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A recent study from Israel said that natural immunity is an order of magnitude better than vaccine-induced immunity against delta variant. I don't know who to b

A recent study from Israel said that natural immunity is an order of magnitude better than vaccine-induced immunity against delta variant. I don't know who to believe, but if that's the case, then the narrative of "well they should get vaccinated anyway" is really freaking suspicious. We need deeper research on this, and the fact that they haven't researched this is truly scary.

RIMR 5y ago
>the fact that they haven't researched this is truly scary Can you clarify who you mean by "they"? I don't suspect you mean Israel in that context.
petre 5y ago
Do take an antibody test and decide for yourself. How can one make decisions without any metric?
- pbaka 5y ago
  I think the point of the policies is you shouldn't. It's like in the army : don't think, we've done the thinking for you.
- mike00632 5y ago
  You know what's easier than getting an antibody tests and ensures immunity to COVID?
frockington1 5y ago
Follow the money. Lots of money to be made with each round of shots the population is encouraged to get
- lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
  Follow the money, lots of money to be made by dissuading people from becoming vaccinated, so they are more likely to need expensive medical services.
advisedwang 5y ago
I mean for someone with natural immunity to get the vaccine is not going to reduce their immunity, and might boost it (or might not). So with fairly little downside, it makes sense to vaccinate them surely?
- toxik 5y ago
  I still think everybody should be vaccinated as far as it is possible, BUT it seems that what you said might not be true. The second vaccine dose can make your natural type immunity weaker.
  - EamonnMR 5y ago
    That would be very surprising if true.
  - borkyborkbork 5y ago
    That is a statement that really needs some backup.
- bitcurious 5y ago
  The downside is that if you already have a strong immune response you will have a much harsher reaction to the vaccine, basically four days out of commission. A reaction that’s rather comparable to breakthrough COVID.
  - SigmundA 5y ago
    Definitely need some citation on that please.
    - bitcurious 5y ago
      https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect/after.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect/af... >Side effects can affect your ability to do daily activities, but they should go away in a few days. > Common side effects: [Tiredness, Headache, Muscle pain, Chills, Fever, Nausea] >Side effects after your second shot may be more intense than the ones you experienced after your first shot. These side effects are normal signs that your body is building protection and should go away within a few days. I don't have a specific study for prior immunity vs. second shot, but neither COVID nor the vaccine are magic - both behave in a more or less standard manner. I've seen references to studies though: >Dr. Erin Morcomb, a family medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, Wis., and head of its COVID-19 vaccination team, confirms that the reactions can vary based on your health history. "What we've seen in studies is that the second dose does tend to have a little bit more potential to cause side effects than the first dose, but for people who have had COVID-19 infection previously and then recovered, they are at higher risk of having those same side effects after their first dose," she says. from https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/strong-reaction-to-first-covid-19-vaccine-may-signal-previous-infection-experts-say/ar-BB1eJstT https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/strong-reaction-to-...
toxik 5y ago
I suspect the marginal utility is better in having a larger % vaccinated. If those on the fence about it hear that there are circumstances where it’s better to only take one dose, or none, many won’t vaccinate at all because it seems less important.
contravariant 5y ago
It's deeply unfortunate but not really surprising, these kinds of large scale experiments on humans are rather difficult to organize (for good reason) and outside of a naturally occurring disaster may not have happened at all.
bigcorp-slave 5y ago
It is not a conspiracy to vaccinate more people. The lens you are missing is that the vaccine card is at least somewhat difficult to forge. You can trace the lot number and say, did this person get this dose. But with previous infection, there is a huge camp of people who are just going to lie about it and continue spreading the virus freely. People have shown that they cannot be trusted to act responsibly.
- Pxtl 5y ago
  I assume the proposal is that the vaccine card would be a de-facto immunity card, where a test showing a high antibody count would still be logged on your card as an alternative to the vaccine. But the devil's in the details anyways. How long would that be considered good for, since we'll probably be looking at regular annual boosters? Would extremist anti-vaxxers have a perverse incentive to get infected so as to rejoin society while avoiding the vaccine?
  - bigcorp-slave 5y ago
    I’d support an immunity card with the same audit trail for antibody test. I think most people would - general common sense suggests that natural infection should be effective. How long it lasts, I guess we’ll need to study that. Honestly the problem here is not the science. It’s the big clump of people who have turned being against the science into a part of their identity. Every time I think we have hit the bottom as a country in terms of the power of ignorance (and evil, on the part of the GOP establishment), we keep going. What I find especially perverse is that these people are here! On Hacker News! I just don’t understand how someone can be in the technology field and yet so virulently pro-disease. Any comment that points out that IT IS THE REPUBLICANS WHO HAVE MURDERED 650,000 AMERICANS AND ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL AS MANY MORE AS THEY CAN gets downvoted below zero.
    - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
      > Every time I think we have hit the bottom as a country in terms of the power of ignorance (and evil, on the part of the GOP establishment), we keep going. > Any comment that points out that IT IS THE REPUBLICANS WHO HAVE MURDERED 650,000 AMERICANS AND ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL AS MANY MORE AS THEY CAN gets downvoted below zero. That's because the comments like these are political hysteria designed to get others to vote for your team...
handmodel 5y ago
There's no evidence that having the vaccine stops you from developing natural immunity if you have a breakthrough. If the vaccine fails you then you will get covid (like you would have in the same situation without vaccine) and will develop natural immunity then.
- prox 5y ago
  Even if you do get a breakthrough, chance of not going to a hospital is significantly lower. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19byvaccinationstatusengland/deathsoccurringbetween2januaryand2july2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
