3 ms·

> 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 p

by mlyle 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
  How significant are we talking here? How does their death rate compare with those that chose to or could not be vaccinated?
- mlyle 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
    > I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" The latter part of my post.
  - pdonis 5y 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.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting Original research or are you repeating the well-known debunked tripe despite knowing better? The unadjusted rates in population subgroups are in table 14. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1066759/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-13.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Every single age subgroup has a significantly lower risk of death when vaccinated. The risk of hospitalization is also lower, but less dramatically. This is despite cases being recorded in the vaccinated at a higher rate over this interval (which is probably an artifact of the data rather than being real). If you look at the raw sum without considering the subgroups, your number is confounded by the fact that the vast majority of the deaths are in people 80+, who are also vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population. This is about the best known statistical "paradox" that there is-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox Another confound is that we really don't know the number of unvaccinated people. Counting errors get magnified. If you think you have 1M people in a locality, and you know you have vaccinated 930,000 people... you get a huge swing in rates if you actually have 980k vs 1020k people.
bigtex 5y ago
It is still based on the Wuhan strain. Like getting a 2018 flu shot in 2022.
realreality 5y 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 5y 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.

by mlyle 5y ago

pdonis 5y 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 5y ago
How significant are we talking here? How does their death rate compare with those that chose to or could not be vaccinated?
mlyle 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
  > I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" The latter part of my post.
- pdonis 5y 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.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting Original research or are you repeating the well-known debunked tripe despite knowing better? The unadjusted rates in population subgroups are in table 14. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1066759/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-13.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Every single age subgroup has a significantly lower risk of death when vaccinated. The risk of hospitalization is also lower, but less dramatically. This is despite cases being recorded in the vaccinated at a higher rate over this interval (which is probably an artifact of the data rather than being real). If you look at the raw sum without considering the subgroups, your number is confounded by the fact that the vast majority of the deaths are in people 80+, who are also vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population. This is about the best known statistical "paradox" that there is-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox Another confound is that we really don't know the number of unvaccinated people. Counting errors get magnified. If you think you have 1M people in a locality, and you know you have vaccinated 930,000 people... you get a huge swing in rates if you actually have 980k vs 1020k people.

bigtex 5y ago

It is still based on the Wuhan strain. Like getting a 2018 flu shot in 2022.

realreality 5y 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 5y 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.