6 ms·

Why Covid-19 Is Here to Stay, and Why You Shouldn't Worry About It

56 points by kvee 5y ago

nradov 5y ago
This is probably what happened with another similar coronavirus, HCoV-OC43. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ The initial pandemic killed a lot of people. Now most of us get infected when we're young and build up natural immunity.
- deadmutex 5y ago
  How long does covid immunity after natural infection last?
  - dsincl12 5y ago
    Probably for life and that includes variants as well. See https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31008-4 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31008-4
  - rolph 5y ago
    there is evidence that Tcell based immunity remains for more than a decade [i.e 17 years] as evidenced by competent immune response of sars survivors when challenged by sars2 [covid19] the real concern should be the inverse of your question, ie how long does it take for the sars2 to generate variants that will escape a contemporary vaccine. there are other considerations such as the neutralizing antibody criterion . there is a sweet spot of prophylactic vaccination; a span of time exists post innocuum where neutralizing antibodies are at the greatest titre and the best chance of destroying a viral agent before infection can occur will exist. this is a good bullseye to aim for, however unreasonable to expect high degree of accuracy or timing regarding titre and pathogenic challenge. the thing with non-neutralizing antibodies are that they are lables flagging a foriegn antigen these are referred to as opsonising antibodies and lable antigens for phagocytosis by macrophages. roughly 6-8 months is the official endorsement regarding duration of naturally aquired immunity; this is probably somewhat longer in duration however the virus changes quickly; at this point one should expect roughly 12 monthes before "boosting" is absolutely required. I suspect arbitrarily that boosting will soon succumb to a reformulation in order to match vaccine closely to novel viral epitopes. this is the same sort of dynamic that "the cold" follows, thats why we always catch it often very mild sometimes very bad due to variation of previous challenger, and cesation of antibody production. [adndm] here is a short piece regarding the above: https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/august/penn-study-details-robust-tcell-response-to-mrna-covid19-vaccines https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/august/... https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3 https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3
geofft 5y ago
While I don't think this necessarily affects the conclusions, this source is kind of brazenly ideologically-driven. From their home page https://cspicenter.org/ https://cspicenter.org/ : > 3. Safetyism > The sacralization of physical and emotional safety is a worrying trend. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the inability of public health officials to consider the tradeoffs between physical safety and personal freedom. > Progress in science and technology is impossible without physical risk. Progress in ethics and politics is impossible without emotional risk. Yet, society and government seem to be becoming more risk-averse. > CSPI welcomes work investigating the origins, nature, and effects of safetyism. We are also interested in policies and practices that reduce risk aversion or encourage better cost-benefit analysis. That is - they are taking as a given that people are being too risk-averse, especially in regards to COVID-19, and that public health officials are unable to consider tradeoffs (as opposed to having considered them and reached a different conclusion), and they want "better," by which they mean riskier, cost-benefit analyses. (It also makes me think that the point about it being difficult to vaccinate everyone is a bit disingenuous - it's true that it's difficult, but it would be easier if there weren't political organizations arguing for political reasons that we shouldn't vaccinate everyone!)
- ghoward 5y ago
  > That is - they are taking as a given that people are being too risk-averse, especially in regards to COVID-19, and that public health officials are unable to consider tradeoffs (as opposed to having considered them and reached a different conclusion), and they want "better," by which they mean riskier, cost-benefit analyses. Australia locked down for three deaths, so I think they are right here. > (It also makes me think that the point about it being difficult to vaccinate everyone is a bit disingenuous - it's true that it's difficult, but it would be easier if there weren't political organizations arguing for political reasons that we shouldn't vaccinate everyone!) It's funny you say that, but really, there are just a lot of people that don't want to get any of the vaccines, myself included. That's because, with a thought cost-benefit analysis, it did not make sense for me. Making that decision for myself is only a problem because of Safetyism. The funny thing is that once physical and emotional safety is sacred, the government can get away with all sorts of actions that would not be acceptable otherwise, actions that might actually compromise the safety of individuals from the government itself! And then we are not really safe.
taylorlapeyre 5y ago