  - davorak 5y ago
    I think you had an extra 'not' and meant something like 'Even if you do get a breakthrough, chances of going to a hospital is significantly lower.'
    - prox 5y ago
      You are right, and not wrong :p. Thanks for spotting that.
cblconfederate 5y ago
13 times actually https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... I think this will be more relevant to vaccinating kids: If this result holds for kids as well, and considering that Covid is not dangerous for kids, maybe kids are better off getting covid
- stefan_ 5y ago
  No, of course they are not, hence why we are vaccinating them. This is fud. (Is this the dumbest argument yet? "If you just get COVID, you will have the best protection against COVID!"? I take it the dead people have the best protection to offer yet?)
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    The UK vaccine advisory board is not recommending vaccinating teens 12-15, on account that they dont benefit much
    - lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
      Incorrect. They recommend it, they don’t mandate it.
      - cblconfederate 5y ago
        They don't recommend it. The UK will vaccinate kids however. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-updated-advice-on-covid-19-vaccination-of-children-aged-12-to-15 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-updated-advic...
        lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
        Nowhere does it say they don’t recommend it. Just that they aren’t going to universally mandate it. “For otherwise healthy 12 to 15 year old children, their risk of severe COVID-19 disease is small and therefore the potential for benefit from COVID-19 vaccination is also small. The JCVI’s view is that overall, the health benefits from COVID-19 vaccination to healthy children aged 12 to 15 years are marginally greater than the potential harms. Taking a precautionary approach, this margin of benefit is considered too small to support universal COVID-19 vaccination for this age group at this time. The committee will continue to review safety data as they emerge.” https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58547659 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58547659
jjeaff 5y ago
I think the biggest issue is that a lot of people think they had covid previously but didn't get tested so they don't really know. I thought I had covid early in the pandemic. Took a serology test and found out that I had not had it. I suspect a lot of people that think they had it are the same.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Interesting. Does the US now have a digital verifiable certificate system for tested or previously infected as well as vaccinated or is it still a piece of paper? Without this you have to just vaccinate everyone because there is no other way to manage it.
- isolli 5y ago
  Except that antibodies don’t tell the whole story. They may wane after a while, but the immune system is primed to fight off the virus at the next infection thanks to memory B cells and T cells. Unfortunately, T-cell tests are not available in Europe, and apparently not reliable in the US. Which confirms the original point: there seems to be little interest in detecting previous infections.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Which means that testing is really undependable. Probably better to vaccinate everyone, because our prediction of the immunity of people who have been vaccinated is a lot more reliable.
  - walterbell 5y ago
    > apparently not reliable in the US Which T-cell test(s) are you referencing? What are the rates of false negatives or false positives?
    - isolli 5y ago
      Good question. I wrote "apparently" because I don't know much about T-cell tests. I would be happy for any information on the topic.
tonmoy 5y ago
Please provide a credible source (preferably a peer reviewed publication) for such a bold claim.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... It's pre-print FWIW
- draw_down 5y ago
  Come on
vmception 5y ago
There is finally a relevant flu analogy for those people to use, but they completely miss it in favor of some other non sequitur: Exposure to this years seasonal flu will give better immunity to this year’s seasonal flu, than the vaccine for last year’s seasonal flu will give to this year’s seasonal fly. One day we’ll be able to say “Duh” in response to annual COVID flavors. There will be vaccines specifically made for the delta variant and others.
spoonjim 5y ago
The entire administration has set vaccination percentage as their OKR; they're not going to risk that number just because of the facts.
- peteradio 5y ago
  I wish they were that easy, then they'd know to juice the numbers by allowing all kinds of immunity. Talk about an effective administration!
morsch 5y ago
Same study came to the result that getting a shot after surviving an infection (unvaccinated) gives even better protection. The real interesting comparison would be immunity after getting a breakthrough infection compared to other kinds of acquired immunity. I'm sure we'll get that study eventually. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full-text https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
- isolli 5y ago
  This second result is a lot weaker than the first, however: “Individuals who were previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 seem to gain additional protection from a subsequent single-dose vaccine regimen. Though this finding corresponds to previous reports, we could not demonstrate significance in our cohort.” At the moment, this does not justify mandating the vaccine for those previously infected.
throwaway287391 5y ago
I got vaxxed as soon as I reasonably could and I never want to get COVID, but if that's true it really does seem insulting to require vaccination for people who can prove they already had COVID. It's like they did get vaccinated but picked a much more difficult/risky and much more effective way to do so -- if that were their intention (and they avoided spreading it once they got it), one could say it was a heroic choice... At the same time though, I can imagine it would be really difficult/expensive to verify the proof of previous infection vs. verifying vaccination, and there could be the appearance of incentivizing anti-vaxxers to go infect themselves with COVID.
- landemva 5y ago
  I was sick earlier this year. A few weeks later I paid a pharmacy $20 or $25 to test my blood for antibodies. Strongly positive. Dr. agreed and wrote a letter with my facts. I thought the process was straightforward, convenient, and cheap.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  I had it before the vaccine. It was an absolute joke of an illness, and I'd rather not be referred to as "heroic" for getting a sneeze and a poor sense of smell for a while.
suifbwish 5y ago
It probably is, however that enhanced immunity can come at the cost of damaged organs.
pfdietz 5y ago
And natural immunity + 2 doses of vaccine is likely even better.

