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For Chicken Pox, they will accept a positive anti-body test. If a student had Chicken Pox as a child, they'd be exempt. But if a student had COVID last semeste

For Chicken Pox, they will accept a positive anti-body test. If a student had Chicken Pox as a child, they'd be exempt. But if a student had COVID last semester, they still must receive a booster shot (against a strain of SARS-CoV2 that no longer exists). How does that make sense?

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mlyle 4y ago
> How does that make sense? Looks like the vaccine creates a broader set of antibody responses than natural infection does. If you want the population to be protected against the next wave of illness, this is the way to go. > (against a strain of SARS-CoV2 that no longer exists). That's the funny thing here. Getting boosted with B.1.1.7 doesn't just cause antibodies to develop towards B.1.1.7, but instead for your beta cells that make things against things-kinda-like-B.1.1.7 to mutate until they're creating all kinds of similar antibodies (preferentially drifting towards things that are B.1.1.7-like).
- pdonis 4y ago
  > Looks like the vaccine creates a broader set of antibody responses than natural infection does. That was the theory, but it is not being borne out by the actual data. See below. > If you want the population to be protected against the next wave of illness, this is the way to go. The data coming out of the UK and Israel does not support this claim. Their populations are already vaccinated and boosted at percentages much higher than those in the US, but those vaccinated and boosted people are still getting infected and are still being hospitalized and dying in significant numbers.
  - notreallyserio 4y ago
    How significant are we talking here? How does their death rate compare with those that chose to or could not be vaccinated?
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > That was the theory, but it is not being borne out by the actual data. See below. I'm not sure where you're pointing "below", but I've read a lot of papers and titrations of neutralization across many variants of different subpopulations. > The data coming out of the UK and Israel does not support this claim. Their populations are already vaccinated and boosted at percentages much higher than those in the US, but those vaccinated and boosted people are still getting infected and are still being hospitalized and dying in significant numbers. Israel's had about half the COVID death per capita of the US in 2022, and is probably better at reporting deaths as COVID-related. The UK has about 65%. Boosted subpopulations have fared much better within all of these 3 jurisdictions than the population at large.
    - greenyoda 4y ago
      > I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" This earlier comment, maybe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" The latter part of my post.
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > Boosted subpopulations have fared much better within all of these 3 jurisdictions than the population at large. Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting. The UK has about 90% of its population vaccinated with at least one dose, and about 70% of its population have had boosters. In last week's UK report, nearly 90% of the new COVID hospitalizations were vaccinated people, and over 90% of the COVID deaths. And 87% of the new COVID hospitalizations and 78% of the COVID deaths were boosted people. When the percentages of hospitalizations and deaths of people in a given category are equal to, or greater than, the percentage of people in that category in the population at large, we would not normally say that category of people has "fared better than the population at large". Of course, as of this week, the UK will stop providing the data that I have just described. So we won't be able to see how these various populations continue to fare. That doesn't look to me like a government that is confident in the benefits of vaccines.
- bigtex 4y ago
  It is still based on the Wuhan strain. Like getting a 2018 flu shot in 2022.
- realreality 4y ago
  > Looks like the vaccine creates a broader set of antibody responses than natural infection does. That's not true. It's narrowly targeted at the S-protein, whereas natural infection will result in antibodies to the S and N proteins.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > That's not true. It's narrowly targeted at the S-protein Granted, because that's the immune reaction you want, as targeting the N protein will marshal an immune response but not be neutralizing. Natural infection does not produce as broad of a neutralizing response to different variants of the S protein.
dan-robertson 4y ago
Well it doesn’t particularly make sense but lots of policies around covid vaccines don’t make sense. I’m not convinced that making sense is really relevant. I also wonder if I’m missing something here because as far as I’m aware the cost of getting a booster is feeling a bit rubbish for 0-2 days. Is it not normal for universities in the US to require (non-covid) vaccinations? I know my university required a bunch when I went up.
- IdEntities 4y ago
  Before COVID, as far as I'm aware not a single American university required annual flu shots to attend, which is the only kind of inoculation comparable to the COVID shots in terms of effectiveness against infection & transmission or the need for frequent ongoing injections.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    Maybe not university wide but lots of programs like nursing and medicine required vaccines to participate prior to COVID. My mom needed to be update on her shots 30+ years ago while in nursing school. The pandemic is also a bit of a unique beast so it's understandable to make it campus wide.
  - renaudg 4y ago
    Covid is about 10-14x more lethal than the flu (not to mention its other bad outcomes that don't kill you)
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mlyle 4y ago

