3 ms·

Is this a joke? CDC issues guidance that vaccinated persons should not get tested anymore unless symptomatic, then collects data showing that, lo and behold, va

Is this a joke? CDC issues guidance that vaccinated persons should not get tested anymore unless symptomatic, then collects data showing that, lo and behold, vaccinated people have lower rates of reinfection. Duh, you just stopped measuring infection rates for vaccinated asymptomatic cases, which are the majority of covid infections. You'd think that CDC employees would disclose CDC guidance that might be invalidating the core premise of their study... Consider finding an alternative to CDC. FWIW, UK has pretty good data. > This report details the findings of a case-control evaluation of the association between vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in Kentucky during May–June 2021 [...] Second, persons who have been vaccinated are possibly less likely to get tested. Therefore, the association of reinfection and lack of vaccination might be overestimated. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm > July 28, 2021. Anyone who has been potentially exposed to the virus should get tested, the C.D.C. now says. Previous guidance recommended testing only for fully vaccinated people who were symptomatic. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/28/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/28/world/covid-delta-va...

Retric 5y ago
That was controlled for in the study because these people aren’t idiots. If you really don’t trust US data there is another study out of Israel again showing a single vaccine dose after infection significantly reduces reinfection risks.
- angelzen 5y ago
  Unless there is a technical explanation on how exactly the study 'controlled' for the data bias they failed to disclose, the study is tainted, sorry. This is a technical audience, we can double check the math. They should retract it, but this is 2021 US with too much politics everywhere, so probably they won't. The substantive discussion is a separate topic. Given all the facts we know so far, including exponential antibody decay and the obvious need for boosters, looks like the vaccines temporarily raise the antibody levels, and then peter out. Note, I'm not making any claims which immune system stimulus is better long term, vaccines or covid infection. We simply don't understand the long term interplay of the human immune system, the vaccines and the virus. Short term studies amount to 'we put a drop of ink into the ocean, measured the water color 1 second later, yay, the ocean is now black'. Hard to credibly extrapolate them 20 years in the future. So far we assumed a static virus. The largest risk with the current vaccination campaign is that it is using a monoculture vaccine, teaching the immune system to eliminate a grand total of 1 protein. Even a cursory familiarity with how evolution works in large monoculture populations should raise some red flags. https://www.canr.msu.edu/grapes/integrated_pest_management/how-pesticide-resistance-develops https://www.canr.msu.edu/grapes/integrated_pest_management/h.... Long term the virus is likely to figure out a way to do its thing while escaping the vaccine protection. (It so happens that Pfizer CEO publicly agrees with this position, so there). Given that it is fundamentally impossible to predict the long term evolution of the pandemic absent a time machine, it is highly unethical to force people take the vaccine using universally reviled tactics like state enforced segregation and discrimination. (Disclaimer: I am vaccinated and hope for the best).
  - Retric 5y ago
    > exponential antibody decay Antibodies are part of the adaptive immune system but are only produced when the body thinks there is an active infection. To simply greatly long term immunity is maintained via memory B cells because constantly producing antibodies to every disease encountered is untenable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell > grand total of 1 protein That’s not how these vaccines work. A vaccination covers a huge range of mutations in that spike protein as the immune system memorizes multiple targets. Again simplifying it’s like memorizing 4 of your ten fingerprints, lose a finger and you still match the other 3. The protein target is chosen because it is part of the mechanism of infection, without that a simple COVID variant can’t infect you. Of course given enough time it could evolve around this issue but we are not talking about a single mutation.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      > A vaccination covers a huge range of mutations in that spike protein as the immune system memorizes multiple targets. This is an excellent technical point. Trouble is we already know that we are 'a few mutations away' from a covid variant evading vaccines, which is 'likely' to emerge. A recent Japanese preprint nailed it down to just 4: K417N, N439K, E484K and N501Y. https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/8/26/22642809/delta-variant-evade-vaccines-mutations https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/8/26/22642809/delta... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.22.457114v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.22.457114v1 Rachel Walensky, CDC boss, July 2021: "the largest concern that we in public health and science are worried about is that the virus…[becomes] a very transmissible virus that has the potential to evade our vaccines in terms of how it protects us from severe disease and death". A new, more elusive variant could be "just a few mutations away," she said. https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210730/threat-of-vaccine-proof-covid-variant https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021073... Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, Aug 2021: "Every time that a variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it. And they are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine. We haven't identified any yet, but we believe that it is likely that one day, one of them will emerge." https://www.insider.com/pfizer-ceo-vaccine-resistant-coronavius-variant-likely-2021-8 https://www.insider.com/pfizer-ceo-vaccine-resistant-coronav... Nature, March 2021: "Our study and the new clinical trial data show that the virus is traveling in a direction that is causing it to escape from our current vaccines and therapies that are directed against the viral spike,” says Ho, the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the Clyde’56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/new-study-coronavirus-variants-predicts-virus-evolving-escape-current-vaccines-treatments https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/new-study-coronavirus-va... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03398-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03398-2 ===== > long term immunity is maintained via memory B cells because constantly producing antibodies to every disease encountered is untenable You are reading this backwards. I am not making any claims of what the appropriate level of antibodies ought be for long term immunity. I find "using tainted data we found 2x increase of antibody levels in post-infection + vax compared to just post-infection" studies ridiculous. The people pushing vaccines on people with prior infection, the people pushing boosters, the cottage industry of antigen studies making bold immunity extrapolations are making such claims. Perhaps you should spend some time educating them of basic immune system functions? I wouldn't mind that much, everybody is free to chose their own risk profile. Right? Then they throw away the democratic norms and practices of past 200 years because they don't get the buyin levels (100%) they were hoping for. That is evil.

