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Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

medrxiv.org

81–90 of 361 posts

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#81
post #21

Any other result would have been surprising. Why is this interesting, beyond just confirming what we were already 99.99% certain we knew? -- biochemist

Because openly stating this obvious fact would get you downvoted on here a few months ago.

Or shadow banned, unfortunately.

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#82
post #65
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how public health would benefit from not recommending shots to everyone as there is no downside. You'd get all the never infected people vaccinated sooner; so 'everyone' (except anti-vax not infected prior to effective 'herd immunity') would be immune sooner.

Yeah, in theory that would be the obvious advantage. In practice, don't underestimate how much more inefficient or troublesome a seemingly simple additional rule or exception might be to administer... :P

That's my thing. Plenty of people who know they almost certainly had Covid weren't tested, some were tested with tests that were experimental, etc.

And while trying to predict second-order behavior effects is tricky either way it is pretty clear that saying "don't get the vaccine if you already had Covid" would scare some people away.

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#83
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still, I don't see how public health would benefit from not recommending shots to everyone as there is no downside The VAERS data suggests there are numerous groups at very low risk from Covid for which this may not be the case.

This is a dubious claim, and is a frequent anti-vaxx/vaccine-hesitancy talking point. VAERS data needs to be interpreted with special care. It's not equivalent to a safety study with a proper experimental design. It has a whole lot of legal and administrative context to account for.

And until the studies happen there is no danger? The studies create the danger? Or may we behave like rational individuals and realize that "zero danger" is a political talking point which is fully debunked by the VAERS data?

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#84
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some expert who for some reason is giving medical advice which is incompatible with the scientific consensus Does that really boggle your mind? We're all human. I don't think there's a relationship between being an expert and being honest.

I know there's always going to be PhDs who believe the earth is flat, because humans are like that... But it's just so hard to relate to super intelligent people believing crazy things. It really does boggle my mind!

You understand that people may not always say the same thing they believe to be true, right? People lie.

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mRNA vaccines (among others) include adjuvants that enhances the immune response.

No, they don't. The lipid nanoparticles they use seem to have an adjuvant effect, but they are also directly functional, and there's not anything else in the mRNA vaccines.

It's such a complicated semantic distinction, though. The formulation chemistries chosen for mRNA drug development efforts have a much smaller adjuvant effect (to allow people to better tolerate repeated administration of the agents). But here, using an (older, simpler) formulation chemistry that pisses off the immune system is useful. So is it an adjuvant or not?

So, it's otherwise functional but also chosen to have an adjuvant effect.

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#86
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's encouraging! I got COVID a few months ago and got vaccinated recently, seems like I should be unstoppable now.

Hey I'm curious, if you don't mind sharing, how do you think you got it? Throughout this whole pandemic, I'm still kind of amazed how people are getting it

Given that it’s airborne chances are through breathing in proximity with someone who is currently contagious (and possibly asymptomatic).

Non-huge indoor spaces, absence of masks, breathing the same air for longer than 15-20 min all increase infection rates.

Not OP.

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#87
post #75
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2032195 Shows a slow decay in neutralizing antibody titers, with a greater degree of viral inhibition months later than convalescent plasma at a month. "At day 119, the binding and neutralizing GMTs exceeded the median GMTs in a panel of 41 controls who were convalescing from Covid-19, with a median of 34 days since diagnosis (range, 23 to 54)." Note that antibodies to…

neutralizing antibodies will give protection against cell entry to the degree they saturate the binding kinetics between receptor and ligand. non neutralizing does not mean ineffective, as ^any^ antibody is a lable that will provoke a complement based immune response, further leading to Tcell based production of antibodies that also include Ab that will bind to domains of spike that are essential to cell entry

Sure, non-neutralizing binding antibodies are also useful. I think you maybe meant to respond to the parent of my comment.

The paper shows high binding affinities and high neutralization titers in comparison to convalescent plasma.

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#88

Punchline: “The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated, compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated. Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained u…

I know that seems like a large number but in the vaccine arm there were 20x more subjects and only 15 cases. So with the 1359 previously infected subjects, assuming identical behavior to vaccinated subjects, we would expect around 0.9 cases if vaccines were approximately equal to infection.

So this study doesn't have enough statistical power to say how vaccines compare to previous infection. Could be better, could be up to 3 times worse within a high confidence interval.

(disclamer: back-of-the-napkin math, did not double check everything)

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#89
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dubious claim, and is a frequent anti-vaxx/vaccine-hesitancy talking point. VAERS data needs to be interpreted with special care. It's not equivalent to a safety study with a proper experimental design. It has a whole lot of legal and administrative context to account for.

And until the studies happen there is no danger? The studies create the danger? Or may we behave like rational individuals and realize that "zero danger" is a political talking point which is fully debunked by the VAERS data?

VAERS is user-generated content. I can go in there and file a report that I grew a third arm after vaccination and it'll go in.

Dying or having an adverse event after vaccination also isn't the same as dying from vaccination; even the genuine VAERS reports don't permit teasing this wrinkle out on their own.

Re: Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

#90

What's up with all the antivaxxer/COVID hoaxer comments lately? Every COVID-related thread seems to be at least half-full of antivaxxer comments, and that's being optimistic.

I dislike when my own comments within a discussion are not considered in good faith, so I'll extend you the courtesy I often wish was extended to me:

Why do you believe that confirming suspected immunity response and subsequent protection, as is the case with so many other diseases, is in any way connected to the belief that COVID is a hoax?

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