20 ms·

Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

227 points by peteradio 5y ago

foolzcrow 5y ago
Thank you for telling the truth.
AndrewBissell 5y ago
There's really nothing surprising about this conclusion. Before Covid came along and the focus inexplicably shifted to antibodies-only, it was well understood that infection with a pathogen was always likely to result in better immunity than vaccination.
- uchiga 5y ago
  The drawback of an infection on weak/strong immune systems can be death.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  kinda. its more complex and nuanced than this. I had thought that the chickenpox vaccine gave you a higher chance of shingles in later life. However that appears to be the opposite of what actually happens. The crucial thing is that its dependent on the vaccine and the thing infecting you. For example the BCG jab which protects against TB is wild. Its a live vaccine that has been evolving, got lost once, and its kinda black magic. In older people it has a ~33% efficacy. its much more effective in babies and children though. However we've got to the point that TB is so rare in the UK that targeted vaccination is more than enough to keep it under control. With covid, we need to make sure that when people get it, they don't get seriously ill. Ideally they wont get it at all, but alas thats not the case, the vaccines are not effective enough for that against this variant. I assume that altering the mrna vaccines would have a similar speed as the annual flu vaccine, so changes for new variants would require less development time. But as someone pointed out, if you have a vaccine, and you get covid, te seems reasonable to assume that you will have a better immunity. Also with just 8 cases out 32k, it seems a small dataset to draw conclusions on.
- whoooooo123 5y ago
  Not that I doubt you, but where can I read more about this? I know nothing about epidemiology or immunology and reading threads like this makes me realise I need to get more informed.
- macksd 5y ago
  Except it was widely reported that natural immunity lasted 3 to 6 months and that the vaccines would last 2 years (at least Moderna), and the nuances there I think would be lost on a lay person. I even had an immunologist explain to me in detail why the immunity from the vaccine would be way stronger than acquired immunity. It doesn't really build confidence in science if, while we're finding new things, everyone pretends that the conclusion du jour was always obvious.
  - AndrewBissell 5y ago
    I think we're in agreement here -- I did not mean to imply that a lay person following the claims bandied about in the mass media this year would have been under this impression. In fact, six months ago a claim like this would have been likely to be labeled misinformation on Twitter. I'm just saying that for the Covid vaccines to have provided better immunity than recovery from infection would have been very divergent from what is observed for the vast majority of other pathogens.
    - macksd 5y ago
      Okay but when I was asking questions about why we didn't expect booster shots from the mRNA vaccines, that is the opposite of what and immunologist at my local hospital told me. So I'm not sure it is obvious.
eplanit 5y ago
One can observe how this topic has become political, and is no longer scientific. Our focus and concerns are now all about existing and forthcoming restrictions and mandates for vaccinations and masks -- so much that information like this is no longer even interesting to most people. Not only uninteresting, but vulnerable to censors.
- aabaker99 5y ago
  For those who haven't observed this, what are your observations? Does this apply to the article we are discussing, too, or is it more of a general concern about mandates?
- nogridbag 5y ago
  Comments like these about censorship keep coming up, yet this is the third straight day this topic is being discussed on the front page of HN. I see the same thing on Facebook. Half of my family is still complaining about censorship and how everything is politicized while they continue to post political memes about Hilary Clinton, false or misleading information about vaccines, etc. The other half quit facebook or occasionally post family pictures.
  - CodeWriter23 5y ago
    Censorship is happening. A friend of mine (who happens to be a former Congressman) was silenced by Facebook for 30 days for merely citing Pfizer’s profit on the vaccine as reported in a WSJ Article. Don’t be fooled by the narratives Facebook permits.
  - eplanit 5y ago
    Earlier this month Rand Paul, a U.S. Senator and a former physician, was banned from YouTube for a week for simply saying that cloth masks are ineffective. YouTube et al. could just as easily decide that discussion of natural immunity from prior infection is also "dangerous" (it might discourage vaccination) and ban it.
  - abnorxiouster 5y ago
    Nobody censored anything in this case on this platform -> therefore there is no censorship on the subject of covid Logic
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
I can only consider this a positive for those who are vaccine hesitant, as they will probably be getting it, but I can't see how, considering the realistic dangers of a vaccine, a rational individual wouldn't want both forms of protection even if they were previously infected.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  What is the realistic marginal increase in protection from the vaccine for someone who has recovered and is in a very low risk age/comorbidities cohort? Is reducing their absolute risk of a really bad Covid outcome by 0.00001% really worth the risks attendant in the vaccine? Also, at least one study has hinted that the second dose may reduce humoral immunity.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    I'm not sure, but we'd need to be dealing with something like your 0.000001% number before the risks started to outweigh the benefits, wouldn't we? Even a half or a tenth or a hundredth of a percent increase would be far beyond any sort of vaccination risk. > Also, at least one study has hinted that the second dose may reduce humoral immunity. I don't think we can base current best choices upon things which are merely hinted, especially when they are so counter intuitive, and as far as I'm aware, outside of our experience with other vaccinations. It also highlights that we still don't know everything, and I'd definitely make decisions based upon an abundance of caution, leaning towards more protection.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      I guess it would be comparing the improvement from a vaccine to the better natural immunity versus the risks from a vaccine. I don't know that this is obvious. For example, a hundredth of a percent improvement is 1 in 10k. And an already exposed person would be expected to have a less severe reaction if exposed again. Also some people worry about certain aspects of the vaccine. Did you know that it took over 25 years to develop a lipid delivery system for mrna vaccines that wasn't toxic in animal tests? Or that they have concerns about accumulation of these lipids in organs like the liver? Or that getting sick after the vaccine may not be healthy? Or that they don't do a great job of looking for auto-immune reactions when it comes to vaccines? It's a lot to think about. I'm a numbers guy and am happy with my conclusions on this. But I don't think it's right to force anything on others. The media often seem to do a better job of coming to conclusions for people rather than educating them.
alsetmusic 5y ago
What about a person who is vaccinated and then has an asymptotic case? Do they still build up even better immunity? If so, that’s still a great reason to vaccinate.
- hungnv 5y ago
  Great point, the research should also investigate more about this case, since its get published it will create more negative effect to people who dont believe in vaccine but believe in themselves they will never die because of Covid
- giantg2 5y ago
  And does that affect the timing or need for booster shots?
- programmarchy 5y ago
  Wouldn’t the Hoskins effect [1], or “original antigenic sin”, apply in this case? > the propensity of the body's immune system to preferentially utilize immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin
  - anonuser123456 5y ago
    Probably not. B cells can return to germinal centers and undergo further affinity maturation. Hoskins effect does not block this process, but may slow it down. If the original antibody is still effective, no problem. Now, if the virus mutates to completely escape existing antibodies, we might have a different story. But in that story, the vaccinated are probably better off than the natural infection crowd. The vaccine targets a highly conserved region of the RBD; it is largely essential to bind to ACE2. Mutation there is likely to reduce binding affinity and thus become less infectious / virulent. Natural immunity however suffers from the problem that the body builds antibodies against other regions that are more prone to mutation. Some of those mutations have been shown to enhance infectiousness. So you could end up with a scenario where non RBD targeted antibodies enhance infectiousness while simultaneously you have slowed affinity maturation.
tacomonstrous 5y ago
>the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 was 27 times higher among the vaccinated, and the risk of hospitalization eight times higher This sounds convincing, but then in the next graf: >For instance, the higher hospitalization rate in the 32,000-person analysis was based on just eight hospitalizations in a vaccinated group and one in a previously infected group. And the 13-fold increased risk of infection in the same analysis was based on just 238 infections in the vaccinated population, less than 1.5% of the more than 16,000 people, versus 19 reinfections among a similar number of people who once had SARS-CoV-2.
- cestith 5y ago
  Are you saying 32,000 people isn't a large enough study to be meaningful?
  - epistasis 5y ago
    For low-prevalence events the number of events that happened is just as important for statistical power as the big 32,000. Especially when doing relative risk, the confidence interval on that "27 times" could be extremely large.
    - peteradio 5y ago
      True, but we aren't comparing a 1 to 0 or 1 to 2. Its 238 to 19. sqrt(238)=+/-15 sqrt(19)=+/-4 (if the numbers are to be believed) . 238/19=12.5 (238-15)/(19+4)=9.7 so it becomes 20% less on the lower end of the fluctuation which is only nominal.
  - Hinrik 5y ago
    It's more about the small effect sizes of 8 people vs 1. Still a lot of room for noise in the result.
    - cestith 5y ago
      True, but where's a better study at the moment? I think it would be easier to gather more studies and do a cross-study meta analysis rather than recruiting a million people into a single study to eliminate the effects of noise. The "27 times" is factually their finding in one study, which someone might read as being given too much weight in the article but doesn't change the data.
blablablub 5y ago
Survivorship bias comes to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  Not sure how that's really relevant when over 99% of people in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts do not die from Covid.
  - ukj 5y ago
