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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
I. AM. NOT. SUGGESTING. TO. USE. INFECTIONS. TO. GET. IMMUNITY.
:)
I'm only considering already acquired immunity from past infections. And I've given an example on how that's relevant. It's probably another example of polarization that you're assuming almost by default that I'm an enemy anti-vaxxer (I'm not). Oh well, nothing else to do that to keep talking, and hoping civilized conversation helps.
Rather, I thought you were interested comparing kinds of immunity. To to that fairly and well, you need to include the most common case: People's first infection.
Remember that most people's immune system is able to learn quickly enough that natural immunity takes care of the first infection without external help. The immune reaction doesn't start with the second infection, it starts as soon as the immune system starts learning. Excluding the first infection in an analysis seems very, very strange to me.
I admit that every time I see a CDC study, I wonder if they began the study with their desired end in mind. The CDC has admitted that they lied multiple times; why should I believe their studies?
Edit: I see that this study did begin with the desired end in mind because they have a blurb titled "What are the implications for public health practice?" that says:
> All eligible persons should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, including unvaccinated persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.
In other words, these "scientists" decided to comment on public policy in their study. Such an act makes it extremely suspect for several reasons, not least of which the scientists are making a political statement in what is supposed to be a scientific study.
Not a study, but they admitted to lying. They lied about masks. They lied about what percentage of people need to be vaccinated for herd immunity. I'm sure there's more.
You're being disingenuous. Newton's model still "works" (at low speeds and when we don't need high precision), so he didn't lie. He also believed what he was saying.
Fauci, on the other hand, does not believe himself. He says things as we are "ready to hear" them.
That's lying. If he got updated information and told us so, that's not lying. But he didn't; he just decided to say something different because it was now politically expedient.
Paywalled. Herd immunity is not one strict number. It depends on the transmissibility of the virus. Alpha was more. Delta is much more. Now A.Y variant is slightly more than Delta. All these affect the herd immunity number. But you can't lay out these sort of qualifiers when you are communicating to public. Seems like by using words like "political operative" and all you really show your ignorance.
> In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
(Emphasis added.)
In other words, he only tells us what is politically expedient. That is, by definition, what a political operative does.
I would suggest you not assume I'm ignorant before reading articles I link to.
The masks thing has been talked over a bunch on HN so I won’t revisit that argument but it’s a dead end: it was a potentially incorrect measure to take but also not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be.
Percentage of people/herd immunity: they straight up did not lie. They said that based on what we know of similar diseases the guess would be 75-95% of the population need to be vaccinated. Everyone immediately latched onto the 75% mark and also this was in 2020 when we knew comparatively approximately nothing about COVID. This is like saying “based on our knowledge of Toyota Corollas, a Ferrari will do 0-60 in at most 5 seconds”. Technically true, but not backed by studies until studies are able to be completed.
Your last sentence sounds like you formed an opinion before doing the research so I see no point in addressing it.
Sounds like there is no study you can point to that was compromised?
> COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is
assumed to have caused or contributed to death.
Does that matter? No! It was a study commissioned by an organization I don't trust anymore because they lost that trust.
But even if I did trust these scientists before, I don't know that they decided to put a political statement in a scientific study. The only agenda scientists should have is truth.
Lying about percentage needed to reach herd immunity?! I’m not actually familiar with the claims this is directed at, but due to the changing circumstance with more transmissible variants and not even 100% of data on the original, it’s hard to take a comment like that seriously. Being incorrect or becoming no longer correct due to changed circumstances doesn’t make a claim a lie or the person making it a liar.
> “ We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”
We don’t know, he doesn’t know, no one knows the exact number. Yeah he’s being a bit coy, but all the numbers he’s thrown out since the delta are in that range
Btw Fauci technically isn’t cdc. Just saying bc we’re being ultra strict on the herd immunity estimates but very lax on other facts when accusing the cdc. Seems inconsistent.
A "bit coy"? No. He said it explicitly that he's picking the highest number on the range. He gives no reason. Why not just tell us the range and leave it there?
Also, if "we need to have some humility," then perhaps maybe experts should stop thinking that they know best for everyone?
The moment he uses that word, his impartiality goes out of the window. Viruses adapt, the science adapts. You give your best information at that point and you don't want to muddy the public with confidence intervals and all that.
I used that word because it's the truth, even though it's strong because sugarcoating the truth is lying. Using the term "sugarcoating" is, in fact, trying to sugarcoat the fact that sugarcoating is lying!
interesting how the natural immunity crowd surged in April/May (a nice normal distribution) while the vaccinated crowd is surging in July/August, near the tail end of the survey.
given the decreasing efficacy of vaccines over time, it's disappointing to see the same old "6 month" cut-off, as well as no regard for normalizing over time.
"Laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection was identified among
324 (5.1%) of 6,328 fully vaccinated persons and
among 89 of 1,020 (8.7%) unvaccinated, previously infected persons.
A higher proportion of previously infected than vaccinated patients were aged 18–49 years (31% versus 9%), Black (10% versus 7%), and Hispanic (19% versus 12%)."
Hmmmm. The obvious question here is, did the previously-infected group catch Covid-19 more because we're selecting for people who're at higher risk of catching Covid-19, for example because of their job or some other similar external factor? Those differences are not reassuring on this area, and they suggest another question: is the actual reason a higher proportion of hospitalized people test negative for Covid-19 amongst those who're vaccinated because those who are at higher risk of being hospitalized for other reasons are more likely to get vaccinated?
This reminds me of the recent study where vaccinated people had less non-covid related deaths than non vaccinated. Obviously this isn’t because of the vaccine but demographics of each group, such as healthcare access.
Having access to healthcare, for example, makes one more likely to seek medical help at the briefest presentation of illness. Being the latter more common among the vaccinated, analyzing for positive cases only among hospitalizations for “covid-like symptoms” is extremely disingenuous.
>aORs and 95% CIs were calculated using multivariable logistic regression, adjusted for age, geographic region, calendar time (days from January 1 to hospitalization), and local virus circulation, and weighted based on propensity to be in the vaccinated category (1,2).
What does it mean to adjust for local virus circulation in this context?
Is "presenting covid-like symptoms" a prerequesite for inclusion into this study? That seems like a goofy denominator. If I'm in the hospital with covid-like symptoms what do I care whether its covid or some other easily transmissable respiratory virus?
>Eligible hospitalizations were defined as those among adults aged ≥18 years who had received SARS-CoV-2 molecular testing (from 14 days before to 72 hours after admission) and had a COVID-19–like illness discharge diagnosis† during January–September 2021
So what is that really telling us then? If you are already in the hospital and are vaccinated then its less likely that you have covid than in the alternate universe where you are in the hospital but unvaccinated. That seems useless. I guess I don't understand it.
How good is the vaccine vs immunity at keeping people out of the hospital? Or preventing death? Those are the fundamentals we would obviously care about and neither can be derived from this study. Yet the study will be presented as if it illuminates those fundamentals
Chances are they are almost all elderly, who are 90+% vaccinated anyway.
No specific mention of very low-risk groups such as children 5-11 (which are THE lowest-risk group), and no mention of the risk-benefit tradeoff related to adverse events.
Rather, we find a blanket "everyone should get vaccinated" normative statement clouding an otherwise interesting study.
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-15-studies-that-indi...