52 ms·

Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

273 points by bananapizza 5y ago

Animats 5y ago
Well, that's encouraging. Now we have data for about 5 months on that. About the same on vaccinated individuals. In a year, we'll know more about how long immunity lasts, and if and when booster shots will be needed.
- Panther34543 5y ago
  > Now we have data for about 5 months on that. What do you mean? Immunity of naturally infected individuals has been tracked far longer than five months, with both empirical evidence of lasting immunity along with obvious community evidence. Do you know why the infection rate in San Francisco was so low? There was already a ton of natural immunity due to community spread. The majority of my office in downtown SF caught COVID in January 2020, which was confirmed by negative influenza A & B tests followed by positive antibody tests once they were made available. What is particular disturbing to me is that, despite the fact that the CDC estimates total infections to be over a third of the U.S. population (and that estimate only accounts for February 2020 onward and doesn't include last two months), natural immunity is never, ever discussed by policy makers. Why? That's a massive amount of natural immunity that continues to be purposely ignored.
  - Animats 5y ago
    It's being measured, not ignored.[1] This data is obtained by re-using random samples of blood drawn by commercial labs for other medical blood tests. In Vermont, under 3% of the population has had COVID-19. In Puerto Rico, about 49%. Huge variance by state. This does not include people immunized; the test used can differentiate. [1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab
- Supermancho 5y ago
  Like Panther34543, my wife and I were infected in December in Seattle 2019. My wife had to go to the hospital (Kaiser), where they told her they didn't know what it was. After the symptoms were identified as "COVID", we knew what had happened. At this point, I assumed the infections were endemic and I had no idea if we could be re-infected. I went remote early on, as infections started to be tracked and we had stocked up on plastic gloves, toilet paper, masks etc. before many other people. I suspect, a number of people know that this virus was always going to be around. I expect the situation was watched to see how to best manage the fact that every person on earth was going to get exposed, by community spread or vaccine. I'm interested in the survival rate differences between the vaccinated and those infected through community spread. I suspect, it's not very different due to deaths in my family from the vaccinated who had access to every treatment (including plasma) through Kaiser, before passing. I also suspect it's more or less surviving the flu (tough for the elderly) + a particular genetic interaction, that makes you susceptible.
reducesuffering 5y ago
Punchline: “The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated, compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated. Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study.”
- msandford 5y ago
  In that case it seems like the headline reads wrong based on a colloquial and imprecise but often correct heuristic. Should read more like "non-necessity of C19 vaccination for previously infected..."
  - sebastianconcpt 5y ago
    But that wouldn't contribute with the propaganda of the current mainstream narrative, would it?
  - OJFord 5y ago
    It says (at least, it does now, as I write) 'evaluating necessity'. [EDIT: I read further down this page, dang commented that he'd edited in the 'evaluating' just 1m before parent's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27453952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27453952 So, yes, fair enough, 'necessity of' is ambiguous, as I went on to say in my original comment continuing below.] Necessity is the concept as well as describing one possible state of it. Another example: when 'my hunger is sated', I do not 'have a hunger', I am 'not hungry'.
- Taniwha 5y ago
  However there already exist real people in the world who have had Covid twice, and who reportedly have had a much tougher time the second time around. This study helps us put some bounds on how many people this might happen to (assuming there are no mutations to the virus) but it doesn't rule it out completely, because of the prior existence proofs
rolph 5y ago
this is a bit ambiguous in title. This is about vaccination not providing any further benefit to those who have recovered and cleared from covid. this is ^not^ saying you need to be vaccinated even if you have gone through covid
- dang 5y ago
  Ok, I've consed an 'evaluating' onto the title above in the hope of communicating this.
  - rolph 5y ago
    thanks dang
- takeda 5y ago
  On the other hand this says the opposite: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4?fbclid=IwAR0iLKEST1oTbc7r0qGoPuydW8pF58fSEzzW7zwRanEntwbi9KHazAXozWw https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4?...
  - rolph 5y ago
    The abstract actually contradicts itself. not only that there is a comparison of vaccine generated Ab titre reacting with spike receptor domain vs naturally generated Ab titre reacting with spike receptor domain, and with nucleocapsid features thus the naturall immunity is broader, and is long lasting based on opsonizing immunity.
trimbo 5y ago
I have confirmation bias here because this is a result I would have expected BUT.. Preprint, non-peer reviewed.
- vmception 5y ago
  well pack it up boys, lets not make this go viral on social media and just hope the "peers" organically pick this study to review over the next 6 months instead of some other study that appears to be more in the public interest and has more popular people behind it a while back I looked to see how long it actually took for the peer reviewed studies to come out for previous diseases and outbreaks, such as SARS 1. It was too long and we have to weigh inputs right now and react now.
  - trimbo 5y ago
    This study backs up the claim that people who had it don't need to get vaccinated. If it gets widely reported, that probably means fewer people will get vaccinated. So let me ask you this, what's the worst case scenario if they're right but had waited 6 months to get it reviewed? Then consider, what's the worst case scenario if they're wrong?
