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Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?

Engineering-MD 5y ago
Rather than a contentious article about how vaccines are harmful, it’s about how immunity differs between actual infection and vaccination, and whether with background immunity if a booster or catching covid is better. Worth a read.
XorNot 5y ago
What an utterly redundant point. If you catch and do not die from the virus then yay for you I suppose, but you'll still spread it around while you have it, you still might die from the virus, and there is literally no downside to having a better immune response when you inevitably do catch COVID-19 as we're all going to eventually. Like everything else, the goal of every single public health measure at the moment is to avoid having a huge portion of the population all need hospital services at the same time though. This article is asking a stupid question, and the answer is predictably stupid. EDIT: Pile on anti-vaxxer downvotes, the speed with which you're dumping these in makes it apparent you're not reading the article.
- timthorn 5y ago
  The question asked by the article is sensible. The uncertainty explored is whether, having had an initial vaccination, future natural infection would produce a better defence against variants than booster shots that target the spike protein alone.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Which is irrelevant: the booster vaccines are to provide sustained protection against the variants we have now and reduce the risk of serious complications. There is no situation in which it is a good idea to be infected with a virus rather then vaccinated against it, and comments on provided immunity from infection are irrelevant: you either become immune to what infected you or it kills you.
    - walterbell 5y ago
      Current Covid vaccines are non-sterilizing. They reduce symptoms, but cannot guarantee that you will not be infected. This is covered in the article in the discussion of antibodies in the upper respiratory system (obtained from natural infection) vs antibodies in the blood (obtained from vaccination or natural infection). Future nasal vaccines, delivered by inhaler, could potentially provide sterilizing immunity, preventing infection: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=28256342 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=28256342
      - bluGill 5y ago
        The vaccines reduce infection chances greatly, and even if you get it they reduce the time you have it and thus how much time you can spread. Non sterilizating is technically true, but misleading. We are still better off with vaccines and can probable eliminate covid with high enough vaccine rates.
        walterbell 5y ago
        Hopefully upcoming nasal vaccines will be even better, as noted by the UK's SAGE, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evolution-of-sars-cov-2-26-july-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti... > Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals.
    - jeromegv 5y ago
      Funny how those anti-vaxers in hospitals don’t advocate that it was all worth it for their immunity they just built. You either get the immunity through a shot or through an infection. One has very much worse chances of bringing you to the hospital.
    - Vecr 5y ago
      Why? Natural boosting is totally legitimate, look at the rotavirus strategy in the US for example. You get the vaccine three times soon after you are born, and then never again after that, because your immune system matures and you get infected (without severe symptoms) many times.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > EDIT: Pile on anti-vaxxer downvotes, You don't need to be an anti-vaxxer to disagree with what you wrote.
- TrispusAttucks 5y ago
  Sure. But. There is more to life then just maximizing safety in perpetuity. We must live and move on with the business of life.
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  I'm not an anti-vaxxer, I got vaccinated. I don't think the article is stupid. Even if you disagree with the idea (and I don't, necessarily), it's a valid question to raise, and the discussion is a productive one to have.
- hartator 5y ago
  > no downside to having a better immune response Side effects increase when we vaccinate younger population - that includes long term ones - Whereas younger population are very unlikely to have serious symptoms from the virus.
walterbell 5y ago
> There is a whole different suite of antibodies (known as immunoglobulin As) in the nose and lungs, compared with those (immunoglobulin Gs) that we measure in the blood. The former is more important as a barrier to infection. Natural infection, because it is in the nose rather than a jab in the arm, may be a better route to those antibodies, and nasal vaccines are being investigated too. Thread on intramuscular (arm injection) vs intranasal (inhaled) vaccines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28165287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28165287
michaelhah 5y ago
One thing left out of the article is whether we should be vaccinating people to discourage spread simply to keep the risk of a much worse variant from randomly occurring low.
- benf76 5y ago
  There is a risk of creating variants by mass vaccination. If everyone has a uniform defense generated by a vaccine, this creates selection pressures for a variant that is able to maneuver around the vaccine induced immunity.
