Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest • Hacker News Board

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#201

Post by BoiledCabbage » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

polote wrote: post #142

wyldfire wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lack the background on biology, just a layperson take. > Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, there's an almost neglible chance of side effect, and with no information about possible long-term side effect. There's unknowns about the long-term effects of infection, too. Several viral infections result in prolonged symptoms or decades-later re-emergence.…

So it just doesn't give any benefit. Reducing the risk of something which is already close to zero, is still 0. If we follow your argument, why not take the vaccine ten times ? The excess mortality of people under 49 years in a country like france is zero in 2020 [0]. About long term effects of infections. Well the same can be said of the vaccine. In both case we have no idea [0] https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/…

If I were in your shoes, the main thing I'd look into is not hospitalized/death, but "long covid".

Huge quality of life impact, way less understood. Estimates range from 6%-20%+ of people who get covid are still having symptoms 2 months or longer post infection. People who have symptoms two months after infection usually still are having side-effects one year later. Neurological, blood or organ impacts, but all very different and still not well understood.

So I both don't want to seem like I'm hyping it up either because again a lot is unknown it might not be a serious issue / concern.

The main point I'd say is if you're going to make a judgement based on risk make sure you're evaluating the situation completely. And for anyone looking at covid risks, they shouldn't be focused on solely death, but understand long covid as well. Current speculative thinking essentially believes it parallels either triggering auto-immune type issues, or dormant/re-emergent viruses (like chicken pox / shingles type of behavior).

A not very good article on it, but don't have time to find a better one:

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/619941/

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#202

Post by linuxftw » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

Griffinsauce wrote: post #180

JackFr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> due to governments dragging their heels on the income/rent supports that would have allowed poor people to actually stay home Government supports or not, you do realize everyone can't stay home?

Why do so many discussions around this have to devolve to reasoning against absolute straw-men arguments? The point wasn't for "everybody" to stay at home but to expand "everybody who can" to the highest possible number, by removing economic and other barriers.

Why do people act like a completely unreasonable plan (and plan is generous) created by the morons in charge was ever going to be followed, let alone work?

Garbage in, garbage out.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#203

Post by tinus_hn » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #112

tinus_hn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are contradicting yourself. You say this is about getting things under control, but then you say there is no way of controlling things. Because vaccinated people can still spread infections vaccinations, just like lockdowns, do not help ‘getting things under control’. They only delay progression of the pandemic. You say ‘it will probably be a common cold, once humans have enough antibodies’. Humans do not get per…

> Humans do not get permanent antibodies from the vaccines. They get antibodies from getting infected. Weird, I've yet to get chicken pox/shingles, mumps, polio etc despite being vaccinated against them as a child. And I still catch the flu regularly despite having already had it.

Now try getting the flu vaccine (it exists!) and see if you will ever catch it again.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#204

Post by incrudible » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

phonypc wrote: post #187

incrudible wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever is causing the severe side-effects, it's probably not the MRNA or the spike protein. With Pfizer/Moderna vaccines, it's likely the lipid nanoparticles causing Myocarditis. With the J&J vaccine, it's likely the viral vector that is causing TTS. Both technologies have never been widely deployed before. The fact that we could not predict and still do not understand these side-effects is quite concerning. It als…

> it's likely the lipid nanoparticles causing Myocarditis What's this based on? Given the occurrence of myocarditis in actual COVID infections at a higher rate than with the vaccines, it seems more likely to be an immune-mediated response, at least partly to the spike fragments included in the mRNA vaccines.

> What's this based on?

It's a common feature of the LNP-based vaccines, not the viral-vector-based ones.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#205

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

criticaltinker wrote: post #176

wyldfire wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lack the background on biology, just a layperson take. > Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, there's an almost neglible chance of side effect, and with no information about possible long-term side effect. There's unknowns about the long-term effects of infection, too. Several viral infections result in prolonged symptoms or decades-later re-emergence.…

> there's little/no treatment for the infection resulting from this virus. This is not true. Since the beginning of the pandemic front line doctors have been successfully reducing hospitalization and death through early treatment with antivirals, corticosteriods, and antithrombotics. [1] Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) https://s…

I guess a better way to phrase it is that there's no over-the-counter cure, and if you're at the point where a front line doctor is giving you steroids, things are already going worse than most people's vaccine side effects.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#206

Post by NicoJuicy » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

criticaltinker wrote: post #176

wyldfire wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lack the background on biology, just a layperson take. > Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, there's an almost neglible chance of side effect, and with no information about possible long-term side effect. There's unknowns about the long-term effects of infection, too. Several viral infections result in prolonged symptoms or decades-later re-emergence.…

> there's little/no treatment for the infection resulting from this virus. This is not true. Since the beginning of the pandemic front line doctors have been successfully reducing hospitalization and death through early treatment with antivirals, corticosteriods, and antithrombotics. [1] Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) https://s…

I think he is talking more about long-covid and not the actual hospitalization. Since he is talking about symptoms and not hospitalization explicitly.