This doesn't mention long covid, which is still a huge open question with worrying results: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext#seccesectitle0013 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5... > People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety. The deficits were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised (N = 192), but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326). Analysing markers of premorbid intelligence did not support these differences being present prior to infection. Finer grained analysis of performance across sub-tests supported the hypothesis that COVID-19 has a multi-domain impact on human cognition.
- nradov 5y ago
  What do you think we would find if we repeated the same research for patients who had been infected with influenza, RSV, coxsackievirus, mononucleosis, HCoV-OC43, etc.?
- tailius 5y ago
  Florida took the approach of "people will get it. (shrugs)" and look what happened. LC has been associated with permanent organ damage. I think that's a reason to worry because of the disability adjusted life years (DALY) involved.
- _Algernon_ 5y ago
  Are there any studies yet that say something about the risks of long covid when vaccinated?
  - tim333 5y ago
    Not much but one in Israel followed 1,497 fully vaccinated health care workers. 39 got covid, 7 had symptoms 6 weeks in.
- stolenmerch 5y ago
rolph 5y ago
the article submitted reflects a paucity of knowledge regarding the Coronavirus
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jdhn 5y ago
An article about covid that isn't filled with doom and gloom? What a nice break. While I think the author is right, what I fear is that the media will continue to freak out about every new variant and every new spike in cases leading to this weird state where it's not that bad, but everyone thinks it's getting worse.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  The media freaking out is because they get payed to freak you out. Not only will you watch what they are saying - you will also be more open to getting the vaccine.
- ziziyO 5y ago
  The reason it’s so upbeat, is it is written by a phd candidate (in philosophy, not epidemiology) for a “think tank” called The Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. That think tank publishes gems like “colleges and universities are hostile to conservatives”, and has pushed back against COVID-19 mitigation efforts in the past. Not to be trusted.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mypastself 5y ago
Nearly two years into the pandemic, and it’s still difficult for a layman to get credible information beyond the basics. I read the whole article and it seems convincing to me, but does it reflect the scientific consensus? The author does not seem to have any scientific credentials, and the site seems to have a specific agenda - which does not necessarily disqualify the content immediately. Does anyone have links to more credible sites supporting or denying the claims made in the article?
- stathibus 5y ago
  There is no scientific consensus. It's a moving target and science is too slow.
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  > links to more credible sites supporting or denying the claims made in the article? There were a lot of claims made - which claims are you interested in? There is growing scientific consensus that naturally infected individuals who recover will acquire robust and durable immunity [1][2][3][4]. > new people are going to get born who are completely susceptible because they have never been infected yet and won’t be vaccinated This claim stuck out to me as especially unsupported, hinting at the authors lack of expertise in this area. Here are several publications supporting the fact that infection and immunity can be passed from mother to child in utero [5][6][7]. [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf [2] Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(21)00203-2 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37... [3] Antibody Responses 8 Months after Asymptomatic or Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infection https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920668/ [4] Naturally enhanced neutralizing breadth against SARS-CoV-2 one year after infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9 [5] Efficient maternal to neonatal transfer of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine https://www.jci.org/articles/view/150319 https://www.jci.org/articles/view/150319 [6] Possible Vertical Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 From an Infected Mother to Her Newborn https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763853 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763853 [7] Compromised SARS-CoV-2-specific placental antibody transfer https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420317499 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286742...
throw63738 5y ago
It is artificially created virus. It is not difficult to create another. New pandemic will be every decade.
JohnTHaller 5y ago
What do we know about this source? It seems like a new organization that's under a year old with a name - CSPI (Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology) - confusingly similar to the existing CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) that's been around since 1971. It seems to have some biases in their blog. And in their 2nd area of interest "2. The Great Awokening - In the last decade, white liberals in America have shifted far to the left on issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation."
opcenter 5y ago
> At the moment, many people want to vaccinate their kids, but I doubt it will still be the case in a few years when the panic induced by the pandemic has subsided and people have realized that SARS-CoV-2 is harmless to children. Except, SARS-CoV-2 is not harmless to children. I think it will become a common seasonal vaccine for kids, just like the flu vaccine.

