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Reb E- you got that backwards.if the vaccine worked we wouldn’t be masking up again
@rightwriter Are you intentionally avoiding my responses to your questions? Like how COVID is nothing like the flu?
Antibodies are a fine substitute to the vaccine. But you can’t expect everyone to have antibodies, so those who haven’t had COVID in some time (three months I think they say) need to get the shot.
“three months I think they say”
Actually, 12-18. So far.
@syag-lchochma and @rightwriter The studies that showed a years worth of immunity from a COVID-19 infection also say that it’s not nearly as effective against Delta. Furthermore, a lot of people I know who don’t want to get immunized because they have antibodies were tested positive for antibodies months ago and never actually showed COVID symptoms nor tested positive at any point. There’s no telling when antibodies wear out in those cases.
> Actually, 12-18. So far.
I don’t want to out anybody, but if you have 18 months of antibodies, you probably worked in the Wuhan lab or worked at the proverbial wet market butchering ferrets.
I quoted before a paper that estimates that vaccine works better than prior infection. I would not say that paper is 100% convincing, but those who claim opposite, should bring their sources.
YS > lot of people I know who don’t want to get immunized because they have antibodies were tested positive for antibodies months ago and never actually showed COVID symptoms nor tested positive at any point.
non-professional understanding of theory: I think the issue is with T-cell protection. Antibodies are very specific and may be less effective with new variants. T-cell immunity is not helping with initial infection, but kicks in later to protect against serious disease and are also longer-lasting. T-cells generalize better and should be more protective against variants. Light cases of disease might not generate T-cell protection at all. Vaccines do, and possibly AZ and J&J more than mRNAs.
Bottom line, suggest to them to get one vaccine, with their initial disease working as a prime.
RebE > antibodies might not work for delta variant, whereas the vaccine does.
Seems to be, just talked to a person who relied on previous infection to not vaccinate and just came out of ICU after the second infection. Anecdotes are not data, but those who think the same way please beware.
> How come they never did this with the flu btw? To mandate that everyone gets the vaccine?
a good comparison. Several reasons:
1) Flu natural R0 is 1.3, COVID 2+ for the Wuhan original, and 4+ for Delta.
2) Flu a- and pre-symptomatic transmission is not significant (see meta-study below). Thus, if you and your kids just stay home or SD or masked when sick, you won’t transmit
3) Most population has flu antibodies and, thus, only very young and very old/weak are vulnerable
4) Flu vaccines are less effective than COVID
If you multiple these factors together, the difference is hugeEleni Patrozou, MDa,b and Leonard A. Mermel,Does Influenza Transmission Occur from Asymptomatic Infection or Prior to Symptom Onset? 2009
Sorry, 17 months.
I’m not denying the charges of course, but 18 months wasn’t pre pandemic.@rightwriter So the answer to my question is yes. You are just ignoring my response to your flu comparisons.
RW, you keep saying “not effective” while mostly not using numbers, and when you use 97 -> 65, you are not clarifying effective against infection/hospitalization/death. And you are not giving any numbers for natural immunity effectiveness, and no sources for anything. And this is across multiple posts. I gave you some info I found, please reply with more specific data if you want to actually discuss something.
RW> What numbers will I give for natural immunity when they aren’t reporting on them?
It may be google’s fault that you can’t find the numbers (not kidding). Google adapts their algorithms to what you click on – so you get Reuters, and I get Lancet… Here is what I found (all is for pre-Delta):
PCR-based infected people are 80% protected against re-infection, 47% for those over 65. Does not decrease at 6-7 months. [1] similar 83% result for UK medical personnel [2]. comparisons are in both cases with uninfected unvaccinated people with the same demographics. So, other than with older people, previous infection is close to vaccines.
Kentucky residents with previous infections: those of them who were unvaccinated had 2.3 more infections compared with those who were fully vaccinated [3]. So, vaccination provides additional benefit to those who were previously infected
[1] Hansen Assessment of protection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 among 4 million PCR-tested individuals in Denmark in 2020: a population-level observational study, Lancet, March 2021
[2] V Hall Do antibody positive healthcare workers have lower SARS-CoV-2 infection rates than antibody negative healthcare workers? preprint
[2] Alyson M. Cavanaugh, Reduced Risk of Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 After COVID-19 Vaccination — Kentucky, May–June 2021RW > You do realize that reinfection remains a rarity right?
maybe I did not clarify enough. This data is saying that for pre-Delta COVID:
– reinfections is 5-6x less likely than regular infection. [similar, a little lower, to infections among mRNA vaccines that were 10-20 less likely
– reinfections among 65x older is 2x lower than first-time infectionsmore details in the papers. I don’t think you read them, as there are 8 minutes between our posts. It took me longer to process them.