  - IAmEveryone 5y ago
    There are reasons to believe, and some experience to point to, that this effect doesn’t work with vaccines as much as it does with antibiotics. It’s a long story, but part of the reason is that bacteria evolve resistance in the presence of the antibiotic, while here, the virus would need to randomly evolve it in the unvaccinated, then sustain useless adaption for a while until it gets the opportunity to infect a vaccinated person.
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      Vaccinated people are already regularly getting infected, so it isn't quite that simple. With Covid, many of the vaccines target a highly functional portion of the virus for the induced immunity. This means that mutations that make the vaccine induced antibodies less effective are at least somewhat likely to alter the function of the virus. My understanding is that we aren't really able to analytically determine the possibility space.
    - leereeves 5y ago
      > the virus would need to randomly evolve [resistance] in the unvaccinated That's only true if the vaccine stops almost all infections, which the COVID vaccines do not. There's another comment in this thread from someone who's been vaccinated and sick for 9 days. That's a great environment for the virus to evolve immunity to the vaccine. And it's not an uncommon situation.
meheleventyone 5y ago
Tangentially related but I’m on day 9 of COVID infection which is easily the longest I’ve been sick in years. I got two shots of Pfizer last one on the 13th of July. If the vaccine has kept this relatively mild then I’m very glad. It sucks. My main symptoms are a stuffed up face, cough, sore throat, aching body and an extremely fuzzy head that seems to come and go. I had a slightly raised temp at the start but otherwise it’s been normal and no problems breathing. Annoyingly my first test was negative even though I was symptomatic so I was wandering around being infectious for seven days. I’m now in isolation and my wife and kids are quarantined. Thankfully my wife tested negative yesterday, she was a couple of weeks ahead of me in terms of getting vaccinated so hopefully a combo of that and me having a relatively mild case means she stays healthy. I’ve got at least another 13 days of being stuck by myself in an apartment to go before I can rejoin the world. TLDR; please get vaccinated, this sucks.
- Rezwoodly 5y ago
  Uh, you did get vaccinated and still have these symptoms. You could also fairly end your TLDR with 'did get vaccinated, this sucks'. It seems we are still learning about the efficacy of the vaccines, and the nature of the virus. From this pov I understand why some are hesitant to be vaccinated in this phase of the pandemic
  - mrgordon 5y ago
    You missed the point. The virus is usually much worse without the vaccine.
    - andrew_ 5y ago
      Please provide data for that claim.
      - meheleventyone 5y ago
        From our chief epidemiologist over here in Iceland: “ Þórólfur wrote in his response to RÚV yesterday that the figures change quickly and that now the non-vaccinated infection rate is twice as high rather than three-times, the hospital admission rate is five-times higher, and the rate of admission to intensive care is also five-times higher than for vaccinated people.” https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/08/19/unvaccinated-five-times-more-likely-to-need-hospital https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/08/19/unvaccinated-five-times-...
dsugarman 5y ago
>"do children need vaccinating at all, or does a lifetime of encountering build a good immune defence?" >"However, he said the argument in children had "already been won" as "40-50% have already been infected and most weren't ill or particularly ill"." This sounds like a pretty different conclusion than CDC guidelines to have children wear masks in school. I understand it might just be to slow the spread but it seems inevitable that the virus has to move through the population and those who aren't vaccinated right now aren't going to get vaccinated in the future. Another question no one is asking in a lot of these is should people who have had covid get one dose or two? (Pfizer / Moderna) Every study on the subject seems to point to higher immunity after one shot than people who haven't had covid getting 2. This would have greatly increased the supply and rate we could immunize others.
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  Mostly I agree, but vaccination rates in the U.S. have picked up a little in the last few weeks, so there are at least some unvaccinated adults who are persuadable.
IAmEveryone 5y ago
This is the sort of valid point that one will tend to avoid discussing because it is likely to be misused by the ideological critics of vaccination. As an alternative I haven’t heard much of, updating the vaccines would seem to be a good option, as well? The first round was developed fast enough to almost outrun variants, so it should work quite well second time around. It’s important to avoid the naturalistic fallacy: infection is not necessarily better protection. That is why, for example, tetanus and rabies vaccines work even when given after infection.