    - vmception 5y ago
      Good way to weigh things I say this about every study My main point is that it likely wont get peer reviewed, ever, unless it goes viral and people ask questions
    - Izkata 5y ago
      > If it gets widely reported, that probably means fewer people will get vaccinated. So.. no change? At least in the US, we're already at the point where we have more vaccines than people who want them.
- neilwilson 5y ago
  That confirmation bias extends to the capability of peer review to throw out issues. We need replication. If anything has shown up the weakness in science over the last few years it is this veneration of peer review. It ain't working that well any more.
mlyle 5y ago
Note this is to inform public health / prioritization in the short term. (Which is less necessary places like the US where there is excess vaccine supply). We know that past infection greatly reduces risk (and this helps quantify it). At the same time, vaccination is thought to cause a much broader and more durable immune response than natural infection. We'd like people who were previously infected to get vaccinated eventually for these benefits, but they're not who you'd want to vaccinate first.
- tomp 5y ago
  > vaccination is thought to cause a much broader and more durable immune response than natural infection Why? Is there any data to support this assertion? If anything, being ill (symptomatic) means the viral load was high in the body, so the immune system response should be as well, and in addition, infection should cause the immune system to produce antibodies to all parts of the virus, not just the spike protein, as with mRNA vaccines.
  - jjgreen 5y ago
    "it is thought" I guess comes from nonsense like this: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/does-the-vaccine-give-better-protection-than-having-fought-off-the-virus_uk_601c0663c5b62bf30754c563 https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/does-the-vaccine-give...
    - mlyle 5y ago
      It comes from nonsense like this: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2032195 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2032195
  - akomtu 5y ago
    If there was evidence, that "is thought to" would've been replaced with "is proven to".
    - mlyle 5y ago
np_tedious 5y ago
I did have covid (not diagnosed while active but shown in antibody test), and I got vaccinated significantly later. This was not driven by belief in medical need, but by social/rules need. You get no "points" for being recovered like you do for a proof of vaccination.
- joshuahughes 5y ago
  Sounds uncomfortably like coercion...
  - isaacremuant 5y ago
    It is coercion. People have been coerced at every step of this crisis, by the threat of police violence, by the threat of reputation or job loss, by the the threat of fines and more. Hopefully, like we see with the wuhan lab theory suppression, as time goes on, a lot of what people suffered will come to light, and be contrasted by the benefit of the elite and political class during all this.
    - version_five 5y ago
      I agree 100% - whatever reaction posts like yours get, it's important to realize that a lot of people think this way, quite possibly a majority if you could talk to them on their own, despite efforts to pretend anyone against whatever government / corporate orthodoxy is pushing this week is some kind of conspiracy nut
      - e67f70028a46fba 5y ago
        Many many people agree with both of you. Don’t feel alone.
        version_five 5y ago
        Thanks! That's why I posted a reply instead of just upvoting, I think its important to show people that they're not alone, and what they are thinking is normal.
epgui 5y ago
Any other result would have been surprising. Why is this interesting, beyond just confirming what we were already 99.99% certain we knew? -- biochemist
- StavrosK 5y ago
  It's just nice for us laymen to have more confirmation.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  Because openly stating this obvious fact would get you downvoted on here a few months ago.
  - Panther34543 5y ago
    Or shadow banned, unfortunately.
  - adventured 5y ago
    > Because openly stating this obvious fact would get you downvoted on here a few months ago. Attempting to discuss it here will still commonly get you downvoted. HN is not a particularly rational forum. People make the mistake of thinking it is because a lot of engineers hang out here. Engineers are not especially rational, that's a common myth derived from failing to understand the way people mentally compartmentalize; how they can frequently be rational about one subject and irrational about another. Try this one for example: the numbers they've been reporting about Covid infections the past year are not the actual infection numbers, not even remotely close. Yet they're held up everywhere as being representative of how many infections there have been. This is still the biggest comedy going about the pandemic. It's hilarious how batshit crazy people can be. If the US were a sane nation, the people that have been trying to represent the supposedly official infection count as being fully representative of the number of infections that have occurred - those people would be publicly mocked and shamed for being anti-science, the equivalent of flat-earthers. Instead, the flat-earthers dominate the media and national discussion. That's why the lab-leak theory was buried under so much censorship and for so long, those same people have been holding that conversation back very aggressively. Most people know on some level that the held-up official infection tally is not representative of the real number of infections. And yet the mainstream media, without exception, pretends those are the legitimate infection numbers. Any attempt to discuss how many infections have really occurred, will be shouted down. The shrieking emotionalism that pours out when you open this can of worms, is endlessly fascinating to me. If you say: how many people in the US have had Covid, they'll point at the magic official number, which is not correct. If we wanted to have a serious discussion nationally about herd immunity (for example), one of the most important steps is one they intentionally refuse to take: let's try to get a more serious estimate on how many people nationally have actually had Covid. They won't have that conversation and the media goes out of its way to avoid it (and has done so for a year now). Why? Pick your poison on the why answer. Political psychopaths lusting for control, looking to prolong their ability to take advantage of a disaster (the 'ol never waste a good crisis mentality). Wildly irrational anti-science types in power that pretend they represent science, which is the wing that Fauci belongs to. Maybe a combination. Maybe it's just the fear that if the masses of people think we're anywhere near herd immunity, the vaccination rates will plunge even faster, so some people want to maintain the false illusion (on the actual infection counts) as long as possible.