RIMR 5y ago

>the fact that they haven't researched this is truly scary Can you clarify who you mean by "they"? I don't suspect you mean Israel in that context.

petre 5y ago

Do take an antibody test and decide for yourself. How can one make decisions without any metric?

pbaka 5y ago
I think the point of the policies is you shouldn't. It's like in the army : don't think, we've done the thinking for you.
mike00632 5y ago
You know what's easier than getting an antibody tests and ensures immunity to COVID?

frockington1 5y ago

Follow the money. Lots of money to be made with each round of shots the population is encouraged to get

lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
Follow the money, lots of money to be made by dissuading people from becoming vaccinated, so they are more likely to need expensive medical services.

advisedwang 5y ago

I mean for someone with natural immunity to get the vaccine is not going to reduce their immunity, and might boost it (or might not). So with fairly little downside, it makes sense to vaccinate them surely?

toxik 5y ago
I still think everybody should be vaccinated as far as it is possible, BUT it seems that what you said might not be true. The second vaccine dose can make your natural type immunity weaker.
- EamonnMR 5y ago
  That would be very surprising if true.
- borkyborkbork 5y ago
  That is a statement that really needs some backup.
bitcurious 5y ago
The downside is that if you already have a strong immune response you will have a much harsher reaction to the vaccine, basically four days out of commission. A reaction that’s rather comparable to breakthrough COVID.
- SigmundA 5y ago
  Definitely need some citation on that please.
  - bitcurious 5y ago
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect/after.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect/af... >Side effects can affect your ability to do daily activities, but they should go away in a few days. > Common side effects: [Tiredness, Headache, Muscle pain, Chills, Fever, Nausea] >Side effects after your second shot may be more intense than the ones you experienced after your first shot. These side effects are normal signs that your body is building protection and should go away within a few days. I don't have a specific study for prior immunity vs. second shot, but neither COVID nor the vaccine are magic - both behave in a more or less standard manner. I've seen references to studies though: >Dr. Erin Morcomb, a family medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, Wis., and head of its COVID-19 vaccination team, confirms that the reactions can vary based on your health history. "What we've seen in studies is that the second dose does tend to have a little bit more potential to cause side effects than the first dose, but for people who have had COVID-19 infection previously and then recovered, they are at higher risk of having those same side effects after their first dose," she says. from https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/strong-reaction-to-first-covid-19-vaccine-may-signal-previous-infection-experts-say/ar-BB1eJstT https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/strong-reaction-to-...