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  Yes, but the actual results from Israel and elsewhere suggest that, in this case, infection is better protection. It's not the naturalistic fallacy, it's what we're actually seeing. Of course, vaccination is far, far better than nothing. But for a 5-year old, or a 50 year old who's already vaccinated, it's not clear that more vaccination is better than just having your immune system learn from the real thing. It's all a moot point, of course, since it seems like we're all getting exposed, regardless of what we want. Even white-tailed deer in Canada are getting covid-19, so it's not likely that humans living in cities are going to avoid it.
  - phonypc 5y ago
    >Yes, but the actual results from Israel and elsewhere suggest that, in this case, infection is better protection. It's not the naturalistic fallacy, it's what we're actually seeing. What is this in reference to? All evidence I've seen points to vaccine provided immunity being more protective.
gmuslera 5y ago
What about a third dose of a different vaccine? all the available ones targets the same and only protein?
- thysultan 5y ago
  We're already doing this with recent booster shots. So i think it's perfectly reasonable to also giga-vax.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >So i think it's perfectly reasonable to also giga-vax. As always, 4chan has already done the work. (<https://i.redd.it/08qwj2r4kyw61.jpg https://i.redd.it/08qwj2r4kyw61.jpg>)
- airhead969 5y ago
  It's called "heterologous prime-boost vaccination." Moderna is preferred due to delta.
EugeneOZ 5y ago
Covid affects your intellect, vaccine doesn't. Simple choice.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > Covid affects your intellect Accordingly to a poorly designed paper, which is probably completely bullshit and not reproducible.
  - EugeneOZ 5y ago
    I see you are an expert. Will believe you then.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      You don't have to be an expert to see the flaws in a study design.
thysultan 5y ago
>Getting a booster shot every few months for the next 10 years is always going to be the best option — Every Vaccine CEO \s
- pluc 5y ago
  There's a legit conspiracy with this very narrative. We have a handful of companies who have just been showered in public funds in the hopes that they produce something to make themselves irrelevant. It's not hard to believe that they'll lobby for the boosters regardless of the data.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    That's a really bad characterization though, the vaccine studies were designed with the participation of government scientists (for sure with Moderna, which was developed in partnership with NIH). The idea that the corporate scientists are all utterly corrupt and also so much better at science that they can undermine the effectiveness of the vaccines without ruining them completely is nonsensical.
    - gunapologist99 5y ago
      Whether the vaccine works perfectly or not is actually completely irrelevant to the simple question of whether the government is inviting corruption by allowing what are effectively lobbyist scientists to apply suasion with "participating" in the studies, and aside from whether "participation" now adds the veneer of respectability that you cite.
      - maxerickson 5y ago
        Yeah, the scientists at the NIH aren't 'lobbyist scientists' (I think that's who you mean?), so if you think they are that, well, there's no real point in trying to discuss it. The idea that the government overseeing efficacy study design invites corruption is also sort of tedious. Just deciding to regulate something reaches that same low bar of inviting corruption, but that would not be a good reason to not have regulation.
nikkinana 5y ago
It always was. Johns Hopkins did a study, and catching covid was 6x better protection than any of the vaccines. Furthermore, your body learns how to protect itself differently from catching it. Unfortunately if you google search, it's buried about 20 pages down. There's no profit in that.
rossdavidh 5y ago
I find it unlikely that this would ever even be raised as a question in an American mainstream news source. A better question, though, would be "who needs a vaccine more now, a 1st world 10-year old, a 1st world 50-year old who's already been vaccinated, or a 3rd world 65-year old?"
andrew_ 5y ago
There is a gross amount of commenting as fact without accompanying data in the comments on this one.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Yeah, that's often what a discussion is.
gunapologist99 5y ago
"three-fourths of the nearly 470 cases were in vaccinated people" https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/93830 https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccin... (from a leaked CDC memo; it seems like figuring out whether the CDC data should have been kept secret at all is left as an exercise for the reader.) (edit: better source)
- maxerickson 5y ago
  If you have an outbreak in a highly vaccinated population, guess what is true of the people that get sick? Consider the limit case, a 100% vaccinated population. If you have an outbreak, everyone that gets sick will have been vaccinated.
  - daenz 5y ago
    This is using a clever (and true) thought experiment to warp actual reality. We are nowhere close to being 100% vaccinated, and so 3/4 is a horrible ratio for the vaccine. Put another way, if 3/4 of the population was vaccinated, vaccinated people representing 3/4 of the cases would mean that the vaccine has no impact on the cases.
    - phonypc 5y ago
