Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination • Hacker News Board

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#171

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

ta8645 wrote: post #14

This is good news. Now maybe Fauci should rethink his idea that people need to wear their masks for another year even after getting vaccinated. One of his reasons was because of worry about the variants.

He's mostly just managing expectations. One problem starting to trouble public health professionals is the wish of vaccinated people to ditch masks even before enough people are vaccinated to reach herd immunity: since it is not easily visible if someone is vaccinated (and even then...) the appearance of more and more unmasked people in stores etc. could lead to a breakdown in adherence.

There will come a time, in early summer for the US, late summer for most of Europe, when it'll be safe to take of the mask. Until then, it's a minor annoyance.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#172

Post by oblio » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #169

I am very clueless on the vaccine topic (not a denier of covid or anti vaxxer). All I know is from listening to some interviews with a scientist in the field. But i still do not know what is the definition of "effective vaccine". What does it do? If you have covid and take the vaccine, will the covid go away? Are you still contagious after having the vaccine or can you still get the covid but without the bad effects?…

Well, based on my understanding, we don't know for sure.

What we do know, is that they give you a much higher chance of avoiding serious symptoms, including that most serious of symptoms, death. You won't be "virus-proof" completely, but someone vaccinated fully (so 2 doses for vaccines which require it), after a certain immunization period, which varies between 2-4 weeks after being fully vaccinated, will be super resilient to being in contact with Covid patients. Don't go get coughed on by 10 Covid patients, though.

Regarding contagion, apparently after vaccination, you can still get Covid with most vaccines, you just become "asymptomatic", i.e. it doesn't really affect you. However it seems that you're also much less contagious, which is still great, since it reduces the infection rate, it becomes much harder to spread it.

If you get Covid while immunity from vaccination hasn't kicked in fully... you can still be screwed. People have died 1 week after being vaccinated. So you probably want to stay put for a while until your immunity ramps up.

Regarding immunity, as I was saying, it's primarily lack of serious symptoms. I think they also make it harder for you to catch it, but I don't think we have super solid proof of this yet.

And for immunity, it's hard to say. We're basically just counting up days from initial vaccinations to see how long it lasts. For the other vaccines we know the time intervals because... time has passed. So far, for the current vaccines it seems that immunity is at least 6+ months. From what I've read we should be reasonably optimistic that we'll be immune for 1+ years. I don't think anyone expects lifetime immunity, yet.

TL;DR: Get vaccinated, it will keep you much safer, it will probably also help others around you, by making you spread it less if you do get it. You'll still get Covid but it will be much less of a deal. Side effects are temporary and not massive in the vast majority of cases.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#173

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #133

We've been vaccinating people since December. There ought to be statistical evidence now of whether and how much vaccinated people still get sick from Covid and its variants. Why do we still hear that epidemiologists have no idea about this? For example, everyone being tested for covid or being admitted to the hospital for covid, should be asked if they've been vaccinated, when, and which vaccination. 70 million peop…

The data from Israel is pretty good: https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination-israel-impact

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#174

Post by oblio » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #62

marcodiego wrote: post #49

For people arguing that not being part of a risk group is a reason not to protect yourself, please take a lesson from brazil. Being part of a 'high risk group' does not saves you from infecting other people who are part of such groups. That's basically what happened in brazil: people who were not part of risk groups crowded, encouraged by the president himself[0][1][2]. The number of infected poeple soared and varian…

Also for selfish reasons. I know a 24 year old ballerina (so a professional athlete) who had it two months ago and is now at 80% lung capacity.

And the even more selfish evolutionary reason: viruses mutate. If we spread it a ton while it's still "safe" for someone young, we're risking major mutations. It's like playing Russian roulette with 8+ billion bullets x probably millions/billions of viruses per person.

We just need one strain to go to something like 5% mortality + mortality across all age groups for this pandemic to become a civilization ending event. Maybe not ending, but "setting back by 20-40-60 years" event.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#175

Post by zo1 » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

osrec wrote: post #137

figaroniguzo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To keep the fear and lockdown measures justified. Just like "we don't know if vaccines affect transmission" or "masks work to mitigate the spread" (as if masks were discovered in 2020)

But why? Why would any government want to justify longer than needed lockdowns?

Depends on how far you want to assume nefariousness/conspiracy on the part of "TPTB" or the government.