    The entire point of vaccintation is to enable a road to immunity which kills less people than simply getting infected. If we were OK with the death rate of naturally-attained immunity we didn't need a vaccine.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    There are other bad outcomes besides death.
  - IonizedOp 5y ago
    From the point of view that there is some risk involved from the first covid infection in order to get the immunity, so people will be less likely to correctly assess the risk of getting natural immunity vs getting vaccine in order to end up to the study's cohorts.
  - zzleeper 5y ago
    It's relevant because of the 1%. The numbers in the study are so low (8 people hospitalized in one, 1 person in the other group) that 1% makes a difference.
  - jmull 5y ago
    The people infected by covid who died do not appear in this study.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    32,000 people in the study, of which 16,000 had previously had Covid. They found a total of 238 re-infections. Assuming 1% mortality from Covid, that group of 16,000 would have previously been 16,162, before being culled down to the study size by deaths. You don't think an additional 162 would make a difference to the results? (Obviously it doesn't make a difference if you read this study as "given someone survived Covid, what are the odds..." but lots of people are reading this study as "It's safer to catch Covid than get vaccinated." Given that, the deaths absolutely matter.)
bigmattystyles 5y ago
But don’t you risk long hauler symptoms or worse? Meaning, it’s an interesting datapoint but not a viable strategy.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  Long haul Covid is generally associated with severe cases. The question then becomes, how much does getting the vaccine reduce a recovered individual's probability of having a severe case? Given that it's pretty rare for reinfections to be serious, and the vaccine does not prevent infection or even serious breakthrough cases, the answer would seem to be "not much."
- vibrato2 5y ago
  Working very viably for myself.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Well, we should just scale your experience/anecdote up by 8 billion and we’re good then.
  - jjuel 5y ago
    Are you saying you didn't get vaccinated and have yet to get COVID so your strategy is working? Or you already got COVID but it wasn't serious so it is working? Either way it seems like saying "I've been smoking all my life and never got cancer. Not sure why everyone is so worried about smoking."
    - vibrato2 5y ago
      I’m very confident I’ve been exposed to covid, yet never had any test or conclusive symptoms. I’m also confident that people like me do not experience problems from covid. At least not any more problems than a flu. A 1/3000 risk of myocarditis is not something I will risk. That’s a long term scarring of heart tissue, similar to how my father died in his 30s from teenage medical treatment. The difference in your statement is that covid is an acute condition rather than a chronic slow growing tumor. If covid took years to show symptoms it’d be a reasonable comparison, but it’s very silly to make otherwise.
throwaway743 5y ago
Is there any information on how both or either current means of gaining some level of immunity measure up to lesser known "newer" variants such as b.1.621 (Colombian variant), lambda, iota, eta, etc?
- throwaway743 5y ago
  It was a legit question. Not sure why I'm being downvoted.
gkfasdfasdf 5y ago
Isn't there some selection bias going on here? Having covid once protects against getting it again - if the first one didn't kill you that is.
- peteradio 5y ago
  Its relevant to survivors.
  - IonizedOp 5y ago
    By survivors you include the vaccine survivors?
CyanLite4 5y ago
The Lancet just published a study yesterday on natural infection still causing symptoms one year later (“long Covid”) for 49% of unvaccinated people. I’ll stick to the vaccine.
- jlmorton 5y ago
  * among patients hospitalized with severe illness in one Wuhan hospital between Jan and Feb 2020, self-reporting at least one symptom from a long list, such as fatigue, joint pain, etc, vs 33% of a control group without Covid infection reporting the same. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01755-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
  - criticaltinker 5y ago
    Yes thank you. GPs comment is completely inaccurate, and the referenced study does not make any claims about natural infection, only about patients hospitalized with severe illness. Multiple recent large scale studies have estimated an asymptomatic proportion lower bound of at least ~33% [1], and an upper bound of 65% (and even higher for young adults) [2]. This implies a significant proportion of people infected by SARS-COV-2 will not experience any noticeable symptoms. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that infections and cases are massively under-reported (by 10x to 100x) [3][4], so it's exceedingly likely that such estimates are underestimates of the true asymptomatic rate. [1] The Proportion of SARS-CoV-2 Infections That Are Asymptomatic https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 [2] Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general population: Analysis of nationwide serosurvey data in the Netherlands https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y [3] Evaluating the massive underreporting and undertesting of COVID-19 cases in multiple global epicenters https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372030129X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372... [4] Undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826 https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826
- 5y ago
pow_pp_-1_v 5y ago
Isn't age a factor? I don't understand if the study considered the age of the participants. So, could it be that the people who were vaccinated tended to be older and thus more vulnerable?
thom 5y ago
Would getting infected _after_ being vaccinated, which doesn't seem totally unheard of, confer an additional boost to one's immunity?
- stanpinte 5y ago
  and vice versa?
  - thom 5y ago
    I'd specifically prefer to be infected after if I had to choose, on the assumption it'd be milder.
    - Aachen 5y ago
      I've been wondering the same. Heck, perhaps get a third shot just to be safe and then get covid for good measure. But then we don't have enough production capacity for the vaccines worldwide as it is, and I'm not sure about my current chances with 2x mRNA so... it'd be interesting but I don't think I'd actually do it given the chance.
- myko 5y ago
  Absolutely it would. Which is why it's a good idea to get vaccinated even if you have been infected or think you may have been. The article backs this position up as well, though the headline belies that: "The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and then received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated."
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    It's a good idea why, exactly? Because previously-infected people tend to experience worse vaccine side-effects for little to no additional benefit?
    - 5y ago
criticaltinker 5y ago
It's important to be aware of the tremendous amount of evidence from a wide body of peer-reviewed literature which supports the fact that immunity acquired through natural infection provides protection against reinfection that is at least equally effective as vaccination. This fact has been repeatedly demonstrated in multiple large scale and long term serological studies [1][2][3][4][5]. It's still an open question whether natural infection confers better protection than vaccine-induced immunity, or if some combination of the two is even better. That's why the primary pre-print cited in OP is so important [6]. It is one of the first and largest scale studies to evaluate the risk of reinfection - in the context of the delta variant which is currently dominant in many countries around the world - by directly comparing naturally acquired immunity to vaccine-induced immunity. The other cited papers in OP give some reasoning why natural infection might confer more robust protection, particularly when challenged by variants of concern [7][8][9]. The gist is that the immune response acquired through natural infection evolves in such a way that broader and more diverse antibodies can be developed. Another major difference is that natural infection induces antibodies against the nucleocapsid (N) protein, whereas vaccination with the current mRNA based spike protein focused formulations do not [10][11]. All of these findings have major implications for public health policy. In particular, optimal vaccination strategy should likely be targeted towards immunologically naive individuals, or individuals more vulnerable due to age and poor health [12]. - A previous history of SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with an 84% lower risk of infection, with median protective effect observed 7 months following primary infection. This time period is the minimum probable effect because seroconversions were not included. This study shows that previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces effective immunity to future infections in most individuals. [1] (N=25,661) - Reinfection is rare in the young and international population of Qatar. Natural infection appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection with an efficacy ~95% for at least seven months. [4] (N=192,967) - The degree of protection (10-fold) associated with seropositivity appears to be comparable to that observed in the initial reports of the efficacy of mRNA vaccines in large clinical trials. [5] (N=3,257,478) > those vaccinated are still at a 5.96-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection and at a 7.13-fold increased risk for symptomatic disease compared to those previously infected. [6] > SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees were also at a greater risk for COVID-19-related-hospitalization compared to those who were previously infected. [6] [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: a large, multicentre, prospective cohort study (SIREN) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33844963/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33844963/ [2] Risk of Reinfection After Seroconversion to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2): A Population-based Propensity-score Matched Cohort Study https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab495/6287116 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... [3] Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection 1 Year After Primary Infection in a Population in Lombardy, Italy https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2780557 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [4] SARS-CoV-2 antibody-positivity protects against reinfection for at least seven months with 95% efficacy https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537021001413 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258953702... [5] Association of SARS-CoV-2 Seropositive Antibody Test With Risk of Future Infection https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2776810 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [6] Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... [7] 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 [8] Affinity maturation of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies confers potency, breadth, and resilience to viral escape mutations https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34331873/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34331873/ [9] High genetic barrier to escape from human polyclonal SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.455491v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.455491v1 [10] Combining spike- and nucleocapsid-based vaccines improves distal control of SARS-CoV-2 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(21)01108-6.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(21)01108-6.... [11] Immunogenicity and crossreactivity of antibodies to the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2: utility and limitations in seroprevalence and immunity studies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7879156/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7879156/ [12] Model-informed COVID-19 vaccine prioritization strategies by age and serostatus https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/371/6532/916.full.pdf https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/371/6532/916.full...
