4 ms·

Not an epidemiologist. But I also find myself saying this sometimes in context of covid. An actual infection is the only way to get any kind of long term immuni

• hbrav 5y ago
  Serious question: if you're not an epidemiologist, why do you tell people this? Do you have some research you can link to that actually supports your assertion?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • motohagiography 5y ago
    Epidemiologists are mainly social scientists and policy analysts, and not biologists or MD's anyway, as then they would be infectious disease specialists. From what I've seen, most data scientists could provide equal or better analysis.
    • valenaut 5y ago
      Many epidemiologists are effectively specialized data scientists, and I don't think a random data scientist could provide equal analysis. Sure, they can both run a regression, but you benefit from understanding particular study designs, as well as biology/chemistry/toxicology. I don't know much about infectious disease epidemiology, but I'll use glyphosate toxicity as an example from environmental epidemiology. Glyphosate was found to be non-carcinogenic by the EPA, but if you review the literature on glyphosate toxicity, industry-affiliated researchers tended to study pure glyphosate, and these studies were the majority of those considered by EPA. Researchers without industry affiliation tended to study glyphosate in the formulations actually sold in products such as RoundUp, and found much stronger evidence of carcinogenic toxicity. I don't think a generic data scientist would think to ask the question about glyphosate formulations, as many people at EPA did not.
      • motohagiography 5y ago
        I agree, though my impression is epi's use policy driven hypothesis' to construct data driven stories around, which is great for directing their attention to things like your example, as ultimately it was an activist narrative backed by epi data that made people aware of how bad some of those carcinogens were. However, there are many epis who are just political scientists, and calling them epidemiologists and conflating them with bio or medical experts is sort of like the way we talk about devs as engineers and architects. Covid has really put them in the spotlight, as they're the ones driving policy, which becomes a big deal when we start using their work as justification for internal passports and mandates. I'm saying the epis working on covid aren't held to the standards of other scientists or even data science hackers, and they are being used to launder radical policies through "expert" models data. I've got massively controversial opinions on these topics because of my health information privacy and security work, so YMMV. I'd posit that a data scientist with working professional competence in say, R and Pandas has as much or more modelling experience for empirical discovery than most epi's where I'd suggest the epi's are a kind of policy profession, and that someone with those basic quantitative skills is equipped to question policies and assertions produced by said epis.
        • valenaut 5y ago
          Yes, there are policy-focused epidemiologists and informatics-focused epidemiologists. My partner is the latter, so I'm much more familiar with that world, and that's what I associate with "epidemiology". There is overlap, of course, but I take your point that you can't necessarily know someone's quantitative analysis skills from knowing they are an epidemiologist. I would just note that "a data scientist with working professional competence in say, R and Pandas" describes a good number of epidemiologists, who also have infectious disease, toxicology, and study design knowledge on top of this.
  • nodemaker 5y ago
    Yes you’re rite i shouldn't express my opinion too much in this matter as I am not a specialist. I usually say this to very close friends when they ask my opinion. Added some actual research to the original comment.
    • hbrav 5y ago
      Thanks for adding the original research. I'm also not an epidemiologist, but I can think of at least one disease where the advice "catch it when you're young and you'll have stronger immunity" has a serious downside: chickenpox. A subsequent case of chickenpox itself is rare, but the herpes zoster virus remains dormant in the body and can re-appear as shingles in adulthood. I don't know the probability of that vs catching chickenpox following vaccination.
• yosito 5y ago
  > An actual infection is the only way to get any kind of long term immunity I can understand this intuition, that only "the real thing" can make you immune to it. But do you have any data to back up this claim? And what, then, is your conclusion? That we should get vaccinated, and then catch COVID afterward to make sure that we have real, lasting immunity? Or that we should skip vaccination altogether, and just accept the 3-4% risk of dying?
  • mbg721 5y ago
    Just to be That Guy, the risk isn't evenly distributed. Nobody has a 3% chance of dying; you either have much more or much less.
    • Tagbert 5y ago
      No, but the chance of getting serious but non-lethal secondary effects from COVID may be more evenly distributed. Young people are less likely to die but they still get blood clots, brain fog, myocarditis, and other loving term effects.
      • airstrike 5y ago
        That's still the population's chance. Your chance may very well be 100% - you just don't know until you contract the disease.
  • nodemaker 5y ago
    I added a reference to my original comment. Maybe its what youre looking for. But otherwise i dont really know honestly what the risks are but i wouldnt say for a young healthy person its at 3-4 percent of dying. For context I have had covid and a high fever and mild pneumonia during it so I have some idea. FWIW I would definitely recommend the get vaccinated (two shots maybe even a booster) and then getting covid as its a safer strategy. But yeah youre not going to get immunity otherwise is all I am saying.