@rightwriter You keep harping on vague statements like “ineffective” and “rare”. Look at the actual numbers as to how effective vaccinations are compared to someone who tested positive for antibodies months ago.
RW, thanks for the sources. The Nature article talks about exactly the issue I mentioned – longer lasting protection from B Cells (that will produce antibodies in the future) that are developed both by (at least) mild Covid cases and vaccine. This is indeed hopeful. They have a caveat that variants might block this production of antibodies.
Healthline refers to the paper “Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals”. This paper shows 97% effectiveness of mRNA vaccines for those without previous infection and 66%(3x) effectiveness for those with previous infection – the author conclude from the latter that there is no benefit of giving vaccines to previously infected. This judgment is made from the world /WHO perspective that it is better to re-allocate vaccines to poor countries.
My note: High effectiveness of both vaccine and previous infection in this paper comparing to the ones I quoted is due to several factors: other papers I quoted defined previous infection as PCR tests given to everyone. This paper use only highly symptomatic cases as “infected” (those who were sick and went to take a test, with %age of positive test varying over time from 5% to 20% – higher than usual testing). Similarly, they measure 2nd infection as people coming for a test. So, these results are for “at least mild symptomatic COVID”. They also do not seem to adjust for demographics, while acknowledging that unvaccinated were younger (39 v 42 average age).
Bottom line: there is support to say that those with a symptomatic mild case have immunity comparable to vaccines. It could be further enhanced by one does of vaccine – unless you want to ethically donate it to 3rd world. Easy cases may be more risky. All of this pre-Delta.
And, of course, none of these papers suggest any benefit of actually not taking a vaccine and waiting for “natural immunity”.
@rightwriter The links you posted confirm that it’s far safer to take the vaccine than to rely on having had COVID a year ago.
YS >it’s far safer to take the vaccine than to rely on having had COVID a year ago
I read this that in first 3-6 months and with an at least mild case, and with the same variant, having COVID provides reasonable protection. Significant exception: people over 65, where vaccines are 3x better. And that those who had COVID, one vaccine adds further 3x protection, making it comparable with mRNA vaccine by my count. So, seems like at least one vaccine for older people should be recommended.
Both protections decline with time and with change of variant, we are just finding out. Decline is more in transmission (antibodies) than in protection against serious disease (T- and B-cells)
It is possible that COVID provides longer protection against same variant, but it seems likely that vaccine provides better protection against variants.
RW > first of all the article said that people who had covid likely develop antibodies for most of their life.
RW, I think I see why we disagree. This is a very complicated issue and changing over time. you seem to read popular articles where reporters digest research papers for us. This is often fine. When we know a lot about, say, flu, and a new article about flu comes out and adds one more item about it, a popular article would easily explain it to us. Here we have research papers done very quickly, often preprints, sometimes written in a hurry, that address multiple issues. Your healthline reporter will have to simplify to make it readable, even presuming he understood the article.
If you click on the actual research paper, you will see that the paper does not say what you just said. I tried to summarize what the paper say. I may be mistaken also.
RW > there is no test to determine variants. They just assume that the people getting sick got the variants
there are tests for variants. They are done on a random sample of collected samples.
ourworldofdata, for example, has statistics of variants by country and time.RW > everyone would have gotten reinfected by now.
RW, you are appealing to (your own) emotions. You first find articles that uncover problems with vaccines, then you find other articles that talk about immunity from COVID. And then you combine these two stories without knowing how they align.
I quoted articles that compare people under same conditions – some with vaccines, some with COVID.
RW > Second of all noone said you should try to get covid we are discussing if you already had covid after the fact and you now have natural antibodies.
I agree, nobody wants to experiment with getting COVID to prevent it in the future. Then, for practical applications, the question is not – is vaccine protection better or worse than having COVID, BUT for a person who had COVID, should they take a vaccine?
from the papers, it seems that ONE mRNA vaccine decreases infection chances by 3x. While one paper dismisses it, but I am not sure why. The argument might be if you want to donate this vaccine to the poor countries.
rightwriter, the “vaccines” are losing their eficacy according to the CDC themselves. That’s why they are recommending masking and social distancing and booster shots which will likely eventually be recommended reinfection every few months. That is not a successful vaccine at all. On top of that, we have no real studies on its long-term effects.
> abtibodies might not work for delta variant, whereas the vaccine does.
should we say, the difference is b’dieved v. lehathilah?
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