stefan_ 5y ago
Except for the people who died of it, presumably? A perfectly self-reinforcing thesis; whoever didn't die clearly developed strong enough immunity, and those that did, well we don't count them here.
h2odragon 5y ago
Why is "natural infections and recovery produce a better immune response than a vaccine" so controversial? Has it been this controversial for any other disease?
- zzleeper 5y ago
  I think it's because people draw the wrong conclusions. Sure, if your body was stuck fighting COVID19 for two weeks and you then survived (i.e. excluding those pesky 700k Americans who didn't make it), then you are better prepared than if your body was stuck "fighting" COVID19 vaccine for half a day (of sleepiness or at most mild fever). The PROBLEM is that people then say "oh well then to protect myself better against COVID19 what I should do is get infected with COVID19, rather than get vaccinated". I have NO IDEA why so many people are jumping to that conclusion.. but oh well..
  - CodeWriter23 5y ago
    > The PROBLEM is that people then say "oh well then to protect myself better against COVID19 what I should do is get infected Both approaches carry risk, yet your statement presents as if the risk of vaccination is 0. And also excludes the idea that opting not to be vaccinated is a legitimate choice for the millions and millions of “cases” that have already been infected.
    - SamBam 5y ago
      The risks of the vaccine have been shown to be a minuscule fraction of the risks of being infected with covid.
      - CodeWriter23 5y ago
        If one has acquired immunity then the risk of taking the vaccine is entirely unnecessary.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    > Sure, if your body was stuck fighting COVID19 for two weeks and you then survived ... then you are better prepared than if your body was stuck "fighting" COVID19 vaccine for half a day From what I've read, it's less about severity of infection and more about the fact that the vaccine only introduces one specific aspect of the virus (the spike protein) to the immune system, while the actual virus introduces... all of itself to the immune system. So natural immunity ends up being more comprehensive and resistant to variants than the vaccines.
peterbonney 5y ago
The term ”survivor bias” is usually used metaphorically, but in this case it applies literally. Putting in some caveats about the risks associated with infection is not enough. This is a garbage analysis that should never have been accepted for publication.
- peteradio 5y ago
  I don't see survivor bias here at all. This is simply a study that caters to a rather significant population who justifiably want to know what they stand to gain from this vaccine. What this study has done is identified a sub population who stand to gain such minuscule benefit from vaccination that it would be unethical to include them in a study (most studies DO exclude previously infected individuals, huh wonder why?) Furthermore it is unscientific discrimination to penalize people when they could prove prior infection and/or immunity.
  - amluto 5y ago
    The study appears to be reporting at least a further 50% reduction in risk for previously infected people who get a vaccine. One might debate whether the probabilities involved are so low as to be irrelevant, but the study absolutely supports the existence of a benefit.
    - peteradio 5y ago
      Fair point. I hold my ground on the discrimination point.
  - siilats 5y ago
    Nobody died from vaccine but all the weak ones died from first infection so the surviving infected have survivorship bias.
    - SlowRobotAhead 5y ago
      > Nobody died from vaccine That’s not strictly true. There have been deaths, but this can be attributed to components in the vaccines that these unlucky people may have gotten at any time. There have been rare and unusual vaccine caused deaths.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
There is a simple solution to the conundrum: a standardised vaccine passport plus a separate, standardised proof of prior infection. Then let each business and jurisdiction choose whom to admit. Part of the problem with the prior-infection claim is it’s harder to verify than vaccination. Solving that would go a long way towards letting those individuals participate in normal life without compromising public health or the right to choose with whom one assembles. Broadly, the Israeli data seem to favour natural immunity while the British data, very slightly, vaccination. We need more data. In the meantime, let people make their own choices.
- peteradio 5y ago
  It may be in their rights to bar immune people who refuse vaccination but its plainly unscientific discrimination.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > may be in their rights to bar immune people who refuse vaccination but its plainly unscientific discrimination We don’t have strong evidence either way. Neither choice—vaccinated only or both—is unscientific. (It is understandable that, without reliable proof, the unvaccinated would be barred.) In any case, this is a problem we need to solve soon. The mRNA platform looks promising. We don’t want to back into a future where a diseased minority is barred from our urban cores. Particularly if they pose little risk to others.
nabla9 5y ago
Those who think this is supporting evidence for not getting vaccinated should think it again. You must think in terms of risk of hospitalization and/or long covid with or without vaccination over the course of the whole path you choose. ps. Moderna seems to be much more effective against Delta than Pfizer-BioNTech.
ramraj07 5y ago
I got downvoted for saying this here a while back. Anyone with good immunology experience would guess this to be accurate no matter what some half baked study says (which was what a bunch of people were telling in that earlier thread). Again doesn’t mean you should go get Covid or avoid the vaccine. The vaccine only helps. If you got Covid and then also got the vaccine it only helps more.
- Aachen 5y ago
  Not sure if it was you but I might have been one of the skeptics (don't think it was with this user though). Many of the comments I saw sounded like conspiracy fuel. I didn't downvote anything that sounded substantial (for example if it had references, or at least the disclaimer that this doesn't mean you shouldn't get vaccinated). Makes me wonder how to tell cherry picking science for conspiracy (I saw that heavily with 5G for example) from reality, especially when official outlets are not agreeing with the latest research yet.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  But the risk of dying of COVID for most age groups is basically zero.
- smileypete 5y ago
  The opposite view was a mainstream media narrative last year, in that a suggestion as such was very widely reported: 'The rapid waning of antibodies did not necessarily have implications for the efficacy of vaccine candidates currently in clinical trials, Imperial’s [Wendy] Barclay said.' “A good vaccine may well be better than natural immunity,” she said. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-antibody-idUSKBN27C005 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britai... https://www.google.com/search?q=“A+good+vaccine+may+well+be+better+than+natural+immunity”&filter=0 https://www.google.com/search?q=“A+good+vaccine+may+well+be+...
ProjectBarks 5y ago
This feels like an irresponsible title on behalf of the author. People don’t get the vaccine strictly on the strength of the vaccine. It’s considering the risk of getting COVID, understanding the long term side effects, and minimizing risk for those around you. It’s also about avoiding mutations of the virus as the higher availability of the virus only provides more opportunities for it to mutate into something more resistant or possessing other less desirable traits. I understand that the post goes into these types of details but with the proliferation of “I read the title so I read the article” types a much less clickbait title should have been chosen. This only vindicates people looking to confirm their biases and leaves out the nuance that is so important to science.
- jlmorton 5y ago
  What is the harm? "I'm very worried about getting Covid, but I'm also worried about the vaccine, so I'll get Covid to protect me against Covid?" This is an important public health topic to model how the pandemic proceeds as more and more are naturally infected.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - CyanLite2 5y ago
    Some folks are looking for any excuse to not get the vaccine.
    - polote 5y ago
      And so what ? We should lie so that they take it ?
      - actually_a_dog 5y ago
        You appear to believe it would be immoral to lie to people to get them to take the vaccine. I don't believe anti-vaxxers want to die from COVID. Is it not also immoral to allow people who don't wish to die to die needlessly? It would seem to be a "lesser of two evils" sort of situation, and, in that case, the harm of lying is probably less than the harm of allowing people to die senselessly.
tacobelllover99 5y ago
Yesterday NPR was shaming US Military memebers for spreading this information as COVID misinformation. I'm so disqusted with the media right now.
del_operator 5y ago
Tasteless/careless, IMO, especially living (in Texas) where “covid parties” have happened and people lost their lives right around the block last year. Although, it may be of relevance to my younger unvaccinated nephew that survived a rough case last December and is worried about being in school over in Tennessee without masks.
tomaszs 5y ago
The title is a fake news. The same goes for the article on sciencemag and conclusions of the research. Researchers did not prove that vaccines cause higher risk.
Pxtl 5y ago
Good news for survivors, but this is going to make battles about vaccine passports much worse as anti-vax covid survivors demand exemption from the program.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  I think most health policy decisionmakers would happily accept a positive test result for covid in place of a vaccination as long as this science is replicated by other parties.
- john_minsk 5y ago