rolph 5y ago
the problem with live covid as the antigenic character is of course the mortality, and the morbidity risk. there is also the instability of the spike protien in its natural form. when spike is cloven at it cleavage site it changes conformation, thus there are two faces available to the immune system; the default state, the cloven prefusion state. This makes a Naturally aquired immunity biased toward opsonizing antbodies. the vaccine version of spike has been stabilized so as to remain in the default state resulting in a bias toward neutralizing antibodies. so neutralizing antibodies bind to the viral spike at locations that interfere with receptor docking thus ideally preventing viral entry, while the immune system operates upon the many other viral epitopes, to produce a variant array of antibodies. This gives Tcell based [longterm] immunity. the naturally aquired immunity involves Tcell activity upon infection, but that is the risk, as virus is capable of entering the cells before immune system begins to work against it. this is why boosting is required beyond initial vaccine dose. and this is why i believe it would be a good idea to take a vaccine along with naturally aquired immunity due to recovery, and you can have the best of both worlds, while not relying solely on naturally based immunity.
- f6v 5y ago
  > the vaccine version of spike has been stabilized so as to remain in the default state resulting in a bias toward neutralizing antibodies. I'm not strong in molecular immunology. Does that also hold for the mRNA vaccines? Or only those that ship the spike protein itself?
  - rolph 5y ago
    yes this is the case for the vaccines, and any synthetic protien based vaccine that is to come. there is a manner of inserting a couple of extra amino acids at a crucial location that will prevent the change of state when cleavage is activated. This leaves it "open" to binding at points required for cellular entry. this took the better part of 12 years to understand the virus to the point that we knew how to stabilize tthe spike.
StavrosK 5y ago
What's up with all the antivaxxer/COVID hoaxer comments lately? Every COVID-related thread seems to be at least half-full of antivaxxer comments, and that's being optimistic.
- Panther34543 5y ago
  I dislike when my own comments within a discussion are not considered in good faith, so I'll extend you the courtesy I often wish was extended to me: Why do you believe that confirming suspected immunity response and subsequent protection, as is the case with so many other diseases, is in any way connected to the belief that COVID is a hoax?
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    Huh? That's not at all what I said. When I posted that, half the comments section were comments like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27454154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27454154
    - waterhouse 5y ago
      That comment says "But that wouldn't contribute with the propaganda of the current mainstream narrative, would it?", where "that" appears to refer to "non-necessity of C19 vaccination for previously infected". I agree with that comment—that there is a mainstream narrative that says those who've already recovered from COVID still need a vaccine as much as anyone else, and that this narrative is propaganda in terms of its truth value and in terms of how it originated and was spread around—and I also think COVID isn't a hoax and that vaccines are good. It harms rational discussion and thinking, when you take one claim and attribute additional claims the author didn't make and denigrate the author for the latter. It pushes the discussion towards a "declare allegiance to one side, attack others who appear to be on the other side" fight, and away from exploration of any nuanced position other than the two extremes—when such exploration should be one of the attractions of a site like this.
mabbo 5y ago
A close friend of my family nearly died of what we presume was Covid-19 in February of 2020. All the right symptoms, but nobody had enough tests at the time. By the time they gave her a Covid-19 test, she was negative for Covid, but severely ill from the damage to her lungs. She presumed she couldn't get it again. She did in May of 2021. Less serious, but tested positive this time with mild symptoms. Perhaps the first infection wasn't covid-19, but something very similar. My guess is that immunity after infection doesn't last as long as we might all like. Which is why we all need to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.
- lebuffon 5y ago
  I don't know much about naming viruses but if Covid-19 is from 2019, then we might be able say with some validity that we are now encountering Covid-20 and the delta strain is Covid-21. That might explain some of the second infections. (?) Since we are dealing with a corona virus and the common cold corona virus forms have been with us for many years I am not expecting that this will ever be completely gone, just managed.
yyyk 5y ago
Study doesn't seem to check for the B.1351 (SA) variant which has shown a limited ability to overcome natural immunity. Arguably this variant isn't a big deal for now (compared to spreading out vaccine doses), but I suspect previously infected individuals will need to get a single shot eventually.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
daenz 5y ago
Why is it that so many people seem to be biased against evidence that our immune systems do a pretty good job? It's as if they want the vaccine to be the only thing that helps stop COVID.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Our immune systems are pretty amazing. It's also good to help them along sometimes.