Retric 5y ago

That was controlled for in the study because these people aren’t idiots. If you really don’t trust US data there is another study out of Israel again showing a single vaccine dose after infection significantly reduces reinfection risks.

angelzen 5y ago
Unless there is a technical explanation on how exactly the study 'controlled' for the data bias they failed to disclose, the study is tainted, sorry. This is a technical audience, we can double check the math. They should retract it, but this is 2021 US with too much politics everywhere, so probably they won't. The substantive discussion is a separate topic. Given all the facts we know so far, including exponential antibody decay and the obvious need for boosters, looks like the vaccines temporarily raise the antibody levels, and then peter out. Note, I'm not making any claims which immune system stimulus is better long term, vaccines or covid infection. We simply don't understand the long term interplay of the human immune system, the vaccines and the virus. Short term studies amount to 'we put a drop of ink into the ocean, measured the water color 1 second later, yay, the ocean is now black'. Hard to credibly extrapolate them 20 years in the future. So far we assumed a static virus. The largest risk with the current vaccination campaign is that it is using a monoculture vaccine, teaching the immune system to eliminate a grand total of 1 protein. Even a cursory familiarity with how evolution works in large monoculture populations should raise some red flags. https://www.canr.msu.edu/grapes/integrated_pest_management/how-pesticide-resistance-develops https://www.canr.msu.edu/grapes/integrated_pest_management/h.... Long term the virus is likely to figure out a way to do its thing while escaping the vaccine protection. (It so happens that Pfizer CEO publicly agrees with this position, so there). Given that it is fundamentally impossible to predict the long term evolution of the pandemic absent a time machine, it is highly unethical to force people take the vaccine using universally reviled tactics like state enforced segregation and discrimination. (Disclaimer: I am vaccinated and hope for the best).
- Retric 5y ago
  > exponential antibody decay Antibodies are part of the adaptive immune system but are only produced when the body thinks there is an active infection. To simply greatly long term immunity is maintained via memory B cells because constantly producing antibodies to every disease encountered is untenable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell > grand total of 1 protein That’s not how these vaccines work. A vaccination covers a huge range of mutations in that spike protein as the immune system memorizes multiple targets. Again simplifying it’s like memorizing 4 of your ten fingerprints, lose a finger and you still match the other 3. The protein target is chosen because it is part of the mechanism of infection, without that a simple COVID variant can’t infect you. Of course given enough time it could evolve around this issue but we are not talking about a single mutation.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    > A vaccination covers a huge range of mutations in that spike protein as the immune system memorizes multiple targets. This is an excellent technical point. Trouble is we already know that we are 'a few mutations away' from a covid variant evading vaccines, which is 'likely' to emerge. A recent Japanese preprint nailed it down to just 4: K417N, N439K, E484K and N501Y. https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/8/26/22642809/delta-variant-evade-vaccines-mutations https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/8/26/22642809/delta... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.22.457114v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.22.457114v1 Rachel Walensky, CDC boss, July 2021: "the largest concern that we in public health and science are worried about is that the virus…[becomes] a very transmissible virus that has the potential to evade our vaccines in terms of how it protects us from severe disease and death". A new, more elusive variant could be "just a few mutations away," she said. https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210730/threat-of-vaccine-proof-covid-variant https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021073... Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, Aug 2021: "Every time that a variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it. And they are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine. We haven't identified any yet, but we believe that it is likely that one day, one of them will emerge." https://www.insider.com/pfizer-ceo-vaccine-resistant-coronavius-variant-likely-2021-8 https://www.insider.com/pfizer-ceo-vaccine-resistant-coronav... Nature, March 2021: "Our study and the new clinical trial data show that the virus is traveling in a direction that is causing it to escape from our current vaccines and therapies that are directed against the viral spike,” says Ho, the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the Clyde’56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/new-study-coronavirus-variants-predicts-virus-evolving-escape-current-vaccines-treatments https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/new-study-coronavirus-va... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03398-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03398-2 ===== > long term immunity is maintained via memory B cells because constantly producing antibodies to every disease encountered is untenable You are reading this backwards. I am not making any claims of what the appropriate level of antibodies ought be for long term immunity. I find "using tainted data we found 2x increase of antibody levels in post-infection + vax compared to just post-infection" studies ridiculous. The people pushing vaccines on people with prior infection, the people pushing boosters, the cottage industry of antigen studies making bold immunity extrapolations are making such claims. Perhaps you should spend some time educating them of basic immune system functions? I wouldn't mind that much, everybody is free to chose their own risk profile. Right? Then they throw away the democratic norms and practices of past 200 years because they don't get the buyin levels (100%) they were hoping for. That is evil.