  Sorry? Not exemption. Inclusion! Why there is some process that treats some antibodies better compared to others is beyond my understanding. But In my view it is unscientific and as a result I can’t trust that the rest of the program of passports is designed properly and based on facts.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  I don't think being against vaccine passports necessarily makes you an anti-vaxxer. I've had both shots of the vaccine and I strongly oppose any sort of mandatory government ID card health-related or not, to the point I'll avoid patronising domestic businesses that voluntarily (ie without strong government coercion) impose them. I'm not a fan of any form of authoritarianism really, let alone the overtly authoritarian "papers please" brand of it. One of the key parts of a free country is that you can be anywhere within it without some nosy government inspector (in person or by proxy electronically) demanding that you justify your presence there.
  - swader999 5y ago
    Exactly this. And all it takes is for this scanning system to be centralized and then they can turn you off and geo fence you in. You may trust the current government to not abuse it but do you trust the next ten?
    - deleted 5y ago
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tzs 5y ago
Long term it seems pretty straightforward. It is almost certain COVID will become endemic, and no known form of immunity whether from vaccination or prior infection confers sufficient permanent immunity against infection to stop re-infection but prior immunity (from vaccine or prior infection) does greatly reduce the chances that your infection will give you serious illness. You assumption therefore should be that over the rest of your life you will get COVID multiple times. The question then is whether you want your first infection to be with or without prior immunity. If you want that first time to be with prior immunity get vaccinated as that is the only known way to get immunity before your first infection.
- abnorxiouster 5y ago
  > The question then is whether you want your first infection to be with or without prior immunity. If you want that first time to be with prior immunity get vaccinated as that is the only known way to get immunity before your first infection. You get vaccinated against an extremely specific variant, that does not guarantee any immunity for other variants unlike immunity from infection. Did you get vaccinated every year for the seasonal flu pre 2020? If not, why do you sustain vaccination when it is clear that you will have to take boosters and variant specific vaccines every year? Why would you suggest anyone that is not in a risk group and is healthy to vaccinate when his body is better prepared to withstand and easily battle any sars-cov-19 variant?
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    The vaccine does not “guarantee” protection from other variants, but it does have some, more for some variants and apparently less for others (delta). But, the same can be said about prior infection: it does not “guarantee” protection from other variants either. The paper here provides evidence that even though neither of them “guarantee” immunity for other variants or reinfection, prior infection provides more protection from COVID-19 than currently used vaccines.
  - seoaeu 5y ago
    Vaccination guarantees some immunity for all existing variants. Just because it is impossible to say for all hypothetical future variants doesn't mean you need to spread misinformation like that
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siilats 5y ago
What the study says is out of 20k people that had the vaccine or previous infection only 200 got reinfected and nobody died. Yes in the 200 there were more vaccinated but imaging how many people died from the first round of infections. How the people who were sick are much more cautious and wear masks than vaccinated. None of this is adjusted for (ie they don’t ask a sample of the groups a question how often do you wear mask, all they needed to do was ask from 300 people from both groups and you could adjust for risky behaviors and I bet the effect would be much smaller). In any case both vaccine and previous infection provides plenty of protection.
walterbell 5y ago
Are there credible papers which estimate the percentage of Covid survivors in one or more countries, i.e. those with natural immunity? During the first half of 2020, there were several attempts to estimate these numbers in the USA. Are some regions or countries doing statistical population sampling, e.g. blood tests for antibodies?
- sct202 5y ago
  The UK has been estimating their percentage of population with antibodies which includes both people who were infected and vaccinated. Scroll to Figure 1 for the charts, but before vaccination their levels in the different regions (England, Scotland, NI, Wales) were <20%. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveyantibodyandvaccinationdatafortheuk/7july2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... To me I think that it's kind of surprising how low the percentages are.
lawrenceyan 5y ago
Vaccinating everyone was always about protecting the immunocompromised, for those who can’t defend themselves. The way the study is presented is extremely disingenuous in my opinion.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  My natural antibodies "protect the immunocompromised" just as much if not more than any antibodies stemming from vaccination.
DavideNL 5y ago
Is it still possible to detect whether you had COVID in the past, after already getting the vaccine?
- mikem170 5y ago
  Yes, I believe the right test can differentiate between the different antibody responses, telling you if you reacted to the virus, reacted to the vaccine, or both. I looked into this at one time and think I found one that cost $220. Sorry I don not have the link handy.
  - DavideNL 5y ago
    If you or anyone could post more info i’d be grateful. Like what specifications to look for in a test. Also i wonder (approximately) how long after infection it would still be possible to test.
    - Vecr 5y ago
      Get an antibody test that's for something other than the spike. If the vaccine you got only has the spike (all EUA/BLA in the US) the vaccine won't boost anything else.
      - DavideNL 5y ago
        Thanks for your reply, that’s good to know; I got the Pfizer vaccine by the way (only 1 shot.)
dgudkov 5y ago
It would be great if the people who had covid and developed immunity will finally become recognized by governments on par with vaccinated. Currently, they virtually don't exist for governments and media in many countries who prefer to divide everybody into just two groups: vaccinated and anti-vaxxers. A third group does exist and deserves to be heard.
- angelzen 5y ago
  A fourth group: vaccinated with (potential) breakthrough infections. Non-trivial numbers, as the vaccine is only 66% effective in preventing covid infections. According to the manichean logic of the media, this group of people is an immediate public health danger, therefore must be subjected to the same draconian measures as the unvaccinated.
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wesleywt 5y ago
The problem with these articles is that while it tries to inform. The people who don't understant the implications of getting covid will use it as support for their bias not to get vaccinated.
- bobbytit 5y ago
  Yeah, the sheeple can't handle the truth.
BFatts 5y ago
Maybe if they dose with some hydroxycholorquine, ivermectin, and shoot some UV up their bum, they will get AMAZING protection??
jbirer 5y ago
If you survive it, that is.
fmax30 5y ago
This sounds conflicting I read somewhere else earlier today, that the immunity you get from the actual disease is tailored towards the specific variant/strain. Whereas the vaccines (at least the mRNA ones) confer immunity against multiple strains.
- nickandre 5y ago
  Why? The vaccine is literally a carbon copy of one of the early variants. It just makes the protein without infection. This whole idea that the vaccine has magical properties to substantially exceed natural immunity on basic dimensions is straightforward BS.
  - fmax30 5y ago
    I meant the article said that the actual disease confers greater immunity than a vaccine. While that might be true, that immunity would only be good for one particular strain of the virus as opposed to the vaccine which provides you protection against a wider variety of strains. One can argue that the protection from the vaccine is better in the sense, that it protects you from a wider variety of Covid strains. Also, just so you know, that while the (mRNA) vaccine replicates protein, it is still your body and immune system which reacts to this protein and creates the antibodies. So even in case of the vaccine, strictly speaking the immunity is natural.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    It's an interesting concept. When your body makes antibodies against an active infection, it targets more than just the spike protein. Against the vaccine, it targets the spike protein 100% because that's all it has. As variants come and go, you should expect that the spike protein will change -- but it can't change that much because changing too much will reduce its ability to infect cells -- so it's a good thing to have a wide variety of antibodies against. However, having antibodies against other parts of the virus is useful too, since those might be more conserved with variants, but also they could be conserved less -- we don't really know.
heavyarms 5y ago
In other news: Having a $3 million mansion at the beach confers much greater happiness than an affordable house in the suburbs! Having a new top-of-the-line Mercedes SUV confers much greater status than a used Honda minivan! Having a beautiful face and 6-pack abs confers much greater attractiveness than looking like Shrek! There are two mutually exclusive questions at play here... and I'm totally convinced the population at large has ability to discern the difference and not conflate one with the other. 1. What is the best/strongest/longest lasting type of immunity, natural or vaccine? 2. What is the safest type of immunity, natural or vaccine? Is natural immunity better? There's some data to show it is. Should you risk your life to get? Probably not.
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palisade 5y ago
Yeah, it also confers organ damage for life and/or death. lol. Get the vaccine, nerds.
tablespoon 5y ago
Here's the important bit: > The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and then received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated. Get the vaccine.
moistrobot 5y ago
One of the biggest issues with this discussion is that we call these current round of therapeutics, "vaccines". They aren't. They don't prevent infection. They don't prevent transmission. At best, they reduce symptoms.
a0-prw 5y ago
"The study demonstrates the power of the human immune system, but infectious disease experts emphasized that this vaccine and others for COVID-19 nonetheless remain highly protective against severe disease and death." I'll go with my immune system, thanks. Just like I'll keep eating natural food instead of processed. This whole pandemic thing is the biggest mass hysteria ever. Old, sick people are dying! Omg, PANIC!
a0-prw 5y ago
I love these threads about the virus. Where else can you get the thrill of considering your own and your loved ones' mortality, and pump the illusion that what you say matters in the big picture?
Pokepokalypse 5y ago
Vaccines are NOT a treatment for individuals. Vaccines are for populations. We seem so wrapped up in our own precious snowflake egos now that we seem to have lost the ability to think of ourselves as part of a group.