  - daenz 5y ago
    That does not conflict with being unbiased towards evidence that our immune systems are effective against covid.
    - jquery 5y ago
      As long as the initial infection didn’t kill or incapacitate you. Edit: most bubonic plague infections didn’t kill so I don’t know what the point of “most people survive” is. The problem is that some don’t.
      - colordrops 5y ago
        Which is most of covid infections.
      - ping_pong 5y ago
        The Black Death, if that's what you're talking about, killed about 2/3 of all Europeans.
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
        I usually see estimates more in the 40-50% range?
    - f6v 5y ago
      > our immune systems are effective against covid When you say "our", who do you mean? 30yo with no underlying health conditions? A leukemia patient? An HIV-positive person? A 50yo diabetic? 40% of the adult obese Americans? Yes, healthy immune system can be effective at fighting covid. But vaccination is a matter of public health. You aim to eradicate the disease so that everyone is safe.
TchoBeer 5y ago
Is this paper peer-reviewed?
- LockDownExposed 5y ago
  The papers that the cuckdowncels were constantly quoting to justify their insane policies werent peer-reviewed. Just Saying.
- astrange 5y ago
  Most published results are false even after peer review. It's not actually a very effective process.
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    That's irrelevant to my question, which merely asked if it was peer reviewed or not. I think it was not, seeing where it was published.
    - astrange 5y ago
      Yeah, I doubt it since it's far too new. Publishing in a journal can take about a year.
ufo 5y ago
One very important limitation is that this study does not take into account problematic variants such as P.1 and B.1.617 > Lastly, it is necessary to emphasize that these findings are based on the prevailing assortment of virus variants in the community during the study. It is not known how well these results will hold if or when some of the newer variants of concern become prominent. Here in Brazil, I've heard news that the P.1 variant can cause reinfections but is still stopped by vaccines. This would point towards also vaccinating those who were already infected https://jornal.usp.br/ciencias/primeira-dose-da-coronavac-e-eficaz-contra-variante-p-1-do-coronavirus-mostra-estudo-feito-em-manaus/ https://jornal.usp.br/ciencias/primeira-dose-da-coronavac-e-...
bvinc 5y ago
This is really good news. Whenever I see people talking about if previously infected people should be vaccinated, they always mention how we don't know how long protection lasts for previously infected people. This study includes this section: Duration of protection This study was not specifically designed to determine the duration of protection afforded by natural infection, but for the previously infected subjects the median duration since prior infection was 143 days (IQR 76 – 179 days), and no one had SARS-CoV-2 infection over the following five months, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 infection may provide protection against reinfection for 10 months or longer.
- jquery 5y ago
  Most “previously infected” people were absolutely not infected at all. If this study involved self-reported previously infected and not confirmed PCR, the results would be very different.
  - jobigoud 5y ago
    Isn't there also a lot of people that self report as having had covid that actually didn't have it? Why do you assume the rate of false positive to be in one direction or the other?
- alok-g 5y ago
  See also: Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
paedubucher 5y ago
It's not about health, it's about being considered a high-IQ person by Paul Graham, who'd like to only have vaccinated people at conferences: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1359577831236378627 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1359577831236378627
LockDownExposed 5y ago
The Cuckdowncels will never give up on the Covid-19. I pray the Republicans win big in 2022 and expose the whole fraud.
LockDownExposed 5y ago
Because he is a stupid idiot.
whiddershins 5y ago
The prior should always have been in favor of natural immunity working. It’s odd that the public health messaging seems to have always been worst-case-least-likely scenario until we can prove differently.
- randomopining 5y ago
  How did the natural immunity path go for those 550k+ that died in the US? lol. Obv everybody should've worn a mask. Everybody who hasn't had it should get vaccinated etc. Pretty much what the authorities have been saying the whole time.
mnw21cam 5y ago
Here is one significant problem with this preprint: "The health system never had a requirement for asymptomatic employee test screening. Most of the positive tests, therefore, would have been tests done to evaluate suspicious symptoms." In other words, there could have been people who caught Covid-19, but because they had already had it, the symptoms were mild and they didn't get tested. It may be possible for these people to still be infectious (we don't really know this). For a proper study, they need to look at a decent population of people who have regular asymptomatic screening.
bartimus 5y ago
Maybe it's not necessary. It's my understanding there's different types of antibodies the body can create. I've already had Covid but I'm still taking the vaccine. My reasoning is that the vaccine offers a hack to ensure those specific antibodies are boosted that target the spike protein. I'm assuming it will further strengthen my immune system. Provide better protection against future variants.
refracture 5y ago
I had it but got the vaccine anyway, there's places that want proof of vaccination and I'm just not interested in arguing about not needing it.
achenatx 5y ago
my theory is that the single dose vaccines and getting infected are about the same effectiveness as a single dose of the two dose vaccines. If you are infected, you probably have about 85% resistance to infection. Getting an addition shot of moderna, pfizer, J&J is pretty much like getting a booster and gets you to 95%.