      The link in GP refers to an outbreak (Provincetown, MA. in July) that is not representative of pretty much any situation but itself. It is not by any means evidence for vaccine ineffectiveness. For context: https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1421313594063458304 https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1421313594063458304 https://twitter.com/peterstaley/status/1421215604481142785 https://twitter.com/peterstaley/status/1421215604481142785
new_realist 5y ago
If the question is whether vaccine should go to someone who hasn’t been vaccinated or used as a booster for someone who has, it seems clear that it should go to the unvaccinated person unless the booster candidate is very high risk. But we don’t have a shortage of vaccines in the developed world, only a shortage of smart people willing to take them. Bottom line, a booster shot reduces the chance of a variant emerging. You don’t want immunity to parts of the virus that aren’t the spike protein; that’s a waste of resources. The spike is what’s needed to reproduce.
lamontcg 5y ago
There's another answer here though which is to skip getting naturally infected with the worst variant of this strain of SARS-CoV-2 and instead catching whatever is going around the world in a year or two after it has been forced to make costly mutations to achieve immune escape. SARS-CoV-2 will very likely become endemic and everyone in the world will eventually get naturally exposed to it, but delta is probably the optimally worst and most virulent form of the virus to get naturally exposed to. And yeah kids should get vaccinated, the vaccines are safer than the virus for everyone, that shouldn't even be a question.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > SARS-CoV-2 will very likely become endemic and everyone in the world will eventually get naturally exposed to it, but delta is probably the optimally worst and most virulent form of the virus to get naturally exposed to. Is it? I thought early signs were that Lambda is worse.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    Lambda is still a VOI not a VOC even after months of monitoring. There might still be other variants after delta but at some point it cannot become infinitely transmissible and virulent. It also won't be able to become more transmissible and virulent while also achieving complete immune escape (complete escape likely isn't even possible from T-cells). Similar to the 1918 pandemic the worst case virus is likely to be at the tail end of the first round of the pandemic, the endemic virus will be less virulent.
ivermectin 5y ago
scientifically that ineffective vaccines, which can still cause infection, that do not inhibit infectivity, so-called 'leak' vaccines will cause resistance to the virus and this indirectly puts unvaccinated people at greater risk of infection before the 'leak' vaccine is used , this infection comes from people who have been vaccinated This Unlike previous vaccines such as polio and others, these vaccines are effective, but these mRNA vaccines are not effective so they are called experimental vaccines and humans are experimental on a global scale. (01) Imperfect Vaccination May Increase Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR (02) Imperfect vaccines and pathogen virulence evolution https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a
ivermectin 5y ago
According to science, "LEAKING" VACCINE IS "DANGEROUS". All scientists know about this,. A 'leak' vaccine is a vaccine that is ineffective, imperfect, even people who have been vaccinated can become infected and are generally asymptomatic (OTG) and that do not prevent transmission from people who have been vaccinated, and this indirectly places people who are not vaccinated is more risky than when the vaccine has not been used that comes from people who have been vaccinated. Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR Imperfect vaccines and the evolution of pathogen virulence https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a leaky vaccines, super-spreads, and variant acceleration https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/leaky-vaccines-super-spreads-and https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/leaky-vaccines-super-spre... Why the evolution of vaccine resistance is less of a concern than the evolution of drug resistance https://www.pnas.org/content/115/51/12878 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/51/12878 Vaccines Could Drive The Evolution Of More COVID-19 Mutants https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965703047/vaccines-could-drive-the-evolution-of-more-covid-19-mutants https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965703047/vaccines-could-driv... Vaccine-driven virulence evolution: consequences of unbalanced reductions in mortality and transmission and implications for pertussis vaccines https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31822219/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31822219/ Virulence evolution in response to vaccination: The case of malaria https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2663389/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2663389/ Vaccine-driven virulence evolution: consequences of unbalanced reductions in mortality and transmission and implications for pertussis vaccines https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2019.0642 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2019.064... Assessing the risk of vaccine-driven virulence evolution in SARS-CoV-2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.01.20241836v2.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.01.20241836v...