227 points by peteradio 5y ago

Thank you for telling the truth.

There's really nothing surprising about this conclusion. Before Covid came along and the focus inexplicably shifted to antibodies-only, it was well understood that infection with a pathogen was always likely to result in better immunity than vaccination.

uchiga 5y ago
The drawback of an infection on weak/strong immune systems can be death.
KaiserPro 5y ago
kinda. its more complex and nuanced than this. I had thought that the chickenpox vaccine gave you a higher chance of shingles in later life. However that appears to be the opposite of what actually happens. The crucial thing is that its dependent on the vaccine and the thing infecting you. For example the BCG jab which protects against TB is wild. Its a live vaccine that has been evolving, got lost once, and its kinda black magic. In older people it has a ~33% efficacy. its much more effective in babies and children though. However we've got to the point that TB is so rare in the UK that targeted vaccination is more than enough to keep it under control. With covid, we need to make sure that when people get it, they don't get seriously ill. Ideally they wont get it at all, but alas thats not the case, the vaccines are not effective enough for that against this variant. I assume that altering the mrna vaccines would have a similar speed as the annual flu vaccine, so changes for new variants would require less development time. But as someone pointed out, if you have a vaccine, and you get covid, te seems reasonable to assume that you will have a better immunity. Also with just 8 cases out 32k, it seems a small dataset to draw conclusions on.
whoooooo123 5y ago
Not that I doubt you, but where can I read more about this? I know nothing about epidemiology or immunology and reading threads like this makes me realise I need to get more informed.
macksd 5y ago
Except it was widely reported that natural immunity lasted 3 to 6 months and that the vaccines would last 2 years (at least Moderna), and the nuances there I think would be lost on a lay person. I even had an immunologist explain to me in detail why the immunity from the vaccine would be way stronger than acquired immunity. It doesn't really build confidence in science if, while we're finding new things, everyone pretends that the conclusion du jour was always obvious.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  I think we're in agreement here -- I did not mean to imply that a lay person following the claims bandied about in the mass media this year would have been under this impression. In fact, six months ago a claim like this would have been likely to be labeled misinformation on Twitter. I'm just saying that for the Covid vaccines to have provided better immunity than recovery from infection would have been very divergent from what is observed for the vast majority of other pathogens.
  - macksd 5y ago
    Okay but when I was asking questions about why we didn't expect booster shots from the mRNA vaccines, that is the opposite of what and immunologist at my local hospital told me. So I'm not sure it is obvious.

eplanit 5y ago

One can observe how this topic has become political, and is no longer scientific. Our focus and concerns are now all about existing and forthcoming restrictions and mandates for vaccinations and masks -- so much that information like this is no longer even interesting to most people. Not only uninteresting, but vulnerable to censors.

aabaker99 5y ago
For those who haven't observed this, what are your observations? Does this apply to the article we are discussing, too, or is it more of a general concern about mandates?
nogridbag 5y ago
Comments like these about censorship keep coming up, yet this is the third straight day this topic is being discussed on the front page of HN. I see the same thing on Facebook. Half of my family is still complaining about censorship and how everything is politicized while they continue to post political memes about Hilary Clinton, false or misleading information about vaccines, etc. The other half quit facebook or occasionally post family pictures.
- CodeWriter23 5y ago
  Censorship is happening. A friend of mine (who happens to be a former Congressman) was silenced by Facebook for 30 days for merely citing Pfizer’s profit on the vaccine as reported in a WSJ Article. Don’t be fooled by the narratives Facebook permits.
- eplanit 5y ago
  Earlier this month Rand Paul, a U.S. Senator and a former physician, was banned from YouTube for a week for simply saying that cloth masks are ineffective. YouTube et al. could just as easily decide that discussion of natural immunity from prior infection is also "dangerous" (it might discourage vaccination) and ban it.
- abnorxiouster 5y ago
  Nobody censored anything in this case on this platform -> therefore there is no censorship on the subject of covid Logic

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago

I can only consider this a positive for those who are vaccine hesitant, as they will probably be getting it, but I can't see how, considering the realistic dangers of a vaccine, a rational individual wouldn't want both forms of protection even if they were previously infected.

AndrewBissell 5y ago
What is the realistic marginal increase in protection from the vaccine for someone who has recovered and is in a very low risk age/comorbidities cohort? Is reducing their absolute risk of a really bad Covid outcome by 0.00001% really worth the risks attendant in the vaccine? Also, at least one study has hinted that the second dose may reduce humoral immunity.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  I'm not sure, but we'd need to be dealing with something like your 0.000001% number before the risks started to outweigh the benefits, wouldn't we? Even a half or a tenth or a hundredth of a percent increase would be far beyond any sort of vaccination risk. > Also, at least one study has hinted that the second dose may reduce humoral immunity. I don't think we can base current best choices upon things which are merely hinted, especially when they are so counter intuitive, and as far as I'm aware, outside of our experience with other vaccinations. It also highlights that we still don't know everything, and I'd definitely make decisions based upon an abundance of caution, leaning towards more protection.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    I guess it would be comparing the improvement from a vaccine to the better natural immunity versus the risks from a vaccine. I don't know that this is obvious. For example, a hundredth of a percent improvement is 1 in 10k. And an already exposed person would be expected to have a less severe reaction if exposed again. Also some people worry about certain aspects of the vaccine. Did you know that it took over 25 years to develop a lipid delivery system for mrna vaccines that wasn't toxic in animal tests? Or that they have concerns about accumulation of these lipids in organs like the liver? Or that getting sick after the vaccine may not be healthy? Or that they don't do a great job of looking for auto-immune reactions when it comes to vaccines? It's a lot to think about. I'm a numbers guy and am happy with my conclusions on this. But I don't think it's right to force anything on others. The media often seem to do a better job of coming to conclusions for people rather than educating them.

alsetmusic 5y ago

What about a person who is vaccinated and then has an asymptotic case? Do they still build up even better immunity? If so, that’s still a great reason to vaccinate.

hungnv 5y ago
Great point, the research should also investigate more about this case, since its get published it will create more negative effect to people who dont believe in vaccine but believe in themselves they will never die because of Covid
giantg2 5y ago
And does that affect the timing or need for booster shots?
programmarchy 5y ago
Wouldn’t the Hoskins effect [1], or “original antigenic sin”, apply in this case? > the propensity of the body's immune system to preferentially utilize immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin
- anonuser123456 5y ago
  Probably not. B cells can return to germinal centers and undergo further affinity maturation. Hoskins effect does not block this process, but may slow it down. If the original antibody is still effective, no problem. Now, if the virus mutates to completely escape existing antibodies, we might have a different story. But in that story, the vaccinated are probably better off than the natural infection crowd. The vaccine targets a highly conserved region of the RBD; it is largely essential to bind to ACE2. Mutation there is likely to reduce binding affinity and thus become less infectious / virulent. Natural immunity however suffers from the problem that the body builds antibodies against other regions that are more prone to mutation. Some of those mutations have been shown to enhance infectiousness. So you could end up with a scenario where non RBD targeted antibodies enhance infectiousness while simultaneously you have slowed affinity maturation.

tacomonstrous 5y ago

>the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 was 27 times higher among the vaccinated, and the risk of hospitalization eight times higher This sounds convincing, but then in the next graf: >For instance, the higher hospitalization rate in the 32,000-person analysis was based on just eight hospitalizations in a vaccinated group and one in a previously infected group. And the 13-fold increased risk of infection in the same analysis was based on just 238 infections in the vaccinated population, less than 1.5% of the more than 16,000 people, versus 19 reinfections among a similar number of people who once had SARS-CoV-2.

cestith 5y ago
Are you saying 32,000 people isn't a large enough study to be meaningful?
- epistasis 5y ago
  For low-prevalence events the number of events that happened is just as important for statistical power as the big 32,000. Especially when doing relative risk, the confidence interval on that "27 times" could be extremely large.
  - peteradio 5y ago
    True, but we aren't comparing a 1 to 0 or 1 to 2. Its 238 to 19. sqrt(238)=+/-15 sqrt(19)=+/-4 (if the numbers are to be believed) . 238/19=12.5 (238-15)/(19+4)=9.7 so it becomes 20% less on the lower end of the fluctuation which is only nominal.
- Hinrik 5y ago
  It's more about the small effect sizes of 8 people vs 1. Still a lot of room for noise in the result.
  - cestith 5y ago
    True, but where's a better study at the moment? I think it would be easier to gather more studies and do a cross-study meta analysis rather than recruiting a million people into a single study to eliminate the effects of noise. The "27 times" is factually their finding in one study, which someone might read as being given too much weight in the article but doesn't change the data.