273 points by bananapizza 5y ago

Well, that's encouraging. Now we have data for about 5 months on that. About the same on vaccinated individuals. In a year, we'll know more about how long immunity lasts, and if and when booster shots will be needed.

Panther34543 5y ago
> Now we have data for about 5 months on that. What do you mean? Immunity of naturally infected individuals has been tracked far longer than five months, with both empirical evidence of lasting immunity along with obvious community evidence. Do you know why the infection rate in San Francisco was so low? There was already a ton of natural immunity due to community spread. The majority of my office in downtown SF caught COVID in January 2020, which was confirmed by negative influenza A & B tests followed by positive antibody tests once they were made available. What is particular disturbing to me is that, despite the fact that the CDC estimates total infections to be over a third of the U.S. population (and that estimate only accounts for February 2020 onward and doesn't include last two months), natural immunity is never, ever discussed by policy makers. Why? That's a massive amount of natural immunity that continues to be purposely ignored.
- Animats 5y ago
  It's being measured, not ignored.[1] This data is obtained by re-using random samples of blood drawn by commercial labs for other medical blood tests. In Vermont, under 3% of the population has had COVID-19. In Puerto Rico, about 49%. Huge variance by state. This does not include people immunized; the test used can differentiate. [1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab
Supermancho 5y ago
Like Panther34543, my wife and I were infected in December in Seattle 2019. My wife had to go to the hospital (Kaiser), where they told her they didn't know what it was. After the symptoms were identified as "COVID", we knew what had happened. At this point, I assumed the infections were endemic and I had no idea if we could be re-infected. I went remote early on, as infections started to be tracked and we had stocked up on plastic gloves, toilet paper, masks etc. before many other people. I suspect, a number of people know that this virus was always going to be around. I expect the situation was watched to see how to best manage the fact that every person on earth was going to get exposed, by community spread or vaccine. I'm interested in the survival rate differences between the vaccinated and those infected through community spread. I suspect, it's not very different due to deaths in my family from the vaccinated who had access to every treatment (including plasma) through Kaiser, before passing. I also suspect it's more or less surviving the flu (tough for the elderly) + a particular genetic interaction, that makes you susceptible.

reducesuffering 5y ago

Punchline: “The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated, compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated. Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study.”

msandford 5y ago
In that case it seems like the headline reads wrong based on a colloquial and imprecise but often correct heuristic. Should read more like "non-necessity of C19 vaccination for previously infected..."
- sebastianconcpt 5y ago
  But that wouldn't contribute with the propaganda of the current mainstream narrative, would it?
- OJFord 5y ago
  It says (at least, it does now, as I write) 'evaluating necessity'. [EDIT: I read further down this page, dang commented that he'd edited in the 'evaluating' just 1m before parent's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27453952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27453952 So, yes, fair enough, 'necessity of' is ambiguous, as I went on to say in my original comment continuing below.] Necessity is the concept as well as describing one possible state of it. Another example: when 'my hunger is sated', I do not 'have a hunger', I am 'not hungry'.
Taniwha 5y ago
However there already exist real people in the world who have had Covid twice, and who reportedly have had a much tougher time the second time around. This study helps us put some bounds on how many people this might happen to (assuming there are no mutations to the virus) but it doesn't rule it out completely, because of the prior existence proofs

rolph 5y ago

this is a bit ambiguous in title. This is about vaccination not providing any further benefit to those who have recovered and cleared from covid. this is ^not^ saying you need to be vaccinated even if you have gone through covid

dang 5y ago
Ok, I've consed an 'evaluating' onto the title above in the hope of communicating this.
- rolph 5y ago
  thanks dang
takeda 5y ago
On the other hand this says the opposite: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4?fbclid=IwAR0iLKEST1oTbc7r0qGoPuydW8pF58fSEzzW7zwRanEntwbi9KHazAXozWw https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4?...
- rolph 5y ago
  The abstract actually contradicts itself. not only that there is a comparison of vaccine generated Ab titre reacting with spike receptor domain vs naturally generated Ab titre reacting with spike receptor domain, and with nucleocapsid features thus the naturall immunity is broader, and is long lasting based on opsonizing immunity.

trimbo 5y ago

I have confirmation bias here because this is a result I would have expected BUT.. Preprint, non-peer reviewed.

vmception 5y ago
well pack it up boys, lets not make this go viral on social media and just hope the "peers" organically pick this study to review over the next 6 months instead of some other study that appears to be more in the public interest and has more popular people behind it a while back I looked to see how long it actually took for the peer reviewed studies to come out for previous diseases and outbreaks, such as SARS 1. It was too long and we have to weigh inputs right now and react now.
- trimbo 5y ago
  This study backs up the claim that people who had it don't need to get vaccinated. If it gets widely reported, that probably means fewer people will get vaccinated. So let me ask you this, what's the worst case scenario if they're right but had waited 6 months to get it reviewed? Then consider, what's the worst case scenario if they're wrong?
  - vmception 5y ago
    Good way to weigh things I say this about every study My main point is that it likely wont get peer reviewed, ever, unless it goes viral and people ask questions
  - Izkata 5y ago
    > If it gets widely reported, that probably means fewer people will get vaccinated. So.. no change? At least in the US, we're already at the point where we have more vaccines than people who want them.
neilwilson 5y ago
That confirmation bias extends to the capability of peer review to throw out issues. We need replication. If anything has shown up the weakness in science over the last few years it is this veneration of peer review. It ain't working that well any more.