Rather than a contentious article about how vaccines are harmful, it’s about how immunity differs between actual infection and vaccination, and whether with background immunity if a booster or catching covid is better. Worth a read.

XorNot 5y ago

What an utterly redundant point. If you catch and do not die from the virus then yay for you I suppose, but you'll still spread it around while you have it, you still might die from the virus, and there is literally no downside to having a better immune response when you inevitably do catch COVID-19 as we're all going to eventually. Like everything else, the goal of every single public health measure at the moment is to avoid having a huge portion of the population all need hospital services at the same time though. This article is asking a stupid question, and the answer is predictably stupid. EDIT: Pile on anti-vaxxer downvotes, the speed with which you're dumping these in makes it apparent you're not reading the article.

timthorn 5y ago
The question asked by the article is sensible. The uncertainty explored is whether, having had an initial vaccination, future natural infection would produce a better defence against variants than booster shots that target the spike protein alone.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Which is irrelevant: the booster vaccines are to provide sustained protection against the variants we have now and reduce the risk of serious complications. There is no situation in which it is a good idea to be infected with a virus rather then vaccinated against it, and comments on provided immunity from infection are irrelevant: you either become immune to what infected you or it kills you.
  - walterbell 5y ago
    Current Covid vaccines are non-sterilizing. They reduce symptoms, but cannot guarantee that you will not be infected. This is covered in the article in the discussion of antibodies in the upper respiratory system (obtained from natural infection) vs antibodies in the blood (obtained from vaccination or natural infection). Future nasal vaccines, delivered by inhaler, could potentially provide sterilizing immunity, preventing infection: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=28256342 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=28256342
    - bluGill 5y ago
      The vaccines reduce infection chances greatly, and even if you get it they reduce the time you have it and thus how much time you can spread. Non sterilizating is technically true, but misleading. We are still better off with vaccines and can probable eliminate covid with high enough vaccine rates.
      - walterbell 5y ago
        Hopefully upcoming nasal vaccines will be even better, as noted by the UK's SAGE, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evolution-of-sars-cov-2-26-july-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti... > Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals.
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    Funny how those anti-vaxers in hospitals don’t advocate that it was all worth it for their immunity they just built. You either get the immunity through a shot or through an infection. One has very much worse chances of bringing you to the hospital.
  - Vecr 5y ago
    Why? Natural boosting is totally legitimate, look at the rotavirus strategy in the US for example. You get the vaccine three times soon after you are born, and then never again after that, because your immune system matures and you get infected (without severe symptoms) many times.
ekianjo 5y ago
> EDIT: Pile on anti-vaxxer downvotes, You don't need to be an anti-vaxxer to disagree with what you wrote.
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
Sure. But. There is more to life then just maximizing safety in perpetuity. We must live and move on with the business of life.
rossdavidh 5y ago
I'm not an anti-vaxxer, I got vaccinated. I don't think the article is stupid. Even if you disagree with the idea (and I don't, necessarily), it's a valid question to raise, and the discussion is a productive one to have.
hartator 5y ago
> no downside to having a better immune response Side effects increase when we vaccinate younger population - that includes long term ones - Whereas younger population are very unlikely to have serious symptoms from the virus.

walterbell 5y ago

> There is a whole different suite of antibodies (known as immunoglobulin As) in the nose and lungs, compared with those (immunoglobulin Gs) that we measure in the blood. The former is more important as a barrier to infection. Natural infection, because it is in the nose rather than a jab in the arm, may be a better route to those antibodies, and nasal vaccines are being investigated too. Thread on intramuscular (arm injection) vs intranasal (inhaled) vaccines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28165287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28165287

michaelhah 5y ago

One thing left out of the article is whether we should be vaccinating people to discourage spread simply to keep the risk of a much worse variant from randomly occurring low.