Could just be that it was to help swing a election, or allowed them to paint certain parties as "anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists". Maybe it's to cover-up nighttime movements by a secretive alien invasion force. Maybe they just love what it's doing to the stock market. Perhaps it's a bold move by online retailers to kill off small businesses or just brick and mortar ones. Maybe they're desensitizing us for something bigger. Maybe they're just incompetent AF and following along with what the media makes them think is what the people want. Maybe it's all ad-click and media-consumption driven as one of the other posters put it.

My personal take is that they have no clue, and most of those in power are just doing things that have been done before and doing them only in ways that have been done previously.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#176

Post by oblio » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

bzzt wrote: post #155

dekerta wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice quote, but still doesn't answer the question. No government in their right mind wants to continue lockdowns unnecessarily. Lockdowns cost a lot of money and make a lot of voters angry

Well, in Germany three politicians who had to resign because of corruption where they had made deals with companies manufacturing masks and made hundreds of thousands of euros. And this is just facts and no conspiracy theories, and I bet this goes on at every level. If you find a way to (legitimately) control people and peoples behaviours, of course it's lucrative.

That might happen, but when you think about conspiracies, always think who would be against them.

Ok, they make money from selling masks. But do you really think no shareholders in hotel chains, airlines, airports, etc. are trying to push back against that?

Covid is hurting a ton of businesses. A lot of powerful people are behind those businesses that feel that pain.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#177

Post by exyi » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #169

I am very clueless on the vaccine topic (not a denier of covid or anti vaxxer). All I know is from listening to some interviews with a scientist in the field. But i still do not know what is the definition of "effective vaccine". What does it do? If you have covid and take the vaccine, will the covid go away? Are you still contagious after having the vaccine or can you still get the covid but without the bad effects?…

For complete herd immunity we'd need something like 100% that about 80% percent take, which is hard. So, our current goal is to get rid of the bad effects of Covid by limiting spread and limiting severe symptoms.

> But i still do not know what is the definition of "effective vaccine".

I'm not aware of a rigorous definition, but effective vaccine is something that helps us significantly to accomplish the goal. All the vaccines provide very good (90%+) protection from severe symptoms and it seems to be good even with the current variants. The protection is not as good against any kind of infection, but it is still very significant (like at least 66% even with some variants).

> If you have covid and take the vaccine, will the covid go away?

No, you have to take the vaccine before Covid. Usually it takes some time before the vaccine is efficient. Like you have to patch your server before it becomes part of a botnet.

> Are you still contagious after having the vaccine

You may be, but with significantly lower probability.

> can you still get the covid but without the bad effects?

This seems likely outcome of being vaccinated - your body will somehow already know what to do and will with the virus faster.

> What kind of immunity is given by the vaccine and how long does it last?

We'll see how long it lasts. It does not seem to be diminishing, so it should be at least a year or so. From the experience from other vaccines, it will probably last longer, but there is the risk of new strains that evade it.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#178

Post by oblio » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

offby37years wrote: post #148

dekerta wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice quote, but still doesn't answer the question. No government in their right mind wants to continue lockdowns unnecessarily. Lockdowns cost a lot of money and make a lot of voters angry

Lockdowns were just meant to be for two weeks to “flatten the curve”, remember?

Who ever said 2 weeks?

They serve the exact same role they did at the start. If we'd open stadiums now the exact same thing will happen, that happened 1 year ago.

Lockdowns will continue until we either reach herd immunity naturally or through vaccines or we have a treatment/mitigation for the disease.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#179

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #169

I am very clueless on the vaccine topic (not a denier of covid or anti vaxxer). All I know is from listening to some interviews with a scientist in the field. But i still do not know what is the definition of "effective vaccine". What does it do? If you have covid and take the vaccine, will the covid go away? Are you still contagious after having the vaccine or can you still get the covid but without the bad effects?…

Assuming your chance of getting COVID is "100", two weeks after vaccination your chance of getting it will have dropped to "3" and your chance of dying from it will be "0". Changes to your ability to have a symptomless infection and transmit it to others aren't entirely clear yet, but seem to tend towards the "3" as well.

This is for the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer & Moderna). The others are potentially slightly less effective in preventing infection, but seem to be just about as good in preventing serious courses and death.

Re: Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants after infection, vaccination

#180

Post by oblio » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

SteveNuts wrote: post #145

offby37years wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” — John Dalberg-Acton

But don't lockdowns cause a "loss of power" (economic, trade, prestige)? This just doesn't make sense to me.

They do, but people complaining about this tend to convenient focus on the powerful people making money because of lockdowns while absolutely ignoring the powerful people > money because of them.