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> The two doctors had received three doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, and so far have shown mild COVID-19 symptoms, the hospital said. The mildness of the

> The two doctors had received three doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, and so far have shown mild COVID-19 symptoms, the hospital said. The mildness of the symptoms is just as newsworthy as the fact that there are breakthrough infections. It has long been speculated that COVID-19 would evolve into more contagious but less virulent variants. Omicron may be one such variant. If it is, that's probably a good thing. Wouldn't it be great if a vaccinated person could get omicron, have a mild illness, and then have even stronger immunity against other variants?

halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
The bigger fear though is in the unvaccinated. Read news coming out of Israel that R has increased by 1.3x and severity (not sure how that's measured) has increased by 2.4x over Delta [1]. [1] https://tinyurl.com/yckjcmzu https://tinyurl.com/yckjcmzu
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  That may turn out to be true but there is absolutely no way they have enough data to make such claims yet. To do so is irresponsible at best
  - halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    I agree, it's up to anyone consuming sources to decide for themselves based on available evidence.
    - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
      Right, but anyone who takes a position yet should be dismissed without prejudice. The default, null hypothesis is that Omicron is exactly as virulent and deadly as the current baseline, Delta. Anything else is bullshit for now and anyone who claims to have data contra that null hypothesis is lying
      - zenplant 5y ago
        The problem I see there, and it's the exact reason governments/media/the stock market are all bracing, is that if it's not the way you describe and we keep doing what we're doing (which with Delta has now become next to nothing) it could end up killing 10s of thousands of people. It's important to at least consider that we have a new mutation that needs to be treated differently than the old ones. Be careful out there folks. Wash your hands, wear a mask.
        PraetorianGourd 5y ago
        Yes, we research it, we warn those who are at high risk to be extra cautious but we don’t spread FUD that everyone is going to get reinfected, that the vaccines are useless. You must be able to tell the difference between a cautious but reasonable approach and panic.
  - zenplant 5y ago
    Which is why this story is considered news. People are trying to reassess the risk factor of doing whatever the hell they want. The info has been sparse so far, so we want whatever we can get. Personally I don't mind sitting inside again for 2-3 weeks while this all gets figured out, but I know I'm in the vast minority by this point.
- fauciisgay 5y ago
  ... but... but the vax protects you! That is why you got the vax is it not?
- cpncrunch 5y ago
  It also says that the vaccine effectiveness for triple vaccinated people is 90% vs 95% for delta, so still pretty good.
sytelus 5y ago
You don't get stronger immunity. It's like cold virus. The idea behind cold virus is to not allow your host to develop any immunity. Before host's immune system gets around it, cold virus spreads and kills itself in host. This combined with rapid mutations means that there is no cure for cold. Covid DNA structure is similar and may eventually evolve to adopt same strategy in long term. Killing host is not a good strategy for viruses which is why Ebola was unable to take stronger foothold.
- crackercrews 5y ago
  You don't think that getting one variant of COVID-19 gives you stronger immunity to other variants? Has that been the case for any variants so far?
disambiguation 5y ago
> Wouldn't it be great if a vaccinated person could get omicron, have a mild illness, and then have even stronger immunity against other variants? That would be great, but it appears the immune system does not work that way: > the body's immune system ... preferentially utilize(s) 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin
jsnell 5y ago
It's just as newsworthy in the sense that it's not newsworthy at all. A mild infection in a triple-vaccinated person is the default case. Two such anecdotes tells us basically nothing.
raxxorrax 5y ago
That seems to be a decent strategy. Virus is endemic and you will catch it at some point. It isn't sure and probably unlikely that immunity against this variant would shield you from the others. Same problem the vaccine has in the end. If there aren't unknown long term effects, the idea doesn't seem to bad. I guess responsible doctors would always advise against this though because it would still be an experiment.
rsynnott 5y ago
I think you're reading too much into this. Vaccinated people who get covid _normally_ have mild symptoms.
DanBC 5y ago
> It has long been speculated that COVID-19 would evolve into more contagious but less virulent variants. That speculation has only come from people who don't know what they're talking about. Is there any other virus where this happened? It didn't happen for smallpox, ebola, measles, flu. You're also ignoring the law of big numbers: if it kills fewer people than delta but infects more people we're probably going to see more deaths. People won't want to take any precautions against it, which means very many more people will get infected.

