Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity • Hacker News Board

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#21

Post by achenatx » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

listless wrote: post #17

> “The team found that the Delta variant virus was 5.7-fold less sensitive to the sera from previously-infected individuals, and as much as eight-fold less sensitive to vaccine sera” I read this as “natural immunity is better”. Unless I’m reading that wrong, why don’t we hear more about this? I’m vaccinated AND got a breakthrough infection and I’m worried that my immunity is weaker than that of my wife who was unvacc…

Dumb people are going to want to go to covid parties to get infected naturally because it is better immunity..

Public health messages need to be kept simple.

Natural immunity should be better because you are exposed to all the same proteins in the vaccine plus more and also possibly for a longer period of time and at a higher quantity.

Now that you had delta, you should be immune to delta and partially immune to whatever delta mutates into.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#22

Post by qzw » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #8

arbuge wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What that means is that the unvaccinated are much more likely to become seriously ill if infected: https://www.axios.com/unvaccinated-hospitalized-covid-60dc90... It does not mean that the vaccinated cannot spread disease, however.

There is presently to my understanding a lot of claims of severity reduction, but I would like to see evidence and an explanation for it. My working model is that a consistent alternative explanation is the vaccine reduces infection risk dramatically but once infected severity can be the same.

There’s also population skew since the vaccination rate is much higher among older Americans, and older people are more at risk of severe illness in general.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#23

Post by isoprophlex » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

cartoonworld wrote: post #18

TheBlight wrote: post #2

I was told this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Unfortunately, every time Sars-CoV-2 spreads and increases its infection tally, mutation can occur which has a chance to beneficially influence selection in the next infection cycle. Unlike how bacterial infections could gain or incrementally increase some of its antibiotic immunity or other attributes thanks to the conditions in a single host, for example incomplete or unnecessary antibiotic regimens, viral infectio…

> viral infections need to be infecting new hosts in order to experience meaningful mutations.

Interesting! What causes this, is there some keyword i can search for in order to learn more?

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#24

Post by criticaltinker » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

listless wrote: post #17

> “The team found that the Delta variant virus was 5.7-fold less sensitive to the sera from previously-infected individuals, and as much as eight-fold less sensitive to vaccine sera” I read this as “natural immunity is better”. Unless I’m reading that wrong, why don’t we hear more about this? I’m vaccinated AND got a breakthrough infection and I’m worried that my immunity is weaker than that of my wife who was unvacc…

Preliminary data from Israel suggests that immunity acquired through natural infection may be more robust to variants like delta, compared to vaccine induced immunity. See this preprint and discussion from a couple weeks ago [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28307224

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#25

Post by timy2shoes » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #8

arbuge wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What that means is that the unvaccinated are much more likely to become seriously ill if infected: https://www.axios.com/unvaccinated-hospitalized-covid-60dc90... It does not mean that the vaccinated cannot spread disease, however.

There is presently to my understanding a lot of claims of severity reduction, but I would like to see evidence and an explanation for it. My working model is that a consistent alternative explanation is the vaccine reduces infection risk dramatically but once infected severity can be the same.

The evidence definitely points the other way, see [0]. The vaccines dramatically reduce the rate of severe infection and hospitalization. The vaccines do not prevent infection, they prime your immune system to fight the infection. That is why the endpoint for the clinical trials is not infection, which would have to be determined by testing, but rather symptomatic infection.

[0] https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-...

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#26

Post by everdrive » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

TheBlight wrote: post #2

I was told this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Reflexive and thoughtless media critiques really aren't very useful. "The media" is not a singular entity, this sort of critique suggests a false hypocrisy:

- Multiple entities are amalgamated into one single entity. (ie, "the media.")

- Two conflicting statements are put side by side and meant to suggest a hypocrisy. In reality, it's not a hypocrisy when two unrelated entities make statements which are at odds.

- Often, a straw-man version of the argument is used to help foster the hypocrisy claim. In this case, "this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated." This is not a good faith argument because vaccinated individuals are much less likely to spread the virus, and to become seriously ill. It is an equivocation of meaning: "can the vaccinated be involved whatsoever" vs. "is this primarily affecting the unvaccinated?"

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#27

Post by meheleventyone » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

_red wrote: post #12

syops wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virus mutates quickly so the vaccine can't be expected to be as effective at new variants compared to the variants it was designed to combat.

If thats true why the boosters? Or are you claiming the boosters have been upgraded with latest variants?

Boosters are given to improve immune response so the idea is that you improve the immune response so vaccinated people generate more antibodies against an active infection and you get less breakthrough cases.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#28

Post by clipradiowallet » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

achenatx wrote: post #21

listless wrote: post #17

> “The team found that the Delta variant virus was 5.7-fold less sensitive to the sera from previously-infected individuals, and as much as eight-fold less sensitive to vaccine sera” I read this as “natural immunity is better”. Unless I’m reading that wrong, why don’t we hear more about this? I’m vaccinated AND got a breakthrough infection and I’m worried that my immunity is weaker than that of my wife who was unvacc…

Dumb people are going to want to go to covid parties to get infected naturally because it is better immunity.. Public health messages need to be kept simple. Natural immunity should be better because you are exposed to all the same proteins in the vaccine plus more and also possibly for a longer period of time and at a higher quantity. Now that you had delta, you should be immune to delta and partially immune to what…

> Dumb people are going to want to go to covid parties

When I was a child, parents would inform other parents when a child had chickenpox; so they could have a sleepover. That was normal practice in the portion of the USA I grew up in. As a result, nearly everyone my age has natural immunity to chickenpox.

I share that anecdote to point out that the idea of an "infection party" is a really old idea that was practiced at scale. It's not unreasonable to assume people will treat this the same way based on that type of past behavior. Whether it's "dumb" or not remains to be seen.

Edit: I wanted to add for younger persons a blurb about WHY you want to get chickenpox as a kid. Children experience mild symptoms from chickenpox - it's a non-event other than missing some school and having a few sores. Adult cases of chicken pox however are fatal by a large majority.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#29

Post by achenatx » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

cartoonworld wrote: post #18

TheBlight wrote: post #2

I was told this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Unfortunately, every time Sars-CoV-2 spreads and increases its infection tally, mutation can occur which has a chance to beneficially influence selection in the next infection cycle. Unlike how bacterial infections could gain or incrementally increase some of its antibiotic immunity or other attributes thanks to the conditions in a single host, for example incomplete or unnecessary antibiotic regimens, viral infectio…

this isnt the case. The virus spreads within your body and the mutations will spread within the body as well. A virus can mutate and improve within the host.

What doesnt necessarily get selected for within the host is improved survival rates outside the body, ability to penetrate the body in the first place, etc. But bacteria are under the same evolutionary pressures.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#30

Post by achenatx » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #23

cartoonworld wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, every time Sars-CoV-2 spreads and increases its infection tally, mutation can occur which has a chance to beneficially influence selection in the next infection cycle. Unlike how bacterial infections could gain or incrementally increase some of its antibiotic immunity or other attributes thanks to the conditions in a single host, for example incomplete or unnecessary antibiotic regimens, viral infectio…

> viral infections need to be infecting new hosts in order to experience meaningful mutations. Interesting! What causes this, is there some keyword i can search for in order to learn more?

The assertion is not correct, viruses do not need to spread to new hosts to experience meaningful mutation.