toxik 5y ago

I suspect the marginal utility is better in having a larger % vaccinated. If those on the fence about it hear that there are circumstances where it’s better to only take one dose, or none, many won’t vaccinate at all because it seems less important.

contravariant 5y ago

It's deeply unfortunate but not really surprising, these kinds of large scale experiments on humans are rather difficult to organize (for good reason) and outside of a naturally occurring disaster may not have happened at all.

bigcorp-slave 5y ago

It is not a conspiracy to vaccinate more people. The lens you are missing is that the vaccine card is at least somewhat difficult to forge. You can trace the lot number and say, did this person get this dose. But with previous infection, there is a huge camp of people who are just going to lie about it and continue spreading the virus freely. People have shown that they cannot be trusted to act responsibly.

Pxtl 5y ago
I assume the proposal is that the vaccine card would be a de-facto immunity card, where a test showing a high antibody count would still be logged on your card as an alternative to the vaccine. But the devil's in the details anyways. How long would that be considered good for, since we'll probably be looking at regular annual boosters? Would extremist anti-vaxxers have a perverse incentive to get infected so as to rejoin society while avoiding the vaccine?
- bigcorp-slave 5y ago
  I’d support an immunity card with the same audit trail for antibody test. I think most people would - general common sense suggests that natural infection should be effective. How long it lasts, I guess we’ll need to study that. Honestly the problem here is not the science. It’s the big clump of people who have turned being against the science into a part of their identity. Every time I think we have hit the bottom as a country in terms of the power of ignorance (and evil, on the part of the GOP establishment), we keep going. What I find especially perverse is that these people are here! On Hacker News! I just don’t understand how someone can be in the technology field and yet so virulently pro-disease. Any comment that points out that IT IS THE REPUBLICANS WHO HAVE MURDERED 650,000 AMERICANS AND ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL AS MANY MORE AS THEY CAN gets downvoted below zero.
  - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    > Every time I think we have hit the bottom as a country in terms of the power of ignorance (and evil, on the part of the GOP establishment), we keep going. > Any comment that points out that IT IS THE REPUBLICANS WHO HAVE MURDERED 650,000 AMERICANS AND ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL AS MANY MORE AS THEY CAN gets downvoted below zero. That's because the comments like these are political hysteria designed to get others to vote for your team...

handmodel 5y ago

There's no evidence that having the vaccine stops you from developing natural immunity if you have a breakthrough. If the vaccine fails you then you will get covid (like you would have in the same situation without vaccine) and will develop natural immunity then.

prox 5y ago
Even if you do get a breakthrough, chance of not going to a hospital is significantly lower. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19byvaccinationstatusengland/deathsoccurringbetween2januaryand2july2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
- davorak 5y ago
  I think you had an extra 'not' and meant something like 'Even if you do get a breakthrough, chances of going to a hospital is significantly lower.'
  - prox 5y ago
    You are right, and not wrong :p. Thanks for spotting that.

cblconfederate 5y ago

13 times actually https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... I think this will be more relevant to vaccinating kids: If this result holds for kids as well, and considering that Covid is not dangerous for kids, maybe kids are better off getting covid

stefan_ 5y ago
No, of course they are not, hence why we are vaccinating them. This is fud. (Is this the dumbest argument yet? "If you just get COVID, you will have the best protection against COVID!"? I take it the dead people have the best protection to offer yet?)
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  The UK vaccine advisory board is not recommending vaccinating teens 12-15, on account that they dont benefit much
  - lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
    Incorrect. They recommend it, they don’t mandate it.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      They don't recommend it. The UK will vaccinate kids however. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-updated-advice-on-covid-19-vaccination-of-children-aged-12-to-15 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-updated-advic...
      - lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
        Nowhere does it say they don’t recommend it. Just that they aren’t going to universally mandate it. “For otherwise healthy 12 to 15 year old children, their risk of severe COVID-19 disease is small and therefore the potential for benefit from COVID-19 vaccination is also small. The JCVI’s view is that overall, the health benefits from COVID-19 vaccination to healthy children aged 12 to 15 years are marginally greater than the potential harms. Taking a precautionary approach, this margin of benefit is considered too small to support universal COVID-19 vaccination for this age group at this time. The committee will continue to review safety data as they emerge.” https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58547659 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58547659