benf76 5y ago
There is a risk of creating variants by mass vaccination. If everyone has a uniform defense generated by a vaccine, this creates selection pressures for a variant that is able to maneuver around the vaccine induced immunity.
- IAmEveryone 5y ago
  There are reasons to believe, and some experience to point to, that this effect doesn’t work with vaccines as much as it does with antibiotics. It’s a long story, but part of the reason is that bacteria evolve resistance in the presence of the antibiotic, while here, the virus would need to randomly evolve it in the unvaccinated, then sustain useless adaption for a while until it gets the opportunity to infect a vaccinated person.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Vaccinated people are already regularly getting infected, so it isn't quite that simple. With Covid, many of the vaccines target a highly functional portion of the virus for the induced immunity. This means that mutations that make the vaccine induced antibodies less effective are at least somewhat likely to alter the function of the virus. My understanding is that we aren't really able to analytically determine the possibility space.
  - leereeves 5y ago
    > the virus would need to randomly evolve [resistance] in the unvaccinated That's only true if the vaccine stops almost all infections, which the COVID vaccines do not. There's another comment in this thread from someone who's been vaccinated and sick for 9 days. That's a great environment for the virus to evolve immunity to the vaccine. And it's not an uncommon situation.

meheleventyone 5y ago

Tangentially related but I’m on day 9 of COVID infection which is easily the longest I’ve been sick in years. I got two shots of Pfizer last one on the 13th of July. If the vaccine has kept this relatively mild then I’m very glad. It sucks. My main symptoms are a stuffed up face, cough, sore throat, aching body and an extremely fuzzy head that seems to come and go. I had a slightly raised temp at the start but otherwise it’s been normal and no problems breathing. Annoyingly my first test was negative even though I was symptomatic so I was wandering around being infectious for seven days. I’m now in isolation and my wife and kids are quarantined. Thankfully my wife tested negative yesterday, she was a couple of weeks ahead of me in terms of getting vaccinated so hopefully a combo of that and me having a relatively mild case means she stays healthy. I’ve got at least another 13 days of being stuck by myself in an apartment to go before I can rejoin the world. TLDR; please get vaccinated, this sucks.

Rezwoodly 5y ago
Uh, you did get vaccinated and still have these symptoms. You could also fairly end your TLDR with 'did get vaccinated, this sucks'. It seems we are still learning about the efficacy of the vaccines, and the nature of the virus. From this pov I understand why some are hesitant to be vaccinated in this phase of the pandemic
- mrgordon 5y ago
  You missed the point. The virus is usually much worse without the vaccine.
  - andrew_ 5y ago
    Please provide data for that claim.
    - meheleventyone 5y ago
      From our chief epidemiologist over here in Iceland: “ Þórólfur wrote in his response to RÚV yesterday that the figures change quickly and that now the non-vaccinated infection rate is twice as high rather than three-times, the hospital admission rate is five-times higher, and the rate of admission to intensive care is also five-times higher than for vaccinated people.” https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/08/19/unvaccinated-five-times-more-likely-to-need-hospital https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/08/19/unvaccinated-five-times-...

dsugarman 5y ago

>"do children need vaccinating at all, or does a lifetime of encountering build a good immune defence?" >"However, he said the argument in children had "already been won" as "40-50% have already been infected and most weren't ill or particularly ill"." This sounds like a pretty different conclusion than CDC guidelines to have children wear masks in school. I understand it might just be to slow the spread but it seems inevitable that the virus has to move through the population and those who aren't vaccinated right now aren't going to get vaccinated in the future. Another question no one is asking in a lot of these is should people who have had covid get one dose or two? (Pfizer / Moderna) Every study on the subject seems to point to higher immunity after one shot than people who haven't had covid getting 2. This would have greatly increased the supply and rate we could immunize others.

rossdavidh 5y ago
Mostly I agree, but vaccination rates in the U.S. have picked up a little in the last few weeks, so there are at least some unvaccinated adults who are persuadable.

IAmEveryone 5y ago

This is the sort of valid point that one will tend to avoid discussing because it is likely to be misused by the ideological critics of vaccination. As an alternative I haven’t heard much of, updating the vaccines would seem to be a good option, as well? The first round was developed fast enough to almost outrun variants, so it should work quite well second time around. It’s important to avoid the naturalistic fallacy: infection is not necessarily better protection. That is why, for example, tetanus and rabies vaccines work even when given after infection.

