4 ms·

I am a believer in vaccines, but you're mischaracterizing the first link by selective omission. You've cut out the critical words of the sentence (emphasized):

by timr 5y ago

I am a believer in vaccines, but you're mischaracterizing the first link by selective omission. You've cut out the critical words of the sentence (emphasized): > The new evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying “single letter” changes in a key portion of their spike protein compared to antibodies acquired from an infection. The paper shows that vaccines produce a more diverse antibody response to the RBD, which is one portion of the spike protein. They admit that natural infection produces antibodies targeted to other portions of the spike protein (also, presumably, to other parts of the virus, though that isn't discussed in this press release): > Specifically, antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD compared to antibodies elicited by an infection, which more often targeted other portions of the spike protein. Is this evidence that vaccines are "better" than natural infection? No. It can't be. The paper shows that there's a difference between the antibody responses, but beyond that, it's impossible to know what the practical impacts of that difference might be from this paper. This is a perfect example of the political weaponization of pre-prints that has happened throughout the pandemic. People read these things, don't fully understand what they're reading or what questions they answer, and immediately jump to social media to start waving them around like team flags (and worse, people who should know better -- like Francis Collins -- seem to encourage the behavior. This PR seems to be trying very hard to mislead, without actually stepping over the line.) This is an interesting paper, but it is in no way a definitive statement about the relative benefits of vaccination vs. natural immunity.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
Thank you for adding nuance. This topic is indeed in sore need of more nuance.
raphlinus 5y ago
Thanks for trying to bring more precision to the discussion. I also cited that blog post elsethread, and, having reviewed it, agree it's not the single best piece of evidence. It establishes a narrow result which suggests a generally better immune response from vaccines, but does not prove it. If I had to cite a single preprint to support the assertion, it would probably be this one: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4 Obviously this study also has limitations: it speaks only to Ab levels, while obviously the overall immune response is a lot more complicated. I agree with the "waving of preprints" claim. Unfortunately, hyperskepticism, rejecting drawing conclusions because of the inevitable limitations of any study, is also a politicized position, and unfortunately I see a fair amount of that as well.
- nwienert 5y ago
  We know based on past corornaviruses that natural infection can lead to durable immunity up to 20 years, and like you mentioned with T-cells and more. We also have data showing the current ones so far last as long as we’ve tested them, while vaccines have waned once near a year out. The consensus hasn’t been reached, by my current beliefs strongly tend towards (based on many past similar viruses and all current studies) that vaccine is far less efficacious. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 Note: that’s 6.7 times stronger immunity from natural vs vaccinated! If anything we should have “previously-infected” cards that confer far greater privileges than vaccination cards, if we’re going to be playing that silly game. Here’s a citation showing stronger T cell immunity from naturally infected: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1418 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1418 Natural infection stronger across the board: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210719/Thai-study-looks-at-CoronaVac-vaccine-vs-natural-immunity-to-SARS-COV-2-variants.aspx https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news-medical.net/amp/news/2... Natural immunity holds across even previously known coronavirus variants: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/covid_survivors_resistance/index.html https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/covid_survivors_resis...
  - raphlinus 5y ago
    Antibodies wane, but B-cell and T-cell response is important for longer term protection. Fortunately, we have results (including [B] and [T]) that vaccines also induce these memory cell responses. Also, the durability of immunity from coronavirus probably depends on the exact coronavirus. It does seem to be true for SARS, but possibly less so for the seasonal coronaviruses that cause a respectable fraction of common colds[3]. We don't really know yet where SARS-CoV-2 falls on that spectrum. [B]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.12.21259864v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.12.21259864v... [T]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.30.21259787v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.30.21259787v... [3]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1083-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1083-1
    - 5y ago
mike00632 5y ago
"It can't be." What!? This is an extraordinary claim that you state with zero evidence. It relies entirely on the naturalistic fallacy. Not only is it possible for vaccines to confer better immunity but there are clear ways to test this empirically, which studies certainly have, like this one: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... It looks at reinfection rates of unvaxxed people who had COVID vs vaccinated people.
- thethirdone 5y ago
  I believe the "It can't be" is not a statement about whether natural immunity is better. Instead I believe it to mean "It cannot be evidence that vaccines provide better immunity than natural infections".
  - criticaltinker 5y ago
    I agree on this interpretation. The article referenced by GP cites the same paper mentioned in a different comment, see that thread for some additional discussion and citations that provide counter evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108039. In summary, there is currently no scientific consensus that vaccines provide 'better' immunity compared to natural infection. There is evidence that they induce similar but subtly different immune responses.
    - mike00632 5y ago
      Nobody claimed there is currently "scientific consensus" (but there is currently a lot of scientific evidence). What we're taking issue with is the unfounded claim that 'natural immunity' must be better than vaccine induced immunity.
  - mike00632 5y ago
    The idea that vaccines provide more antibodies that fight a wider variety of COVID can indeed suggest that vaccines create better immunity. The writer here makes a firm denial of this and then uses their denial to offer a fatalistic take on what is possible to show about vaccines with this paper. Of course, outside of this paper there are very simple studies that have been conducted which contradict the bias illustrated here.