mlyle 5y ago

Note this is to inform public health / prioritization in the short term. (Which is less necessary places like the US where there is excess vaccine supply). We know that past infection greatly reduces risk (and this helps quantify it). At the same time, vaccination is thought to cause a much broader and more durable immune response than natural infection. We'd like people who were previously infected to get vaccinated eventually for these benefits, but they're not who you'd want to vaccinate first.

tomp 5y ago
> vaccination is thought to cause a much broader and more durable immune response than natural infection Why? Is there any data to support this assertion? If anything, being ill (symptomatic) means the viral load was high in the body, so the immune system response should be as well, and in addition, infection should cause the immune system to produce antibodies to all parts of the virus, not just the spike protein, as with mRNA vaccines.
- jjgreen 5y ago
  "it is thought" I guess comes from nonsense like this: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/does-the-vaccine-give-better-protection-than-having-fought-off-the-virus_uk_601c0663c5b62bf30754c563 https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/does-the-vaccine-give...
  - mlyle 5y ago
    It comes from nonsense like this: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2032195 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2032195
- akomtu 5y ago
  If there was evidence, that "is thought to" would've been replaced with "is proven to".
  - mlyle 5y ago

np_tedious 5y ago

I did have covid (not diagnosed while active but shown in antibody test), and I got vaccinated significantly later. This was not driven by belief in medical need, but by social/rules need. You get no "points" for being recovered like you do for a proof of vaccination.

joshuahughes 5y ago
Sounds uncomfortably like coercion...
- isaacremuant 5y ago
  It is coercion. People have been coerced at every step of this crisis, by the threat of police violence, by the threat of reputation or job loss, by the the threat of fines and more. Hopefully, like we see with the wuhan lab theory suppression, as time goes on, a lot of what people suffered will come to light, and be contrasted by the benefit of the elite and political class during all this.
  - version_five 5y ago
    I agree 100% - whatever reaction posts like yours get, it's important to realize that a lot of people think this way, quite possibly a majority if you could talk to them on their own, despite efforts to pretend anyone against whatever government / corporate orthodoxy is pushing this week is some kind of conspiracy nut
    - e67f70028a46fba 5y ago
      Many many people agree with both of you. Don’t feel alone.
      - version_five 5y ago
        Thanks! That's why I posted a reply instead of just upvoting, I think its important to show people that they're not alone, and what they are thinking is normal.

epgui 5y ago

Any other result would have been surprising. Why is this interesting, beyond just confirming what we were already 99.99% certain we knew? -- biochemist

StavrosK 5y ago
It's just nice for us laymen to have more confirmation.
symlinkk 5y ago
Because openly stating this obvious fact would get you downvoted on here a few months ago.
- Panther34543 5y ago
  Or shadow banned, unfortunately.
- adventured 5y ago
  > Because openly stating this obvious fact would get you downvoted on here a few months ago. Attempting to discuss it here will still commonly get you downvoted. HN is not a particularly rational forum. People make the mistake of thinking it is because a lot of engineers hang out here. Engineers are not especially rational, that's a common myth derived from failing to understand the way people mentally compartmentalize; how they can frequently be rational about one subject and irrational about another. Try this one for example: the numbers they've been reporting about Covid infections the past year are not the actual infection numbers, not even remotely close. Yet they're held up everywhere as being representative of how many infections there have been. This is still the biggest comedy going about the pandemic. It's hilarious how batshit crazy people can be. If the US were a sane nation, the people that have been trying to represent the supposedly official infection count as being fully representative of the number of infections that have occurred - those people would be publicly mocked and shamed for being anti-science, the equivalent of flat-earthers. Instead, the flat-earthers dominate the media and national discussion. That's why the lab-leak theory was buried under so much censorship and for so long, those same people have been holding that conversation back very aggressively. Most people know on some level that the held-up official infection tally is not representative of the real number of infections. And yet the mainstream media, without exception, pretends those are the legitimate infection numbers. Any attempt to discuss how many infections have really occurred, will be shouted down. The shrieking emotionalism that pours out when you open this can of worms, is endlessly fascinating to me. If you say: how many people in the US have had Covid, they'll point at the magic official number, which is not correct. If we wanted to have a serious discussion nationally about herd immunity (for example), one of the most important steps is one they intentionally refuse to take: let's try to get a more serious estimate on how many people nationally have actually had Covid. They won't have that conversation and the media goes out of its way to avoid it (and has done so for a year now). Why? Pick your poison on the why answer. Political psychopaths lusting for control, looking to prolong their ability to take advantage of a disaster (the 'ol never waste a good crisis mentality). Wildly irrational anti-science types in power that pretend they represent science, which is the wing that Fauci belongs to. Maybe a combination. Maybe it's just the fear that if the masses of people think we're anywhere near herd immunity, the vaccination rates will plunge even faster, so some people want to maintain the false illusion (on the actual infection counts) as long as possible.