rossdavidh 5y ago
Yes, but the actual results from Israel and elsewhere suggest that, in this case, infection is better protection. It's not the naturalistic fallacy, it's what we're actually seeing. Of course, vaccination is far, far better than nothing. But for a 5-year old, or a 50 year old who's already vaccinated, it's not clear that more vaccination is better than just having your immune system learn from the real thing. It's all a moot point, of course, since it seems like we're all getting exposed, regardless of what we want. Even white-tailed deer in Canada are getting covid-19, so it's not likely that humans living in cities are going to avoid it.
- phonypc 5y ago
  >Yes, but the actual results from Israel and elsewhere suggest that, in this case, infection is better protection. It's not the naturalistic fallacy, it's what we're actually seeing. What is this in reference to? All evidence I've seen points to vaccine provided immunity being more protective.

gmuslera 5y ago

What about a third dose of a different vaccine? all the available ones targets the same and only protein?

thysultan 5y ago
We're already doing this with recent booster shots. So i think it's perfectly reasonable to also giga-vax.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >So i think it's perfectly reasonable to also giga-vax. As always, 4chan has already done the work. (<https://i.redd.it/08qwj2r4kyw61.jpg https://i.redd.it/08qwj2r4kyw61.jpg>)
airhead969 5y ago
It's called "heterologous prime-boost vaccination." Moderna is preferred due to delta.

EugeneOZ 5y ago

Covid affects your intellect, vaccine doesn't. Simple choice.

ekianjo 5y ago
> Covid affects your intellect Accordingly to a poorly designed paper, which is probably completely bullshit and not reproducible.
- EugeneOZ 5y ago
  I see you are an expert. Will believe you then.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    You don't have to be an expert to see the flaws in a study design.

thysultan 5y ago

>Getting a booster shot every few months for the next 10 years is always going to be the best option — Every Vaccine CEO \s

pluc 5y ago
There's a legit conspiracy with this very narrative. We have a handful of companies who have just been showered in public funds in the hopes that they produce something to make themselves irrelevant. It's not hard to believe that they'll lobby for the boosters regardless of the data.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  That's a really bad characterization though, the vaccine studies were designed with the participation of government scientists (for sure with Moderna, which was developed in partnership with NIH). The idea that the corporate scientists are all utterly corrupt and also so much better at science that they can undermine the effectiveness of the vaccines without ruining them completely is nonsensical.
  - gunapologist99 5y ago
    Whether the vaccine works perfectly or not is actually completely irrelevant to the simple question of whether the government is inviting corruption by allowing what are effectively lobbyist scientists to apply suasion with "participating" in the studies, and aside from whether "participation" now adds the veneer of respectability that you cite.
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      Yeah, the scientists at the NIH aren't 'lobbyist scientists' (I think that's who you mean?), so if you think they are that, well, there's no real point in trying to discuss it. The idea that the government overseeing efficacy study design invites corruption is also sort of tedious. Just deciding to regulate something reaches that same low bar of inviting corruption, but that would not be a good reason to not have regulation.

nikkinana 5y ago

It always was. Johns Hopkins did a study, and catching covid was 6x better protection than any of the vaccines. Furthermore, your body learns how to protect itself differently from catching it. Unfortunately if you google search, it's buried about 20 pages down. There's no profit in that.

rossdavidh 5y ago

I find it unlikely that this would ever even be raised as a question in an American mainstream news source. A better question, though, would be "who needs a vaccine more now, a 1st world 10-year old, a 1st world 50-year old who's already been vaccinated, or a 3rd world 65-year old?"

andrew_ 5y ago

There is a gross amount of commenting as fact without accompanying data in the comments on this one.

maxerickson 5y ago
Yeah, that's often what a discussion is.

gunapologist99 5y ago

"three-fourths of the nearly 470 cases were in vaccinated people" https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/93830 https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccin... (from a leaked CDC memo; it seems like figuring out whether the CDC data should have been kept secret at all is left as an exercise for the reader.) (edit: better source)

maxerickson 5y ago
If you have an outbreak in a highly vaccinated population, guess what is true of the people that get sick? Consider the limit case, a 100% vaccinated population. If you have an outbreak, everyone that gets sick will have been vaccinated.
- daenz 5y ago
  This is using a clever (and true) thought experiment to warp actual reality. We are nowhere close to being 100% vaccinated, and so 3/4 is a horrible ratio for the vaccine. Put another way, if 3/4 of the population was vaccinated, vaccinated people representing 3/4 of the cases would mean that the vaccine has no impact on the cases.
  - phonypc 5y ago
    The link in GP refers to an outbreak (Provincetown, MA. in July) that is not representative of pretty much any situation but itself. It is not by any means evidence for vaccine ineffectiveness. For context: https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1421313594063458304 https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1421313594063458304 https://twitter.com/peterstaley/status/1421215604481142785 https://twitter.com/peterstaley/status/1421215604481142785