by timr 5y ago

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

Thank you for adding nuance. This topic is indeed in sore need of more nuance.

raphlinus 5y ago

Thanks for trying to bring more precision to the discussion. I also cited that blog post elsethread, and, having reviewed it, agree it's not the single best piece of evidence. It establishes a narrow result which suggests a generally better immune response from vaccines, but does not prove it. If I had to cite a single preprint to support the assertion, it would probably be this one: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4 Obviously this study also has limitations: it speaks only to Ab levels, while obviously the overall immune response is a lot more complicated. I agree with the "waving of preprints" claim. Unfortunately, hyperskepticism, rejecting drawing conclusions because of the inevitable limitations of any study, is also a politicized position, and unfortunately I see a fair amount of that as well.

nwienert 5y ago
We know based on past corornaviruses that natural infection can lead to durable immunity up to 20 years, and like you mentioned with T-cells and more. We also have data showing the current ones so far last as long as we’ve tested them, while vaccines have waned once near a year out. The consensus hasn’t been reached, by my current beliefs strongly tend towards (based on many past similar viruses and all current studies) that vaccine is far less efficacious. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 Note: that’s 6.7 times stronger immunity from natural vs vaccinated! If anything we should have “previously-infected” cards that confer far greater privileges than vaccination cards, if we’re going to be playing that silly game. Here’s a citation showing stronger T cell immunity from naturally infected: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1418 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1418 Natural infection stronger across the board: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210719/Thai-study-looks-at-CoronaVac-vaccine-vs-natural-immunity-to-SARS-COV-2-variants.aspx https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news-medical.net/amp/news/2... Natural immunity holds across even previously known coronavirus variants: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/covid_survivors_resistance/index.html https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/covid_survivors_resis...
- raphlinus 5y ago
  Antibodies wane, but B-cell and T-cell response is important for longer term protection. Fortunately, we have results (including [B] and [T]) that vaccines also induce these memory cell responses. Also, the durability of immunity from coronavirus probably depends on the exact coronavirus. It does seem to be true for SARS, but possibly less so for the seasonal coronaviruses that cause a respectable fraction of common colds[3]. We don't really know yet where SARS-CoV-2 falls on that spectrum. [B]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.12.21259864v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.12.21259864v... [T]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.30.21259787v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.30.21259787v... [3]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1083-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1083-1
  - 5y ago

mike00632 5y ago

"It can't be." What!? This is an extraordinary claim that you state with zero evidence. It relies entirely on the naturalistic fallacy. Not only is it possible for vaccines to confer better immunity but there are clear ways to test this empirically, which studies certainly have, like this one: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... It looks at reinfection rates of unvaxxed people who had COVID vs vaccinated people.

thethirdone 5y ago
I believe the "It can't be" is not a statement about whether natural immunity is better. Instead I believe it to mean "It cannot be evidence that vaccines provide better immunity than natural infections".
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  I agree on this interpretation. The article referenced by GP cites the same paper mentioned in a different comment, see that thread for some additional discussion and citations that provide counter evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108039. In summary, there is currently no scientific consensus that vaccines provide 'better' immunity compared to natural infection. There is evidence that they induce similar but subtly different immune responses.
  - mike00632 5y ago
    Nobody claimed there is currently "scientific consensus" (but there is currently a lot of scientific evidence). What we're taking issue with is the unfounded claim that 'natural immunity' must be better than vaccine induced immunity.
- mike00632 5y ago
  The idea that vaccines provide more antibodies that fight a wider variety of COVID can indeed suggest that vaccines create better immunity. The writer here makes a firm denial of this and then uses their denial to offer a fatalistic take on what is possible to show about vaccines with this paper. Of course, outside of this paper there are very simple studies that have been conducted which contradict the bias illustrated here.