halfmatthalfcat 5y ago

The bigger fear though is in the unvaccinated. Read news coming out of Israel that R has increased by 1.3x and severity (not sure how that's measured) has increased by 2.4x over Delta [1]. [1] https://tinyurl.com/yckjcmzu https://tinyurl.com/yckjcmzu

PraetorianGourd 5y ago
That may turn out to be true but there is absolutely no way they have enough data to make such claims yet. To do so is irresponsible at best
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  I agree, it's up to anyone consuming sources to decide for themselves based on available evidence.
  - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
    Right, but anyone who takes a position yet should be dismissed without prejudice. The default, null hypothesis is that Omicron is exactly as virulent and deadly as the current baseline, Delta. Anything else is bullshit for now and anyone who claims to have data contra that null hypothesis is lying
    - zenplant 5y ago
      The problem I see there, and it's the exact reason governments/media/the stock market are all bracing, is that if it's not the way you describe and we keep doing what we're doing (which with Delta has now become next to nothing) it could end up killing 10s of thousands of people. It's important to at least consider that we have a new mutation that needs to be treated differently than the old ones. Be careful out there folks. Wash your hands, wear a mask.
      - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
        Yes, we research it, we warn those who are at high risk to be extra cautious but we don’t spread FUD that everyone is going to get reinfected, that the vaccines are useless. You must be able to tell the difference between a cautious but reasonable approach and panic.
- zenplant 5y ago
  Which is why this story is considered news. People are trying to reassess the risk factor of doing whatever the hell they want. The info has been sparse so far, so we want whatever we can get. Personally I don't mind sitting inside again for 2-3 weeks while this all gets figured out, but I know I'm in the vast minority by this point.
fauciisgay 5y ago
... but... but the vax protects you! That is why you got the vax is it not?
cpncrunch 5y ago
It also says that the vaccine effectiveness for triple vaccinated people is 90% vs 95% for delta, so still pretty good.

sytelus 5y ago

You don't get stronger immunity. It's like cold virus. The idea behind cold virus is to not allow your host to develop any immunity. Before host's immune system gets around it, cold virus spreads and kills itself in host. This combined with rapid mutations means that there is no cure for cold. Covid DNA structure is similar and may eventually evolve to adopt same strategy in long term. Killing host is not a good strategy for viruses which is why Ebola was unable to take stronger foothold.

crackercrews 5y ago
You don't think that getting one variant of COVID-19 gives you stronger immunity to other variants? Has that been the case for any variants so far?

disambiguation 5y ago

> Wouldn't it be great if a vaccinated person could get omicron, have a mild illness, and then have even stronger immunity against other variants? That would be great, but it appears the immune system does not work that way: > the body's immune system ... preferentially utilize(s) 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin

jsnell 5y ago

It's just as newsworthy in the sense that it's not newsworthy at all. A mild infection in a triple-vaccinated person is the default case. Two such anecdotes tells us basically nothing.

raxxorrax 5y ago

That seems to be a decent strategy. Virus is endemic and you will catch it at some point. It isn't sure and probably unlikely that immunity against this variant would shield you from the others. Same problem the vaccine has in the end. If there aren't unknown long term effects, the idea doesn't seem to bad. I guess responsible doctors would always advise against this though because it would still be an experiment.

rsynnott 5y ago

I think you're reading too much into this. Vaccinated people who get covid _normally_ have mild symptoms.

DanBC 5y ago

> It has long been speculated that COVID-19 would evolve into more contagious but less virulent variants. That speculation has only come from people who don't know what they're talking about. Is there any other virus where this happened? It didn't happen for smallpox, ebola, measles, flu. You're also ignoring the law of big numbers: if it kills fewer people than delta but infects more people we're probably going to see more deaths. People won't want to take any precautions against it, which means very many more people will get infected.