rolph 5y ago

the problem with live covid as the antigenic character is of course the mortality, and the morbidity risk. there is also the instability of the spike protien in its natural form. when spike is cloven at it cleavage site it changes conformation, thus there are two faces available to the immune system; the default state, the cloven prefusion state. This makes a Naturally aquired immunity biased toward opsonizing antbodies. the vaccine version of spike has been stabilized so as to remain in the default state resulting in a bias toward neutralizing antibodies. so neutralizing antibodies bind to the viral spike at locations that interfere with receptor docking thus ideally preventing viral entry, while the immune system operates upon the many other viral epitopes, to produce a variant array of antibodies. This gives Tcell based [longterm] immunity. the naturally aquired immunity involves Tcell activity upon infection, but that is the risk, as virus is capable of entering the cells before immune system begins to work against it. this is why boosting is required beyond initial vaccine dose. and this is why i believe it would be a good idea to take a vaccine along with naturally aquired immunity due to recovery, and you can have the best of both worlds, while not relying solely on naturally based immunity.

f6v 5y ago
> the vaccine version of spike has been stabilized so as to remain in the default state resulting in a bias toward neutralizing antibodies. I'm not strong in molecular immunology. Does that also hold for the mRNA vaccines? Or only those that ship the spike protein itself?
- rolph 5y ago
  yes this is the case for the vaccines, and any synthetic protien based vaccine that is to come. there is a manner of inserting a couple of extra amino acids at a crucial location that will prevent the change of state when cleavage is activated. This leaves it "open" to binding at points required for cellular entry. this took the better part of 12 years to understand the virus to the point that we knew how to stabilize tthe spike.

StavrosK 5y ago

What's up with all the antivaxxer/COVID hoaxer comments lately? Every COVID-related thread seems to be at least half-full of antivaxxer comments, and that's being optimistic.

Panther34543 5y ago
I dislike when my own comments within a discussion are not considered in good faith, so I'll extend you the courtesy I often wish was extended to me: Why do you believe that confirming suspected immunity response and subsequent protection, as is the case with so many other diseases, is in any way connected to the belief that COVID is a hoax?
- StavrosK 5y ago
  Huh? That's not at all what I said. When I posted that, half the comments section were comments like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27454154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27454154
  - waterhouse 5y ago
    That comment says "But that wouldn't contribute with the propaganda of the current mainstream narrative, would it?", where "that" appears to refer to "non-necessity of C19 vaccination for previously infected". I agree with that comment—that there is a mainstream narrative that says those who've already recovered from COVID still need a vaccine as much as anyone else, and that this narrative is propaganda in terms of its truth value and in terms of how it originated and was spread around—and I also think COVID isn't a hoax and that vaccines are good. It harms rational discussion and thinking, when you take one claim and attribute additional claims the author didn't make and denigrate the author for the latter. It pushes the discussion towards a "declare allegiance to one side, attack others who appear to be on the other side" fight, and away from exploration of any nuanced position other than the two extremes—when such exploration should be one of the attractions of a site like this.

mabbo 5y ago

A close friend of my family nearly died of what we presume was Covid-19 in February of 2020. All the right symptoms, but nobody had enough tests at the time. By the time they gave her a Covid-19 test, she was negative for Covid, but severely ill from the damage to her lungs. She presumed she couldn't get it again. She did in May of 2021. Less serious, but tested positive this time with mild symptoms. Perhaps the first infection wasn't covid-19, but something very similar. My guess is that immunity after infection doesn't last as long as we might all like. Which is why we all need to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

lebuffon 5y ago
I don't know much about naming viruses but if Covid-19 is from 2019, then we might be able say with some validity that we are now encountering Covid-20 and the delta strain is Covid-21. That might explain some of the second infections. (?) Since we are dealing with a corona virus and the common cold corona virus forms have been with us for many years I am not expecting that this will ever be completely gone, just managed.

yyyk 5y ago

Study doesn't seem to check for the B.1351 (SA) variant which has shown a limited ability to overcome natural immunity. Arguably this variant isn't a big deal for now (compared to spreading out vaccine doses), but I suspect previously infected individuals will need to get a single shot eventually.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

daenz 5y ago

Why is it that so many people seem to be biased against evidence that our immune systems do a pretty good job? It's as if they want the vaccine to be the only thing that helps stop COVID.