jjeaff 5y ago

I think the biggest issue is that a lot of people think they had covid previously but didn't get tested so they don't really know. I thought I had covid early in the pandemic. Took a serology test and found out that I had not had it. I suspect a lot of people that think they had it are the same.

sschueller 5y ago
Interesting. Does the US now have a digital verifiable certificate system for tested or previously infected as well as vaccinated or is it still a piece of paper? Without this you have to just vaccinate everyone because there is no other way to manage it.
isolli 5y ago
Except that antibodies don’t tell the whole story. They may wane after a while, but the immune system is primed to fight off the virus at the next infection thanks to memory B cells and T cells. Unfortunately, T-cell tests are not available in Europe, and apparently not reliable in the US. Which confirms the original point: there seems to be little interest in detecting previous infections.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Which means that testing is really undependable. Probably better to vaccinate everyone, because our prediction of the immunity of people who have been vaccinated is a lot more reliable.
- walterbell 5y ago
  > apparently not reliable in the US Which T-cell test(s) are you referencing? What are the rates of false negatives or false positives?
  - isolli 5y ago
    Good question. I wrote "apparently" because I don't know much about T-cell tests. I would be happy for any information on the topic.

tonmoy 5y ago

Please provide a credible source (preferably a peer reviewed publication) for such a bold claim.

throwaway894345 5y ago
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... It's pre-print FWIW
draw_down 5y ago
Come on

vmception 5y ago

There is finally a relevant flu analogy for those people to use, but they completely miss it in favor of some other non sequitur: Exposure to this years seasonal flu will give better immunity to this year’s seasonal flu, than the vaccine for last year’s seasonal flu will give to this year’s seasonal fly. One day we’ll be able to say “Duh” in response to annual COVID flavors. There will be vaccines specifically made for the delta variant and others.

spoonjim 5y ago

The entire administration has set vaccination percentage as their OKR; they're not going to risk that number just because of the facts.

peteradio 5y ago
I wish they were that easy, then they'd know to juice the numbers by allowing all kinds of immunity. Talk about an effective administration!

morsch 5y ago

Same study came to the result that getting a shot after surviving an infection (unvaccinated) gives even better protection. The real interesting comparison would be immunity after getting a breakthrough infection compared to other kinds of acquired immunity. I'm sure we'll get that study eventually. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full-text https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

isolli 5y ago
This second result is a lot weaker than the first, however: “Individuals who were previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 seem to gain additional protection from a subsequent single-dose vaccine regimen. Though this finding corresponds to previous reports, we could not demonstrate significance in our cohort.” At the moment, this does not justify mandating the vaccine for those previously infected.

throwaway287391 5y ago

I got vaxxed as soon as I reasonably could and I never want to get COVID, but if that's true it really does seem insulting to require vaccination for people who can prove they already had COVID. It's like they did get vaccinated but picked a much more difficult/risky and much more effective way to do so -- if that were their intention (and they avoided spreading it once they got it), one could say it was a heroic choice... At the same time though, I can imagine it would be really difficult/expensive to verify the proof of previous infection vs. verifying vaccination, and there could be the appearance of incentivizing anti-vaxxers to go infect themselves with COVID.

landemva 5y ago
I was sick earlier this year. A few weeks later I paid a pharmacy $20 or $25 to test my blood for antibodies. Strongly positive. Dr. agreed and wrote a letter with my facts. I thought the process was straightforward, convenient, and cheap.
rpmisms 5y ago
I had it before the vaccine. It was an absolute joke of an illness, and I'd rather not be referred to as "heroic" for getting a sneeze and a poor sense of smell for a while.

suifbwish 5y ago

It probably is, however that enhanced immunity can come at the cost of damaged organs.

pfdietz 5y ago

And natural immunity + 2 doses of vaccine is likely even better.