new_realist 5y ago

If the question is whether vaccine should go to someone who hasn’t been vaccinated or used as a booster for someone who has, it seems clear that it should go to the unvaccinated person unless the booster candidate is very high risk. But we don’t have a shortage of vaccines in the developed world, only a shortage of smart people willing to take them. Bottom line, a booster shot reduces the chance of a variant emerging. You don’t want immunity to parts of the virus that aren’t the spike protein; that’s a waste of resources. The spike is what’s needed to reproduce.

lamontcg 5y ago

There's another answer here though which is to skip getting naturally infected with the worst variant of this strain of SARS-CoV-2 and instead catching whatever is going around the world in a year or two after it has been forced to make costly mutations to achieve immune escape. SARS-CoV-2 will very likely become endemic and everyone in the world will eventually get naturally exposed to it, but delta is probably the optimally worst and most virulent form of the virus to get naturally exposed to. And yeah kids should get vaccinated, the vaccines are safer than the virus for everyone, that shouldn't even be a question.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> SARS-CoV-2 will very likely become endemic and everyone in the world will eventually get naturally exposed to it, but delta is probably the optimally worst and most virulent form of the virus to get naturally exposed to. Is it? I thought early signs were that Lambda is worse.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Lambda is still a VOI not a VOC even after months of monitoring. There might still be other variants after delta but at some point it cannot become infinitely transmissible and virulent. It also won't be able to become more transmissible and virulent while also achieving complete immune escape (complete escape likely isn't even possible from T-cells). Similar to the 1918 pandemic the worst case virus is likely to be at the tail end of the first round of the pandemic, the endemic virus will be less virulent.

ivermectin 5y ago

scientifically that ineffective vaccines, which can still cause infection, that do not inhibit infectivity, so-called 'leak' vaccines will cause resistance to the virus and this indirectly puts unvaccinated people at greater risk of infection before the 'leak' vaccine is used , this infection comes from people who have been vaccinated This Unlike previous vaccines such as polio and others, these vaccines are effective, but these mRNA vaccines are not effective so they are called experimental vaccines and humans are experimental on a global scale. (01) Imperfect Vaccination May Increase Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR (02) Imperfect vaccines and pathogen virulence evolution https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a

ivermectin 5y ago

According to science, "LEAKING" VACCINE IS "DANGEROUS". All scientists know about this,. A 'leak' vaccine is a vaccine that is ineffective, imperfect, even people who have been vaccinated can become infected and are generally asymptomatic (OTG) and that do not prevent transmission from people who have been vaccinated, and this indirectly places people who are not vaccinated is more risky than when the vaccine has not been used that comes from people who have been vaccinated. Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR https://t.co/pkzEYlExvR Imperfect vaccines and the evolution of pathogen virulence https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a https://www.nature.com/articles/414751a leaky vaccines, super-spreads, and variant acceleration https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/leaky-vaccines-super-spreads-and https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/leaky-vaccines-super-spre... Why the evolution of vaccine resistance is less of a concern than the evolution of drug resistance https://www.pnas.org/content/115/51/12878 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/51/12878 Vaccines Could Drive The Evolution Of More COVID-19 Mutants https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965703047/vaccines-could-drive-the-evolution-of-more-covid-19-mutants https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965703047/vaccines-could-driv... Vaccine-driven virulence evolution: consequences of unbalanced reductions in mortality and transmission and implications for pertussis vaccines https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31822219/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31822219/ Virulence evolution in response to vaccination: The case of malaria https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2663389/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2663389/ Vaccine-driven virulence evolution: consequences of unbalanced reductions in mortality and transmission and implications for pertussis vaccines https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2019.0642 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2019.064... Assessing the risk of vaccine-driven virulence evolution in SARS-CoV-2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.01.20241836v2.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.01.20241836v...