ceejayoz 5y ago
Our immune systems are pretty amazing. It's also good to help them along sometimes.
- daenz 5y ago
  That does not conflict with being unbiased towards evidence that our immune systems are effective against covid.
  - jquery 5y ago
    As long as the initial infection didn’t kill or incapacitate you. Edit: most bubonic plague infections didn’t kill so I don’t know what the point of “most people survive” is. The problem is that some don’t.
    - colordrops 5y ago
      Which is most of covid infections.
    - ping_pong 5y ago
      The Black Death, if that's what you're talking about, killed about 2/3 of all Europeans.
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        I usually see estimates more in the 40-50% range?
  - f6v 5y ago
    > our immune systems are effective against covid When you say "our", who do you mean? 30yo with no underlying health conditions? A leukemia patient? An HIV-positive person? A 50yo diabetic? 40% of the adult obese Americans? Yes, healthy immune system can be effective at fighting covid. But vaccination is a matter of public health. You aim to eradicate the disease so that everyone is safe.

TchoBeer 5y ago

Is this paper peer-reviewed?

LockDownExposed 5y ago
The papers that the cuckdowncels were constantly quoting to justify their insane policies werent peer-reviewed. Just Saying.
astrange 5y ago
Most published results are false even after peer review. It's not actually a very effective process.
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  That's irrelevant to my question, which merely asked if it was peer reviewed or not. I think it was not, seeing where it was published.
  - astrange 5y ago
    Yeah, I doubt it since it's far too new. Publishing in a journal can take about a year.

ufo 5y ago

One very important limitation is that this study does not take into account problematic variants such as P.1 and B.1.617 > Lastly, it is necessary to emphasize that these findings are based on the prevailing assortment of virus variants in the community during the study. It is not known how well these results will hold if or when some of the newer variants of concern become prominent. Here in Brazil, I've heard news that the P.1 variant can cause reinfections but is still stopped by vaccines. This would point towards also vaccinating those who were already infected https://jornal.usp.br/ciencias/primeira-dose-da-coronavac-e-eficaz-contra-variante-p-1-do-coronavirus-mostra-estudo-feito-em-manaus/ https://jornal.usp.br/ciencias/primeira-dose-da-coronavac-e-...

bvinc 5y ago

This is really good news. Whenever I see people talking about if previously infected people should be vaccinated, they always mention how we don't know how long protection lasts for previously infected people. This study includes this section: Duration of protection This study was not specifically designed to determine the duration of protection afforded by natural infection, but for the previously infected subjects the median duration since prior infection was 143 days (IQR 76 – 179 days), and no one had SARS-CoV-2 infection over the following five months, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 infection may provide protection against reinfection for 10 months or longer.

jquery 5y ago
Most “previously infected” people were absolutely not infected at all. If this study involved self-reported previously infected and not confirmed PCR, the results would be very different.
- jobigoud 5y ago
  Isn't there also a lot of people that self report as having had covid that actually didn't have it? Why do you assume the rate of false positive to be in one direction or the other?
alok-g 5y ago
See also: Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9

paedubucher 5y ago

It's not about health, it's about being considered a high-IQ person by Paul Graham, who'd like to only have vaccinated people at conferences: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1359577831236378627 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1359577831236378627

LockDownExposed 5y ago

The Cuckdowncels will never give up on the Covid-19. I pray the Republicans win big in 2022 and expose the whole fraud.

LockDownExposed 5y ago

Because he is a stupid idiot.

whiddershins 5y ago

The prior should always have been in favor of natural immunity working. It’s odd that the public health messaging seems to have always been worst-case-least-likely scenario until we can prove differently.

randomopining 5y ago
How did the natural immunity path go for those 550k+ that died in the US? lol. Obv everybody should've worn a mask. Everybody who hasn't had it should get vaccinated etc. Pretty much what the authorities have been saying the whole time.

mnw21cam 5y ago

Here is one significant problem with this preprint: "The health system never had a requirement for asymptomatic employee test screening. Most of the positive tests, therefore, would have been tests done to evaluate suspicious symptoms." In other words, there could have been people who caught Covid-19, but because they had already had it, the symptoms were mild and they didn't get tested. It may be possible for these people to still be infectious (we don't really know this). For a proper study, they need to look at a decent population of people who have regular asymptomatic screening.

bartimus 5y ago

Maybe it's not necessary. It's my understanding there's different types of antibodies the body can create. I've already had Covid but I'm still taking the vaccine. My reasoning is that the vaccine offers a hack to ensure those specific antibodies are boosted that target the spike protein. I'm assuming it will further strengthen my immune system. Provide better protection against future variants.

refracture 5y ago

I had it but got the vaccine anyway, there's places that want proof of vaccination and I'm just not interested in arguing about not needing it.

achenatx 5y ago

my theory is that the single dose vaccines and getting infected are about the same effectiveness as a single dose of the two dose vaccines. If you are infected, you probably have about 85% resistance to infection. Getting an addition shot of moderna, pfizer, J&J is pretty much like getting a booster and gets you to 95%.