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There was a study earlier this year which had the opposite findings [1]. This study addressed the discrepancy: > these findings differ from those of a retrospe

There was a study earlier this year which had the opposite findings [1]. This study addressed the discrepancy: > these findings differ from those of a retrospective records-based cohort study in Israel, which did not find higher protection for vaccinated adults compared with those with previous infection during a period of Delta variant circulation. This variation is possibly related to differences in the outcome of interest and restrictions on the timing of vaccination. The Israeli cohort study assessed any positive SARS-CoV-2 test result, whereas this study examined laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 among hospitalized patients. The Israeli cohort study also only examined vaccinations that had occurred 6 months earlier, so the benefit of more recent vaccination was not examined. This report focused on the early protection from infection-induced and vaccine-induced immunity, though it is possible that estimates could be affected by time. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1%20 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

hammock 5y ago
>There was a study earlier this year which had the opposite findings [1]. This study addressed the discrepancy They did address the one study from Israel. They did not address the nearly 20 other studies also done which share its conclusion that natural immunity is at least as powerful as a jab.
radu_floricica 5y ago
So best case scenario, vaccines only win short term?
- Arnt 5y ago
  No, that's an unsound conclusion. That assumes that all the unobserved kinds of cases are like the those in the Israeli study and not like those in this. The sound conclusion is: "This seems to be complicated; further study needed."
  - radu_floricica 5y ago
    Yes, but in a bayesian sense, what are we updating toward? So far everything indicates that disease has better imunity long term.
    - Arnt 5y ago
      I think you're confusing apples with trees here... Your choice now is whether to vaccinate or not. It's not whether to vaccinate or be infected. Being infected or not is another choice that luck chooses for you at some point in the future. Being infected again or not is another choice that luck chooses for you at some point still further in the future, assuming that you luck decides to infect you in the previous step. So: Your resistance against the first infection is near zero without the vaccine, much better with. Your resistance against the second infection is what's being discussed in this study. I'm not sure how to compare vaccines with natural resistance fairly without that off-by-one infection number. People say it's better than the vaccine, but that disregards the nonzero chance of dying while acquiring the immunity. Some five million people have died in the process of acquiring that immunity — it seems difficult to call that "better than" anything.
      - radu_floricica 5y ago
        No, I'm not :) I'm comparing immunity acquired by infection with immunity acquired by vaccine, post-factum. I'm definitely not saying that one should use infection as a substitute for vaccine, and honestly I'm a bit miffed that you're suggesting I am. Also this is far from being a useless fact to know. For example in my country prior infection doesn't count for getting your green certificate. If infection is indeed better than vaccine, than you have a very strong argument that the government is making a pretty big mistake. If it offers the same order of magnitude of protection, that you have a weak argument. If it's significantly worse than vaccine, than you have no argument against this policy, and in fact it's a pretty good policy.
        Arnt 5y ago
        OK, here's a comparison. For the first infection, immunity acquired by infection doesn't exist yet, so for the first infection, that strategy offers an increased risk of death of 20× or more compared to vaccination. For the second infection, the two strategies are roughly equal. Not exact, but the details don't matter, because... For these two on average, immunity acquired by infection offers about 10.5× the chance of death. If the effectiveness during the second infection varies very much, then that number will be 9 or 13 or something, so who cares about that detail. The number 20 dwarfs everything else. The only way to make the two strategies comparable is to ignore the outcome of the first infection. Note that 20 isn't meant as a serious estimate, it's a number I picked out of a hat. MUCH higher estimates are available. You may have read that 99.5% of deaths in the US are unvaccinated. If you start with that number and that two-thirds of the USians are vaccinated, then the number 20 becomes 400, and immunity acquired by infection is then roughly 200× as dangerous as the vaccines they use in the US.
bananabiscuit 5y ago
So this study only looks at covid-19 patients that were hospitalized and comparing that to the vaccinated population? How is it an improvement to introduce a selection bias that wasn’t there in a previous study? I guess more data points are always good but then the conclusion they reach here about natural immunity vs vaccinations needs to be qualified.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  Well to be fair the other bias is against the prior infection group: those who didn’t survive the infection weren’t included in the study and were sure to drag down the average immune response for that group.
angelzen 5y ago
The study confirmed that covid vaccines are marginally better than natural immunity against severe covid within 0-6 months since the immunization event. "Laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection was identified among 324 (5.1%) of 6,328 fully vaccinated [hospitalized] persons and among 89 of 1,020 (8.7%) unvaccinated, previously infected [hospitalized] persons." Independent question: are covid vaccines effective farther away from the immunization event? Could we perhaps plot a chart showing VE performance over time? Time will tell.