Even persons who don't end up in the hospital can have symptoms. I'm leaving up to the reader of these are ok or not.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#207

Post by hwillis » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #161

hackingforfun wrote: post #73

I'm pretty surprised to still see some misinformation in some of the posts here. I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me. The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the enti…

Certain virus do in fact modify the DNA in cells[1]. From the article: > Some types of virus, such as retroviruses, integrate their genetic material (including the new gene) into a chromosome in the human cell. Therefore the claim that an injection of RNA could modify your DNA is possible. Whether the COVID injections do this is a different story, and seems unlikely. [1] https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding…

> Therefore the claim that an injection of RNA could modify your DNA is possible.

Absolutely not. This is like saying water is a neurotoxin because a tiny subset of neurotoxins contain water. Or that almost any food can modify your dna, since mRNA, RNA and DNA are in any cells you eat.

reverse transcription doesn't just happen. Retroviruses work because they carry reverse transcriptase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcriptase

No reverse transcriptase, no DNA integration. The vaccine leaves out any other parts of the virus besides the spike coding. That makes it SAFER in that respect than conventional or monoclonal vaccines, which include tons of other viral parts! You know what might do reverse transcription? Covid: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/21/e2105968118

Good thing the mrna vaccine leaves out all those parts that could be activating LINE1 retrotransposons!

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#208

Post by tinus_hn » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #198

heavyset_go wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans do not get permanent antibodies from the vaccines. They get antibodies from getting infected. Weird, I've yet to get chicken pox/shingles, mumps, polio etc despite being vaccinated against them as a child. And I still catch the flu regularly despite having already had it.

Not the OP, but antibodies are just one part of a fairly complex immune system and it does not make too much sense to concentrate just on them. Antibodies are proteins and their level goes down over time naturally. What really interests you is the level of immune response on subsequent exposure to the pathogen, which may be pretty robust even if antibodies are low or undetectable at the moment of new exposure. We obv…

We actually do know that we can not get permanent robust immune response to COVID-19 from the vaccines that are in use because the statistics are already there, immunity starts wearing off after about 6 months.

That’s why the new push is for ‘booster shots’.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#209

Post by datameta » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #158

datameta wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how accurately we can run mutation simulations updated based on best current data to correct the best guess optimization function(s). It would be a breakthrough if we can predict the likeliest mutation. I'm aware of the enormous number of variables making this tremendously difficult...

We don't have the technology to stimulate that accurately in software. It would have to be done using transgenic animal models and/or human tissue cultures. Essentially it would be a form of gain-of-function research, and there are concerns that a lab accident could result in an even more dangerous variant escaping into the wild.

With ML-assisted drug discovery in, say, kinase inhibitors we search the molecule variation space for test candidates. What stops us from applying this to the protein scale by folding binding sites to discover variant candidates that would be more virulent? I'd like to understand this better.

Re: Israel’s Covid-19 boosters are preventing infections, new studies suggest

#210

Post by Izkata » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

bondarchuk wrote: post #98

hackingforfun wrote: post #73

I'm pretty surprised to still see some misinformation in some of the posts here. I have a friend who has a PhD in molecular biology and she described the mRNA vaccines to me. The mRNA is only a piece of the spike protein, and does not enter the cell's nucleus. It only interacts with the cytoplasm. Normally, if a cell had to deal with an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, it would be dealing with the spike proteins and the enti…

The amount of times I've seen text to the extent of "mRNA does not alter DNA" vastly exceeds the amount of text I've seen that claims mRNA does alter DNA. As far as I could see nobody in this thread is claiming such a thing, so I'm genuinely curious to know why you feel the need to point it out.

I have actually seen that claim elsewhere. The issue is, almost all of them know about reverse-transcription enzymes and use that as part of their argument, while the people attempting to debunk them have never touched on it, instead treating them as if they don't know the difference between DNA and RNA.