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Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

nature.com

171–180 of 364 posts

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#171
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't - it's providing unified and clear guidance on vaccination. I'm up in Canada where vaccine hesitancy has been almost unheard of[1] and those who refuse to get vaccinated, excepting those that can't for medical reasons, are ostracized for their overtly selfish actions. The US, though, has a real problem with disinformation being accepted more readily than fact. I am fine with the theory of having a nuanced…

As a Canadian who emigrated to the US, the attitude you so proudly display--ostracizing people who aren't convinced of a novel vaccine with zero long-term safety information--makes me so happy I live here.

Did I miss the long term safety information of the corona virus?

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccination is more comprehensive than natural immunity though. We've already see that the BNT vaccine offers a higher degree of protection against variants than natural immunity, or indeed other vaccines. Reinfection studies from a few months ago demonstrated that natural immunity is roughly 50% effective for people aged 65 or over. And that's the age group most likely to experience negative outcomes from covid-19,…

> Then there's the elephant in the room: so few people have been tested that it really difficult to know who has had it. Anyone who has had a cold in the past 18 months is going to claim they had covid, regardless of whether they tested positive or not. There are many many people who have confirmed positive COVID tests. At least excuse those. >I think it's a little irresponsible to society to give anyone an out on ge…

The vaccine also leads to natural antibodies. It only contains the spike protein so the immune system can safely develop the antibodies.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#173
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which old tech vaccines? I haven't seen any attenuated vaccines for covid. Even the viral vector vaccines aren't exactly "old tech" and they are certainly less effective than mRNA vaccines. Just like with mRNA; viral vector vaccines haven't been seen widespread use before COVID either. And the only attempts at an attenuated vaccine have been pretty ineffective as far as I know.

They're all pretty comparable. Novavax should be getting a lot more attention since it doesn't require super cold storage and appears to be on par with the mRNA vaccines. https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-vaccine-compariso...

Novavax does look promising, but I was mainly pointing out that there is currently no effective "old tech" vaccine in widespread use, it's all new tech.

I'm not saying that out of skepticism for these vaccines, I think it's amazing we're deploying all these new platforms. I just think saying that they're no more effective than vaccines we've had before is a misrepresentation of the facts.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#174
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to reliably verify previous infection at all. A past positive Covid test or a positive antibody test will reliably verify immunity just as well as a vaccination record. Go check my profile all you want. The science is crystal clear, and you don't even have an argument against it aside from trying to attack me as an anti-vaxxer (which I am certainly not).

Please do not use the term "anti-vaxxer". There are countless vaccines with varying safety profiles, unknowns, and underlying risks for the diseases they prevent. People who make informed decisions about specific vaccines based on the risk/reward (and unknowns) are not "anti-vaxxers". It is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

In theory this is true but in reality half of the US population just isn't smart enough to evaluate such a question and those who are hesitant are virtually exclusively drawn from this portion. This is well highlighted by the fact that the societal and individual risks of avoiding vaccination are so insanely high while the risk of vaccination is virtually insignificant.

If I offered you a chance to skip rope or play Russian roulette with revolver with a bullet in one chamber and you opined about the danger of breaking your hip while skipping rope I would strong suspect you didn't understand the question.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#175
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't - it's providing unified and clear guidance on vaccination. I'm up in Canada where vaccine hesitancy has been almost unheard of[1] and those who refuse to get vaccinated, excepting those that can't for medical reasons, are ostracized for their overtly selfish actions. The US, though, has a real problem with disinformation being accepted more readily than fact. I am fine with the theory of having a nuanced…

> are ostracized That sounds like hell.

> hell

My Canadian friends seem to think that's what their country has turned into, and on just about every front, not just vaccines.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#176
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe we should require the vaccinated to keep getting more vaccine shots until science shows they're at par with natural antibodies, lowest hanging fruit and all... Why would we do that when the vaccines are safer than the actual disease and effective enough to contain the spread?

There are repeated calls demanding people with antibodies should be required to get a vaccine shot. However most available science points towards natural immunity having slightly better protection. Is there any science whatsoever showing that antibodies + 1 more shot is better than 2 vaccine shots + 1 additional shot? If antibodies are still more protected than 2 shots, how do we know which option provides the most m…

I misinterpreted your post as some kind of “herd immunity” scheme where we all get infected and that is somehow better. That doesn’t seem to be the argument you were making so I am sorry.