56 points by kvee 5y ago

This is probably what happened with another similar coronavirus, HCoV-OC43. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ The initial pandemic killed a lot of people. Now most of us get infected when we're young and build up natural immunity.

deadmutex 5y ago
How long does covid immunity after natural infection last?
- dsincl12 5y ago
  Probably for life and that includes variants as well. See https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31008-4 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31008-4
- rolph 5y ago
  there is evidence that Tcell based immunity remains for more than a decade [i.e 17 years] as evidenced by competent immune response of sars survivors when challenged by sars2 [covid19] the real concern should be the inverse of your question, ie how long does it take for the sars2 to generate variants that will escape a contemporary vaccine. there are other considerations such as the neutralizing antibody criterion . there is a sweet spot of prophylactic vaccination; a span of time exists post innocuum where neutralizing antibodies are at the greatest titre and the best chance of destroying a viral agent before infection can occur will exist. this is a good bullseye to aim for, however unreasonable to expect high degree of accuracy or timing regarding titre and pathogenic challenge. the thing with non-neutralizing antibodies are that they are lables flagging a foriegn antigen these are referred to as opsonising antibodies and lable antigens for phagocytosis by macrophages. roughly 6-8 months is the official endorsement regarding duration of naturally aquired immunity; this is probably somewhat longer in duration however the virus changes quickly; at this point one should expect roughly 12 monthes before "boosting" is absolutely required. I suspect arbitrarily that boosting will soon succumb to a reformulation in order to match vaccine closely to novel viral epitopes. this is the same sort of dynamic that "the cold" follows, thats why we always catch it often very mild sometimes very bad due to variation of previous challenger, and cesation of antibody production. [adndm] here is a short piece regarding the above: https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/august/penn-study-details-robust-tcell-response-to-mrna-covid19-vaccines https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/august/... https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3 https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3

geofft 5y ago

While I don't think this necessarily affects the conclusions, this source is kind of brazenly ideologically-driven. From their home page https://cspicenter.org/ https://cspicenter.org/ : > 3. Safetyism > The sacralization of physical and emotional safety is a worrying trend. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the inability of public health officials to consider the tradeoffs between physical safety and personal freedom. > Progress in science and technology is impossible without physical risk. Progress in ethics and politics is impossible without emotional risk. Yet, society and government seem to be becoming more risk-averse. > CSPI welcomes work investigating the origins, nature, and effects of safetyism. We are also interested in policies and practices that reduce risk aversion or encourage better cost-benefit analysis. That is - they are taking as a given that people are being too risk-averse, especially in regards to COVID-19, and that public health officials are unable to consider tradeoffs (as opposed to having considered them and reached a different conclusion), and they want "better," by which they mean riskier, cost-benefit analyses. (It also makes me think that the point about it being difficult to vaccinate everyone is a bit disingenuous - it's true that it's difficult, but it would be easier if there weren't political organizations arguing for political reasons that we shouldn't vaccinate everyone!)

ghoward 5y ago
> That is - they are taking as a given that people are being too risk-averse, especially in regards to COVID-19, and that public health officials are unable to consider tradeoffs (as opposed to having considered them and reached a different conclusion), and they want "better," by which they mean riskier, cost-benefit analyses. Australia locked down for three deaths, so I think they are right here. > (It also makes me think that the point about it being difficult to vaccinate everyone is a bit disingenuous - it's true that it's difficult, but it would be easier if there weren't political organizations arguing for political reasons that we shouldn't vaccinate everyone!) It's funny you say that, but really, there are just a lot of people that don't want to get any of the vaccines, myself included. That's because, with a thought cost-benefit analysis, it did not make sense for me. Making that decision for myself is only a problem because of Safetyism. The funny thing is that once physical and emotional safety is sacred, the government can get away with all sorts of actions that would not be acceptable otherwise, actions that might actually compromise the safety of individuals from the government itself! And then we are not really safe.