blablablub 5y ago

Survivorship bias comes to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

AndrewBissell 5y ago
Not sure how that's really relevant when over 99% of people in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts do not die from Covid.
- ukj 5y ago
  The entire point of vaccintation is to enable a road to immunity which kills less people than simply getting infected. If we were OK with the death rate of naturally-attained immunity we didn't need a vaccine.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  There are other bad outcomes besides death.
- IonizedOp 5y ago
  From the point of view that there is some risk involved from the first covid infection in order to get the immunity, so people will be less likely to correctly assess the risk of getting natural immunity vs getting vaccine in order to end up to the study's cohorts.
- zzleeper 5y ago
  It's relevant because of the 1%. The numbers in the study are so low (8 people hospitalized in one, 1 person in the other group) that 1% makes a difference.
- jmull 5y ago
  The people infected by covid who died do not appear in this study.
- SamBam 5y ago
  32,000 people in the study, of which 16,000 had previously had Covid. They found a total of 238 re-infections. Assuming 1% mortality from Covid, that group of 16,000 would have previously been 16,162, before being culled down to the study size by deaths. You don't think an additional 162 would make a difference to the results? (Obviously it doesn't make a difference if you read this study as "given someone survived Covid, what are the odds..." but lots of people are reading this study as "It's safer to catch Covid than get vaccinated." Given that, the deaths absolutely matter.)

bigmattystyles 5y ago

But don’t you risk long hauler symptoms or worse? Meaning, it’s an interesting datapoint but not a viable strategy.

AndrewBissell 5y ago
Long haul Covid is generally associated with severe cases. The question then becomes, how much does getting the vaccine reduce a recovered individual's probability of having a severe case? Given that it's pretty rare for reinfections to be serious, and the vaccine does not prevent infection or even serious breakthrough cases, the answer would seem to be "not much."
vibrato2 5y ago
Working very viably for myself.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Well, we should just scale your experience/anecdote up by 8 billion and we’re good then.
- jjuel 5y ago
  Are you saying you didn't get vaccinated and have yet to get COVID so your strategy is working? Or you already got COVID but it wasn't serious so it is working? Either way it seems like saying "I've been smoking all my life and never got cancer. Not sure why everyone is so worried about smoking."
  - vibrato2 5y ago
    I’m very confident I’ve been exposed to covid, yet never had any test or conclusive symptoms. I’m also confident that people like me do not experience problems from covid. At least not any more problems than a flu. A 1/3000 risk of myocarditis is not something I will risk. That’s a long term scarring of heart tissue, similar to how my father died in his 30s from teenage medical treatment. The difference in your statement is that covid is an acute condition rather than a chronic slow growing tumor. If covid took years to show symptoms it’d be a reasonable comparison, but it’s very silly to make otherwise.

throwaway743 5y ago

Is there any information on how both or either current means of gaining some level of immunity measure up to lesser known "newer" variants such as b.1.621 (Colombian variant), lambda, iota, eta, etc?

throwaway743 5y ago
It was a legit question. Not sure why I'm being downvoted.

gkfasdfasdf 5y ago

Isn't there some selection bias going on here? Having covid once protects against getting it again - if the first one didn't kill you that is.

peteradio 5y ago
Its relevant to survivors.
- IonizedOp 5y ago
  By survivors you include the vaccine survivors?

CyanLite4 5y ago

The Lancet just published a study yesterday on natural infection still causing symptoms one year later (“long Covid”) for 49% of unvaccinated people. I’ll stick to the vaccine.

jlmorton 5y ago
* among patients hospitalized with severe illness in one Wuhan hospital between Jan and Feb 2020, self-reporting at least one symptom from a long list, such as fatigue, joint pain, etc, vs 33% of a control group without Covid infection reporting the same. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01755-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  Yes thank you. GPs comment is completely inaccurate, and the referenced study does not make any claims about natural infection, only about patients hospitalized with severe illness. Multiple recent large scale studies have estimated an asymptomatic proportion lower bound of at least ~33% [1], and an upper bound of 65% (and even higher for young adults) [2]. This implies a significant proportion of people infected by SARS-COV-2 will not experience any noticeable symptoms. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that infections and cases are massively under-reported (by 10x to 100x) [3][4], so it's exceedingly likely that such estimates are underestimates of the true asymptomatic rate. [1] The Proportion of SARS-CoV-2 Infections That Are Asymptomatic https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 [2] Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general population: Analysis of nationwide serosurvey data in the Netherlands https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y [3] Evaluating the massive underreporting and undertesting of COVID-19 cases in multiple global epicenters https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372030129X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372... [4] Undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826 https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826
5y ago

pow_pp_-1_v 5y ago

Isn't age a factor? I don't understand if the study considered the age of the participants. So, could it be that the people who were vaccinated tended to be older and thus more vulnerable?

thom 5y ago

Would getting infected _after_ being vaccinated, which doesn't seem totally unheard of, confer an additional boost to one's immunity?

stanpinte 5y ago
and vice versa?
- thom 5y ago
  I'd specifically prefer to be infected after if I had to choose, on the assumption it'd be milder.
  - Aachen 5y ago
    I've been wondering the same. Heck, perhaps get a third shot just to be safe and then get covid for good measure. But then we don't have enough production capacity for the vaccines worldwide as it is, and I'm not sure about my current chances with 2x mRNA so... it'd be interesting but I don't think I'd actually do it given the chance.
myko 5y ago
Absolutely it would. Which is why it's a good idea to get vaccinated even if you have been infected or think you may have been. The article backs this position up as well, though the headline belies that: "The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and then received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated."
- jaywalk 5y ago
  It's a good idea why, exactly? Because previously-infected people tend to experience worse vaccine side-effects for little to no additional benefit?
  - 5y ago

criticaltinker 5y ago

It's important to be aware of the tremendous amount of evidence from a wide body of peer-reviewed literature which supports the fact that immunity acquired through natural infection provides protection against reinfection that is at least equally effective as vaccination. This fact has been repeatedly demonstrated in multiple large scale and long term serological studies [1][2][3][4][5]. It's still an open question whether natural infection confers better protection than vaccine-induced immunity, or if some combination of the two is even better. That's why the primary pre-print cited in OP is so important [6]. It is one of the first and largest scale studies to evaluate the risk of reinfection - in the context of the delta variant which is currently dominant in many countries around the world - by directly comparing naturally acquired immunity to vaccine-induced immunity. The other cited papers in OP give some reasoning why natural infection might confer more robust protection, particularly when challenged by variants of concern [7][8][9]. The gist is that the immune response acquired through natural infection evolves in such a way that broader and more diverse antibodies can be developed. Another major difference is that natural infection induces antibodies against the nucleocapsid (N) protein, whereas vaccination with the current mRNA based spike protein focused formulations do not [10][11]. All of these findings have major implications for public health policy. In particular, optimal vaccination strategy should likely be targeted towards immunologically naive individuals, or individuals more vulnerable due to age and poor health [12]. - A previous history of SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with an 84% lower risk of infection, with median protective effect observed 7 months following primary infection. This time period is the minimum probable effect because seroconversions were not included. This study shows that previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces effective immunity to future infections in most individuals. [1] (N=25,661) - Reinfection is rare in the young and international population of Qatar. Natural infection appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection with an efficacy ~95% for at least seven months. [4] (N=192,967) - The degree of protection (10-fold) associated with seropositivity appears to be comparable to that observed in the initial reports of the efficacy of mRNA vaccines in large clinical trials. [5] (N=3,257,478) > those vaccinated are still at a 5.96-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection and at a 7.13-fold increased risk for symptomatic disease compared to those previously infected. [6] > SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees were also at a greater risk for COVID-19-related-hospitalization compared to those who were previously infected. [6] [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: a large, multicentre, prospective cohort study (SIREN) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33844963/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33844963/ [2] Risk of Reinfection After Seroconversion to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2): A Population-based Propensity-score Matched Cohort Study https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab495/6287116 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... [3] Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection 1 Year After Primary Infection in a Population in Lombardy, Italy https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2780557 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [4] SARS-CoV-2 antibody-positivity protects against reinfection for at least seven months with 95% efficacy https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537021001413 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258953702... [5] Association of SARS-CoV-2 Seropositive Antibody Test With Risk of Future Infection https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2776810 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [6] Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... [7] 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 [8] Affinity maturation of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies confers potency, breadth, and resilience to viral escape mutations https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34331873/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34331873/ [9] High genetic barrier to escape from human polyclonal SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.455491v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.455491v1 [10] Combining spike- and nucleocapsid-based vaccines improves distal control of SARS-CoV-2 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(21)01108-6.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(21)01108-6.... [11] Immunogenicity and crossreactivity of antibodies to the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2: utility and limitations in seroprevalence and immunity studies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7879156/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7879156/ [12] Model-informed COVID-19 vaccine prioritization strategies by age and serostatus https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/371/6532/916.full.pdf https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/371/6532/916.full...

