{"id":33708,"date":"2021-07-22T16:16:17","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T21:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=33708"},"modified":"2021-07-22T16:16:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T21:16:17","slug":"noir-wordplay-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/07\/22\/noir-wordplay-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Noir Wordplay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back when I first learned about vaccines, umpteen decades ago, we were taught that a vaccine <em>immunized<\/em> one from infection by a pathogen, and that was more or less full-stop, at least for us non-medical types.<\/p>\n<p>Now we&#8217;re talking about <em>breakthrough infections<\/em>, which are the occurrence of an infection in a person fully vaccinated against <strong>Covid-19<\/strong>, and, well, this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen you hear about a breakthrough infection, that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the vaccine is failing,\u201d [Dr. Anthony] Fauci said. \u201cIt\u2019s still holding true [i.e., working], particularly with regard to protection against severe disease leading to hospitalization and deaths.\u201d<em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/science\/2021\/07\/21\/covid-vaccine-breakthrough-infections\/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;wpisrc=nl_most&amp;carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3433385%2F60f84b259d2fda945a1005ab%2F59ee10d9ae7e8a504fd8ecd3%2F32%2F70%2F60f84b259d2fda945a1005ab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>WaPo<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That led me to muse on to how there are three domains to think about here:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>Infection<\/em>, where your cells are successfully invested by the pathogen.<\/li>\n<li><em>Infectiousness<\/em>, in which the pathogen is successfully using your cells to reproduce, mutate, and spread to its next victim.<\/li>\n<li><em>Disease<\/em>, which is the symptoms, from sniffle to death, that is experienced by the victim as a consequence of infection. [My thanks to Dr. Harriett Hall for the difference between infection and disease; I&#8217;ve lost the relevant link.]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Success<\/em> is a spectrum word here, where success can range from just a little bit of success penetrating the cells targeted by the pathogen, all the way to optimal penetration and subversion of their function to the pathogen&#8217;s purposes. The ability to reproduce and infect another host seems to correlate, at least in <strong>Covid<\/strong>, with the success of the infection; so, it appears, does disease.<\/p>\n<p>All of this leads to this useless bit of word play:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Vaccines lead to sickly infections.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sure, go ahead. Wrap your mind around that one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back when I first learned about vaccines, umpteen decades ago, we were taught that a vaccine immunized one from infection by a pathogen, and that was more or less full-stop, at least for us non-medical types. Now we&#8217;re talking about breakthrough infections, which are the occurrence of an infection in \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/07\/22\/noir-wordplay-4\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33710,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33708\/revisions\/33710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}