hammock 5y ago

>There was a study earlier this year which had the opposite findings [1]. This study addressed the discrepancy They did address the one study from Israel. They did not address the nearly 20 other studies also done which share its conclusion that natural immunity is at least as powerful as a jab.

radu_floricica 5y ago

So best case scenario, vaccines only win short term?

Arnt 5y ago
No, that's an unsound conclusion. That assumes that all the unobserved kinds of cases are like the those in the Israeli study and not like those in this. The sound conclusion is: "This seems to be complicated; further study needed."
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  Yes, but in a bayesian sense, what are we updating toward? So far everything indicates that disease has better imunity long term.
  - Arnt 5y ago
    I think you're confusing apples with trees here... Your choice now is whether to vaccinate or not. It's not whether to vaccinate or be infected. Being infected or not is another choice that luck chooses for you at some point in the future. Being infected again or not is another choice that luck chooses for you at some point still further in the future, assuming that you luck decides to infect you in the previous step. So: Your resistance against the first infection is near zero without the vaccine, much better with. Your resistance against the second infection is what's being discussed in this study. I'm not sure how to compare vaccines with natural resistance fairly without that off-by-one infection number. People say it's better than the vaccine, but that disregards the nonzero chance of dying while acquiring the immunity. Some five million people have died in the process of acquiring that immunity — it seems difficult to call that "better than" anything.
    - radu_floricica 5y ago
      No, I'm not :) I'm comparing immunity acquired by infection with immunity acquired by vaccine, post-factum. I'm definitely not saying that one should use infection as a substitute for vaccine, and honestly I'm a bit miffed that you're suggesting I am. Also this is far from being a useless fact to know. For example in my country prior infection doesn't count for getting your green certificate. If infection is indeed better than vaccine, than you have a very strong argument that the government is making a pretty big mistake. If it offers the same order of magnitude of protection, that you have a weak argument. If it's significantly worse than vaccine, than you have no argument against this policy, and in fact it's a pretty good policy.
      - Arnt 5y ago
        OK, here's a comparison. For the first infection, immunity acquired by infection doesn't exist yet, so for the first infection, that strategy offers an increased risk of death of 20× or more compared to vaccination. For the second infection, the two strategies are roughly equal. Not exact, but the details don't matter, because... For these two on average, immunity acquired by infection offers about 10.5× the chance of death. If the effectiveness during the second infection varies very much, then that number will be 9 or 13 or something, so who cares about that detail. The number 20 dwarfs everything else. The only way to make the two strategies comparable is to ignore the outcome of the first infection. Note that 20 isn't meant as a serious estimate, it's a number I picked out of a hat. MUCH higher estimates are available. You may have read that 99.5% of deaths in the US are unvaccinated. If you start with that number and that two-thirds of the USians are vaccinated, then the number 20 becomes 400, and immunity acquired by infection is then roughly 200× as dangerous as the vaccines they use in the US.

bananabiscuit 5y ago

So this study only looks at covid-19 patients that were hospitalized and comparing that to the vaccinated population? How is it an improvement to introduce a selection bias that wasn’t there in a previous study? I guess more data points are always good but then the conclusion they reach here about natural immunity vs vaccinations needs to be qualified.

IgorPartola 5y ago
Well to be fair the other bias is against the prior infection group: those who didn’t survive the infection weren’t included in the study and were sure to drag down the average immune response for that group.

angelzen 5y ago

The study confirmed that covid vaccines are marginally better than natural immunity against severe covid within 0-6 months since the immunization event. "Laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection was identified among 324 (5.1%) of 6,328 fully vaccinated [hospitalized] persons and among 89 of 1,020 (8.7%) unvaccinated, previously infected [hospitalized] persons." Independent question: are covid vaccines effective farther away from the immunization event? Could we perhaps plot a chart showing VE performance over time? Time will tell.