It seems like we should be optimizing for vaccinating as much of the (non-antibody) population up to a level where the spread of the virus is contained rather than maximizing resistance in the population with antibodies. There must be a threshold at which the low hanging fruit becomes “people without antibodies” rather than “people with fewer antibodies”. I’m not sure it matters if the antibodies are from the vaccine or infection.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the original comment is being downvoted. It is not a conspiracy theory to assume that we need booster shots. Is it not like our situation with the flu? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/pfizer-ceo-says-third-covid-... https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/covid-booster-shots-coronavi... The news of this new study just came out today. Give the guy a break.

There is simply no evidence we will need booster shots.

It's hard to determine that as a laymen when you have the CEO of Pfizer (who is likely being advised by Pfizer's own researchers) saying, "A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role"

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#178
post #4

This is great news, adding to a report in Nature that the natural immunity produced in people who have already had covid may last a lifetime.[1] In case you hadn't heard, the Cleveland Clinic--consistently regarded as one of the top hospital systems in the United States and in the world--recently shared a study of 52,238 patients showing zero incremental benefit from the jab to the previously infected, recommending t…

I read the entire Nature paper. I wouldn't call this paper great news. It's just confirmation of the not terrible news we had before. Is 12 to 15 weeks (3-4 months) really "long lasting" antibody mediated immunity? I'm glad the antibodies still neutralize even gamma that long but 3-4 months is the timespan people were previously calling "short". Yes, T cell responses (the cells that kill infected cells) to sars-cov-2…

> Is 12 to 15 weeks (3-4 months) really "long lasting" antibody mediated immunity?

It's perfectly normal for an antibody response to decay over time. We don't keep making antibodies in perpetuity for every antigen we've ever seen, or our blood would turn into peanut butter.

The B-cell and T-cell mediated responses to previous infection are also proving to be robust, and the B-cell response, in particular, primes the immune system for a rapid increase in antibody levels if the virus is encountered again.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#179
post #161
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a study of 52,238 patients showing zero incremental benefit from the jab to the previously infected This study ended May 15, 2021, and it notes that: >Lastly, it is necessary to emphasize that these findings are based on the prevailing assortment of virus variants in the community during the study. It is not known how well these results will hold if or when some of the newer variants of concern become prominent. Ano…

"for people already seropositive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from a previous infection, getting the first dose of an mRNA vaccine increased antibody titers by two orders of magnitude on average" That's not what this says -- you're extrapolating that the vaccine somehow changed the immune response, when this letter is only providing data that people who already had Covid had a clear, ~immediate antibody response to vacc…

>That's not what this says

I admit I'm not medically trained, but the graph [1] seems pretty clear to me, and the authors said:

> In contrast, participants with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at baseline before the first vaccine injection rapidly developed uniform, high antibody titers within days after vaccination (median AUC before vaccination, 90 [43 participants];

>at 0 to 4 days, 133 [7 participants];

>at 5 to 8 days, 14,208 [15 participants];

>at 9 to 12 days, 20,783 [8 participants];

>at 13 to 16 days, 25,927 [20 participants];

>at 17 to 20 days, 11,755 [4 participants];

>at 21 to 27 days, 19,534 [14 participants]; and

>after the second dose, 22,509 [19 participants])

[1] https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour...

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#180
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the original comment is being downvoted. It is not a conspiracy theory to assume that we need booster shots. Is it not like our situation with the flu? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/pfizer-ceo-says-third-covid-... https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/covid-booster-shots-coronavi... The news of this new study just came out today. Give the guy a break.

> Is it not like our situation with the flu? No, as other commenters pointed out coronaviruses are different from the flu viruses in that they cannot mutate as easily as flu does. Hence it is possible that booster shots will not be required.

That also doesn't mean that that there's no longer a decent chance of immune escape. Before this research came out, it was a reasonable position to think that we needed boosters. It is NOT a conspiracy theory.

If you read any of the articles I've cited one of them has the CEO of Pfizer stating that we will likely need a yearly booster shot.

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