taylorlapeyre 5y ago

This doesn't mention long covid, which is still a huge open question with worrying results: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext#seccesectitle0013 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5... > People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety. The deficits were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised (N = 192), but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326). Analysing markers of premorbid intelligence did not support these differences being present prior to infection. Finer grained analysis of performance across sub-tests supported the hypothesis that COVID-19 has a multi-domain impact on human cognition.

nradov 5y ago
What do you think we would find if we repeated the same research for patients who had been infected with influenza, RSV, coxsackievirus, mononucleosis, HCoV-OC43, etc.?
tailius 5y ago
Florida took the approach of "people will get it. (shrugs)" and look what happened. LC has been associated with permanent organ damage. I think that's a reason to worry because of the disability adjusted life years (DALY) involved.
_Algernon_ 5y ago
Are there any studies yet that say something about the risks of long covid when vaccinated?
- tim333 5y ago
  Not much but one in Israel followed 1,497 fully vaccinated health care workers. 39 got covid, 7 had symptoms 6 weeks in.
stolenmerch 5y ago

rolph 5y ago

the article submitted reflects a paucity of knowledge regarding the Coronavirus

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jdhn 5y ago

An article about covid that isn't filled with doom and gloom? What a nice break. While I think the author is right, what I fear is that the media will continue to freak out about every new variant and every new spike in cases leading to this weird state where it's not that bad, but everyone thinks it's getting worse.

peakaboo 5y ago
The media freaking out is because they get payed to freak you out. Not only will you watch what they are saying - you will also be more open to getting the vaccine.
ziziyO 5y ago
The reason it’s so upbeat, is it is written by a phd candidate (in philosophy, not epidemiology) for a “think tank” called The Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. That think tank publishes gems like “colleges and universities are hostile to conservatives”, and has pushed back against COVID-19 mitigation efforts in the past. Not to be trusted.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mypastself 5y ago

Nearly two years into the pandemic, and it’s still difficult for a layman to get credible information beyond the basics. I read the whole article and it seems convincing to me, but does it reflect the scientific consensus? The author does not seem to have any scientific credentials, and the site seems to have a specific agenda - which does not necessarily disqualify the content immediately. Does anyone have links to more credible sites supporting or denying the claims made in the article?

stathibus 5y ago
There is no scientific consensus. It's a moving target and science is too slow.
criticaltinker 5y ago
> links to more credible sites supporting or denying the claims made in the article? There were a lot of claims made - which claims are you interested in? There is growing scientific consensus that naturally infected individuals who recover will acquire robust and durable immunity [1][2][3][4]. > new people are going to get born who are completely susceptible because they have never been infected yet and won’t be vaccinated This claim stuck out to me as especially unsupported, hinting at the authors lack of expertise in this area. Here are several publications supporting the fact that infection and immunity can be passed from mother to child in utero [5][6][7]. [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf [2] Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(21)00203-2 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37... [3] Antibody Responses 8 Months after Asymptomatic or Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infection https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920668/ [4] Naturally enhanced neutralizing breadth against SARS-CoV-2 one year after infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9 [5] Efficient maternal to neonatal transfer of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine https://www.jci.org/articles/view/150319 https://www.jci.org/articles/view/150319 [6] Possible Vertical Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 From an Infected Mother to Her Newborn https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763853 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763853 [7] Compromised SARS-CoV-2-specific placental antibody transfer https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420317499 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286742...

throw63738 5y ago

It is artificially created virus. It is not difficult to create another. New pandemic will be every decade.

JohnTHaller 5y ago

What do we know about this source? It seems like a new organization that's under a year old with a name - CSPI (Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology) - confusingly similar to the existing CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) that's been around since 1971. It seems to have some biases in their blog. And in their 2nd area of interest "2. The Great Awokening - In the last decade, white liberals in America have shifted far to the left on issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation."

opcenter 5y ago

> At the moment, many people want to vaccinate their kids, but I doubt it will still be the case in a few years when the panic induced by the pandemic has subsided and people have realized that SARS-CoV-2 is harmless to children. Except, SARS-CoV-2 is not harmless to children. I think it will become a common seasonal vaccine for kids, just like the flu vaccine.