue I have is that increased blood clots, myocarditis, etc - the biggest adverse effects of the vaccines so far seem to be things that are related to the spike protein itself. So completely inactivated? - doesn't look like it at all. Another scary thing is that there is evidence the spike protein can cross the blood brain barrier. It should not be doing that and could be contributing to things like cerebral venous thrombosis, strokes and covid/vaccine "brain fog".
but if that was the case, you shouldn't be seeing vaccinated people with any significant viral loads right? I mean if the immune system is primed to recognize the infection, it should be yeeting the virus immediately and not allowing any build up - or am I misunderstanding this?
As a recent medical grad, I think asymptomatic spread is complete bullshit. When you are asymptomatic, it means that your viral load is low and having a high viral load is what makes you infectious.
Think HIV, where the viral load is measured regularly to see if your HIV is under control. With an undetectable viral load, your ability to infect someone else is far under 1%. Coronavirus is still a virus and thus still operates by the standard framework of virology and medicine, so it would still follow these basic principles.
Isn’t HIV a perfect example of asymptomatic transmission? There are drugs that can lower the viral load, but there are also those from early during epidemic that only helped ease symptoms. There were many times people were not exhibiting symptoms yet they were spreading the virus at incredibly high rates. I’m not claiming to be a doctor but I think you are misunderstanding the relationship between viral load and symptoms…
Except it’s transmitted by bodily fluids. Even if you don’t have symptoms, you are, ahem, “injecting” your fluids into another person.
With COVID, you are only being exposed to aerosol drops, which don’t occur without coughing or sneezing (symptoms).
Understood the transmission method is different, I’m simply highlighting that viruses can be spread without the host exhibiting symptoms.
HIV is different because it doesn't cause you to have a cough, or fairly visible symptoms, instead it shreds your CD4 count and makes you immunosuppressed. This is why many people can have high viral loads and while themselves and others are not be able to tell that they are sick.
Because it would manifest by them having a higher chance of getting things like lymphadenopathy (hard to detect sometimes), diarrhea (non specific, some people would brush it off), and things like candidal infections (it is natural flora but our immune system keeps it under control, unless you are immunosuppressed)
The other big one is body aches. How many people have chronic body aches? This is why you can technically be having symptoms but not have them be severe enough to catch your attention. - this is what people may call asymptomatic, but the likely reality is that they are not aware of their symptoms bc HIV can be "low key".
Treating people IRL is a different ball game
isn't the whole basis for these vaccines is that they suppress the symptoms?
I don't know what to trust anymore - some doctors saying the vaccines are supposed to be priming your body's immunity system to respond to the infection.
Okay, if that's so than your body shouldn't be tolerating any significant viral load without triggering an immune response.
So in theory the "inactivated" spike protein in the vaccines is what primes your body to create antibodies to it, leading to some type of immunity.
The main issue I have is that increased blood clots, myocarditis, etc - the biggest adverse effects of the vaccines so far seem to be things that are related to the spike protein itself. So completely inactivated? - doesn't look like it at all. Another scary thing is that there is evidence the spike protein can cross the blood brain barrier. It should not be doing that and could be contributing to things like cerebral venous thrombosis, strokes and covid/vaccine "brain fog".
but if that was the case, you shouldn't be seeing vaccinated people with any significant viral loads right? I mean if the immune system is primed to recognize the infection, it should be yeeting the virus immediately and not allowing any build up - or am I misunderstanding this?