stefan_ 5y ago

Except for the people who died of it, presumably? A perfectly self-reinforcing thesis; whoever didn't die clearly developed strong enough immunity, and those that did, well we don't count them here.

h2odragon 5y ago

Why is "natural infections and recovery produce a better immune response than a vaccine" so controversial? Has it been this controversial for any other disease?

zzleeper 5y ago
I think it's because people draw the wrong conclusions. Sure, if your body was stuck fighting COVID19 for two weeks and you then survived (i.e. excluding those pesky 700k Americans who didn't make it), then you are better prepared than if your body was stuck "fighting" COVID19 vaccine for half a day (of sleepiness or at most mild fever). The PROBLEM is that people then say "oh well then to protect myself better against COVID19 what I should do is get infected with COVID19, rather than get vaccinated". I have NO IDEA why so many people are jumping to that conclusion.. but oh well..
- CodeWriter23 5y ago
  > The PROBLEM is that people then say "oh well then to protect myself better against COVID19 what I should do is get infected Both approaches carry risk, yet your statement presents as if the risk of vaccination is 0. And also excludes the idea that opting not to be vaccinated is a legitimate choice for the millions and millions of “cases” that have already been infected.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    The risks of the vaccine have been shown to be a minuscule fraction of the risks of being infected with covid.
    - CodeWriter23 5y ago
      If one has acquired immunity then the risk of taking the vaccine is entirely unnecessary.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  > Sure, if your body was stuck fighting COVID19 for two weeks and you then survived ... then you are better prepared than if your body was stuck "fighting" COVID19 vaccine for half a day From what I've read, it's less about severity of infection and more about the fact that the vaccine only introduces one specific aspect of the virus (the spike protein) to the immune system, while the actual virus introduces... all of itself to the immune system. So natural immunity ends up being more comprehensive and resistant to variants than the vaccines.

peterbonney 5y ago

The term ”survivor bias” is usually used metaphorically, but in this case it applies literally. Putting in some caveats about the risks associated with infection is not enough. This is a garbage analysis that should never have been accepted for publication.

peteradio 5y ago
I don't see survivor bias here at all. This is simply a study that caters to a rather significant population who justifiably want to know what they stand to gain from this vaccine. What this study has done is identified a sub population who stand to gain such minuscule benefit from vaccination that it would be unethical to include them in a study (most studies DO exclude previously infected individuals, huh wonder why?) Furthermore it is unscientific discrimination to penalize people when they could prove prior infection and/or immunity.
- amluto 5y ago
  The study appears to be reporting at least a further 50% reduction in risk for previously infected people who get a vaccine. One might debate whether the probabilities involved are so low as to be irrelevant, but the study absolutely supports the existence of a benefit.
  - peteradio 5y ago
    Fair point. I hold my ground on the discrimination point.
- siilats 5y ago
  Nobody died from vaccine but all the weak ones died from first infection so the surviving infected have survivorship bias.
  - SlowRobotAhead 5y ago
    > Nobody died from vaccine That’s not strictly true. There have been deaths, but this can be attributed to components in the vaccines that these unlucky people may have gotten at any time. There have been rare and unusual vaccine caused deaths.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

There is a simple solution to the conundrum: a standardised vaccine passport plus a separate, standardised proof of prior infection. Then let each business and jurisdiction choose whom to admit. Part of the problem with the prior-infection claim is it’s harder to verify than vaccination. Solving that would go a long way towards letting those individuals participate in normal life without compromising public health or the right to choose with whom one assembles. Broadly, the Israeli data seem to favour natural immunity while the British data, very slightly, vaccination. We need more data. In the meantime, let people make their own choices.

peteradio 5y ago
It may be in their rights to bar immune people who refuse vaccination but its plainly unscientific discrimination.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > may be in their rights to bar immune people who refuse vaccination but its plainly unscientific discrimination We don’t have strong evidence either way. Neither choice—vaccinated only or both—is unscientific. (It is understandable that, without reliable proof, the unvaccinated would be barred.) In any case, this is a problem we need to solve soon. The mRNA platform looks promising. We don’t want to back into a future where a diseased minority is barred from our urban cores. Particularly if they pose little risk to others.

nabla9 5y ago

Those who think this is supporting evidence for not getting vaccinated should think it again. You must think in terms of risk of hospitalization and/or long covid with or without vaccination over the course of the whole path you choose. ps. Moderna seems to be much more effective against Delta than Pfizer-BioNTech.

ramraj07 5y ago

I got downvoted for saying this here a while back. Anyone with good immunology experience would guess this to be accurate no matter what some half baked study says (which was what a bunch of people were telling in that earlier thread). Again doesn’t mean you should go get Covid or avoid the vaccine. The vaccine only helps. If you got Covid and then also got the vaccine it only helps more.

Aachen 5y ago
Not sure if it was you but I might have been one of the skeptics (don't think it was with this user though). Many of the comments I saw sounded like conspiracy fuel. I didn't downvote anything that sounded substantial (for example if it had references, or at least the disclaimer that this doesn't mean you shouldn't get vaccinated). Makes me wonder how to tell cherry picking science for conspiracy (I saw that heavily with 5G for example) from reality, especially when official outlets are not agreeing with the latest research yet.
calvinmorrison 5y ago
But the risk of dying of COVID for most age groups is basically zero.
smileypete 5y ago
The opposite view was a mainstream media narrative last year, in that a suggestion as such was very widely reported: 'The rapid waning of antibodies did not necessarily have implications for the efficacy of vaccine candidates currently in clinical trials, Imperial’s [Wendy] Barclay said.' “A good vaccine may well be better than natural immunity,” she said. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-antibody-idUSKBN27C005 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britai... https://www.google.com/search?q=“A+good+vaccine+may+well+be+better+than+natural+immunity”&filter=0 https://www.google.com/search?q=“A+good+vaccine+may+well+be+...

ProjectBarks 5y ago

This feels like an irresponsible title on behalf of the author. People don’t get the vaccine strictly on the strength of the vaccine. It’s considering the risk of getting COVID, understanding the long term side effects, and minimizing risk for those around you. It’s also about avoiding mutations of the virus as the higher availability of the virus only provides more opportunities for it to mutate into something more resistant or possessing other less desirable traits. I understand that the post goes into these types of details but with the proliferation of “I read the title so I read the article” types a much less clickbait title should have been chosen. This only vindicates people looking to confirm their biases and leaves out the nuance that is so important to science.

jlmorton 5y ago
What is the harm? "I'm very worried about getting Covid, but I'm also worried about the vaccine, so I'll get Covid to protect me against Covid?" This is an important public health topic to model how the pandemic proceeds as more and more are naturally infected.
- deleted 5y ago
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- CyanLite2 5y ago
  Some folks are looking for any excuse to not get the vaccine.
  - polote 5y ago
    And so what ? We should lie so that they take it ?
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      You appear to believe it would be immoral to lie to people to get them to take the vaccine. I don't believe anti-vaxxers want to die from COVID. Is it not also immoral to allow people who don't wish to die to die needlessly? It would seem to be a "lesser of two evils" sort of situation, and, in that case, the harm of lying is probably less than the harm of allowing people to die senselessly.

tacobelllover99 5y ago

Yesterday NPR was shaming US Military memebers for spreading this information as COVID misinformation. I'm so disqusted with the media right now.

del_operator 5y ago

Tasteless/careless, IMO, especially living (in Texas) where “covid parties” have happened and people lost their lives right around the block last year. Although, it may be of relevance to my younger unvaccinated nephew that survived a rough case last December and is worried about being in school over in Tennessee without masks.

tomaszs 5y ago

The title is a fake news. The same goes for the article on sciencemag and conclusions of the research. Researchers did not prove that vaccines cause higher risk.