> How does that make sense? Looks like the vaccine creates a broader set of antibody responses than natural infection does. If you want the population to be protected against the next wave of illness, this is the way to go. > (against a strain of SARS-CoV2 that no longer exists). That's the funny thing here. Getting boosted with B.1.1.7 doesn't just cause antibodies to develop towards B.1.1.7, but instead for your beta cells that make things against things-kinda-like-B.1.1.7 to mutate until they're creating all kinds of similar antibodies (preferentially drifting towards things that are B.1.1.7-like).

pdonis 4y ago
> Looks like the vaccine creates a broader set of antibody responses than natural infection does. That was the theory, but it is not being borne out by the actual data. See below. > If you want the population to be protected against the next wave of illness, this is the way to go. The data coming out of the UK and Israel does not support this claim. Their populations are already vaccinated and boosted at percentages much higher than those in the US, but those vaccinated and boosted people are still getting infected and are still being hospitalized and dying in significant numbers.
- notreallyserio 4y ago
  How significant are we talking here? How does their death rate compare with those that chose to or could not be vaccinated?
- mlyle 4y ago
  > That was the theory, but it is not being borne out by the actual data. See below. I'm not sure where you're pointing "below", but I've read a lot of papers and titrations of neutralization across many variants of different subpopulations. > The data coming out of the UK and Israel does not support this claim. Their populations are already vaccinated and boosted at percentages much higher than those in the US, but those vaccinated and boosted people are still getting infected and are still being hospitalized and dying in significant numbers. Israel's had about half the COVID death per capita of the US in 2022, and is probably better at reporting deaths as COVID-related. The UK has about 65%. Boosted subpopulations have fared much better within all of these 3 jurisdictions than the population at large.
  - greenyoda 4y ago
    > I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" This earlier comment, maybe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" The latter part of my post.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > Boosted subpopulations have fared much better within all of these 3 jurisdictions than the population at large. Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting. The UK has about 90% of its population vaccinated with at least one dose, and about 70% of its population have had boosters. In last week's UK report, nearly 90% of the new COVID hospitalizations were vaccinated people, and over 90% of the COVID deaths. And 87% of the new COVID hospitalizations and 78% of the COVID deaths were boosted people. When the percentages of hospitalizations and deaths of people in a given category are equal to, or greater than, the percentage of people in that category in the population at large, we would not normally say that category of people has "fared better than the population at large". Of course, as of this week, the UK will stop providing the data that I have just described. So we won't be able to see how these various populations continue to fare. That doesn't look to me like a government that is confident in the benefits of vaccines.
bigtex 4y ago
It is still based on the Wuhan strain. Like getting a 2018 flu shot in 2022.
realreality 4y ago
> Looks like the vaccine creates a broader set of antibody responses than natural infection does. That's not true. It's narrowly targeted at the S-protein, whereas natural infection will result in antibodies to the S and N proteins.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > That's not true. It's narrowly targeted at the S-protein Granted, because that's the immune reaction you want, as targeting the N protein will marshal an immune response but not be neutralizing. Natural infection does not produce as broad of a neutralizing response to different variants of the S protein.

dan-robertson 4y ago

Well it doesn’t particularly make sense but lots of policies around covid vaccines don’t make sense. I’m not convinced that making sense is really relevant. I also wonder if I’m missing something here because as far as I’m aware the cost of getting a booster is feeling a bit rubbish for 0-2 days. Is it not normal for universities in the US to require (non-covid) vaccinations? I know my university required a bunch when I went up.

IdEntities 4y ago
Before COVID, as far as I'm aware not a single American university required annual flu shots to attend, which is the only kind of inoculation comparable to the COVID shots in terms of effectiveness against infection & transmission or the need for frequent ongoing injections.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Maybe not university wide but lots of programs like nursing and medicine required vaccines to participate prior to COVID. My mom needed to be update on her shots 30+ years ago while in nursing school. The pandemic is also a bit of a unique beast so it's understandable to make it campus wide.
- renaudg 4y ago
  Covid is about 10-14x more lethal than the flu (not to mention its other bad outcomes that don't kill you)

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