Pxtl 5y ago

Good news for survivors, but this is going to make battles about vaccine passports much worse as anti-vax covid survivors demand exemption from the program.

londons_explore 5y ago
I think most health policy decisionmakers would happily accept a positive test result for covid in place of a vaccination as long as this science is replicated by other parties.
john_minsk 5y ago
Sorry? Not exemption. Inclusion! Why there is some process that treats some antibodies better compared to others is beyond my understanding. But In my view it is unscientific and as a result I can’t trust that the rest of the program of passports is designed properly and based on facts.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
I don't think being against vaccine passports necessarily makes you an anti-vaxxer. I've had both shots of the vaccine and I strongly oppose any sort of mandatory government ID card health-related or not, to the point I'll avoid patronising domestic businesses that voluntarily (ie without strong government coercion) impose them. I'm not a fan of any form of authoritarianism really, let alone the overtly authoritarian "papers please" brand of it. One of the key parts of a free country is that you can be anywhere within it without some nosy government inspector (in person or by proxy electronically) demanding that you justify your presence there.
- swader999 5y ago
  Exactly this. And all it takes is for this scanning system to be centralized and then they can turn you off and geo fence you in. You may trust the current government to not abuse it but do you trust the next ten?
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tzs 5y ago

Long term it seems pretty straightforward. It is almost certain COVID will become endemic, and no known form of immunity whether from vaccination or prior infection confers sufficient permanent immunity against infection to stop re-infection but prior immunity (from vaccine or prior infection) does greatly reduce the chances that your infection will give you serious illness. You assumption therefore should be that over the rest of your life you will get COVID multiple times. The question then is whether you want your first infection to be with or without prior immunity. If you want that first time to be with prior immunity get vaccinated as that is the only known way to get immunity before your first infection.

abnorxiouster 5y ago
> The question then is whether you want your first infection to be with or without prior immunity. If you want that first time to be with prior immunity get vaccinated as that is the only known way to get immunity before your first infection. You get vaccinated against an extremely specific variant, that does not guarantee any immunity for other variants unlike immunity from infection. Did you get vaccinated every year for the seasonal flu pre 2020? If not, why do you sustain vaccination when it is clear that you will have to take boosters and variant specific vaccines every year? Why would you suggest anyone that is not in a risk group and is healthy to vaccinate when his body is better prepared to withstand and easily battle any sars-cov-19 variant?
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  The vaccine does not “guarantee” protection from other variants, but it does have some, more for some variants and apparently less for others (delta). But, the same can be said about prior infection: it does not “guarantee” protection from other variants either. The paper here provides evidence that even though neither of them “guarantee” immunity for other variants or reinfection, prior infection provides more protection from COVID-19 than currently used vaccines.
- seoaeu 5y ago
  Vaccination guarantees some immunity for all existing variants. Just because it is impossible to say for all hypothetical future variants doesn't mean you need to spread misinformation like that

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siilats 5y ago

What the study says is out of 20k people that had the vaccine or previous infection only 200 got reinfected and nobody died. Yes in the 200 there were more vaccinated but imaging how many people died from the first round of infections. How the people who were sick are much more cautious and wear masks than vaccinated. None of this is adjusted for (ie they don’t ask a sample of the groups a question how often do you wear mask, all they needed to do was ask from 300 people from both groups and you could adjust for risky behaviors and I bet the effect would be much smaller). In any case both vaccine and previous infection provides plenty of protection.

walterbell 5y ago

Are there credible papers which estimate the percentage of Covid survivors in one or more countries, i.e. those with natural immunity? During the first half of 2020, there were several attempts to estimate these numbers in the USA. Are some regions or countries doing statistical population sampling, e.g. blood tests for antibodies?

sct202 5y ago
The UK has been estimating their percentage of population with antibodies which includes both people who were infected and vaccinated. Scroll to Figure 1 for the charts, but before vaccination their levels in the different regions (England, Scotland, NI, Wales) were <20%. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveyantibodyandvaccinationdatafortheuk/7july2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... To me I think that it's kind of surprising how low the percentages are.

lawrenceyan 5y ago

Vaccinating everyone was always about protecting the immunocompromised, for those who can’t defend themselves. The way the study is presented is extremely disingenuous in my opinion.

jaywalk 5y ago
My natural antibodies "protect the immunocompromised" just as much if not more than any antibodies stemming from vaccination.

DavideNL 5y ago

Is it still possible to detect whether you had COVID in the past, after already getting the vaccine?

mikem170 5y ago
Yes, I believe the right test can differentiate between the different antibody responses, telling you if you reacted to the virus, reacted to the vaccine, or both. I looked into this at one time and think I found one that cost $220. Sorry I don not have the link handy.
- DavideNL 5y ago
  If you or anyone could post more info i’d be grateful. Like what specifications to look for in a test. Also i wonder (approximately) how long after infection it would still be possible to test.
  - Vecr 5y ago
    Get an antibody test that's for something other than the spike. If the vaccine you got only has the spike (all EUA/BLA in the US) the vaccine won't boost anything else.
    - DavideNL 5y ago
      Thanks for your reply, that’s good to know; I got the Pfizer vaccine by the way (only 1 shot.)

dgudkov 5y ago

It would be great if the people who had covid and developed immunity will finally become recognized by governments on par with vaccinated. Currently, they virtually don't exist for governments and media in many countries who prefer to divide everybody into just two groups: vaccinated and anti-vaxxers. A third group does exist and deserves to be heard.

angelzen 5y ago
A fourth group: vaccinated with (potential) breakthrough infections. Non-trivial numbers, as the vaccine is only 66% effective in preventing covid infections. According to the manichean logic of the media, this group of people is an immediate public health danger, therefore must be subjected to the same draconian measures as the unvaccinated.

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wesleywt 5y ago

The problem with these articles is that while it tries to inform. The people who don't understant the implications of getting covid will use it as support for their bias not to get vaccinated.

bobbytit 5y ago
Yeah, the sheeple can't handle the truth.

BFatts 5y ago

Maybe if they dose with some hydroxycholorquine, ivermectin, and shoot some UV up their bum, they will get AMAZING protection??

jbirer 5y ago

If you survive it, that is.

fmax30 5y ago

This sounds conflicting I read somewhere else earlier today, that the immunity you get from the actual disease is tailored towards the specific variant/strain. Whereas the vaccines (at least the mRNA ones) confer immunity against multiple strains.

nickandre 5y ago
Why? The vaccine is literally a carbon copy of one of the early variants. It just makes the protein without infection. This whole idea that the vaccine has magical properties to substantially exceed natural immunity on basic dimensions is straightforward BS.
- fmax30 5y ago
  I meant the article said that the actual disease confers greater immunity than a vaccine. While that might be true, that immunity would only be good for one particular strain of the virus as opposed to the vaccine which provides you protection against a wider variety of strains. One can argue that the protection from the vaccine is better in the sense, that it protects you from a wider variety of Covid strains. Also, just so you know, that while the (mRNA) vaccine replicates protein, it is still your body and immune system which reacts to this protein and creates the antibodies. So even in case of the vaccine, strictly speaking the immunity is natural.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  It's an interesting concept. When your body makes antibodies against an active infection, it targets more than just the spike protein. Against the vaccine, it targets the spike protein 100% because that's all it has. As variants come and go, you should expect that the spike protein will change -- but it can't change that much because changing too much will reduce its ability to infect cells -- so it's a good thing to have a wide variety of antibodies against. However, having antibodies against other parts of the virus is useful too, since those might be more conserved with variants, but also they could be conserved less -- we don't really know.

heavyarms 5y ago

In other news: Having a $3 million mansion at the beach confers much greater happiness than an affordable house in the suburbs! Having a new top-of-the-line Mercedes SUV confers much greater status than a used Honda minivan! Having a beautiful face and 6-pack abs confers much greater attractiveness than looking like Shrek! There are two mutually exclusive questions at play here... and I'm totally convinced the population at large has ability to discern the difference and not conflate one with the other. 1. What is the best/strongest/longest lasting type of immunity, natural or vaccine? 2. What is the safest type of immunity, natural or vaccine? Is natural immunity better? There's some data to show it is. Should you risk your life to get? Probably not.

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palisade 5y ago

Yeah, it also confers organ damage for life and/or death. lol. Get the vaccine, nerds.

tablespoon 5y ago

Here's the important bit: > The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and then received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated. Get the vaccine.

moistrobot 5y ago

One of the biggest issues with this discussion is that we call these current round of therapeutics, "vaccines". They aren't. They don't prevent infection. They don't prevent transmission. At best, they reduce symptoms.

a0-prw 5y ago

"The study demonstrates the power of the human immune system, but infectious disease experts emphasized that this vaccine and others for COVID-19 nonetheless remain highly protective against severe disease and death." I'll go with my immune system, thanks. Just like I'll keep eating natural food instead of processed. This whole pandemic thing is the biggest mass hysteria ever. Old, sick people are dying! Omg, PANIC!

a0-prw 5y ago

I love these threads about the virus. Where else can you get the thrill of considering your own and your loved ones' mortality, and pump the illusion that what you say matters in the big picture?

Pokepokalypse 5y ago

Vaccines are NOT a treatment for individuals. Vaccines are for populations. We seem so wrapped up in our own precious snowflake egos now that we seem to have lost the ability to think of ourselves as part of a group.