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Evaluating necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals

medrxiv.org

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

#181

Post by Supermancho »

Animats wrote: post #59

Well, that's encouraging. Now we have data for about 5 months on that. About the same on vaccinated individuals. In a year, we'll know more about how long immunity lasts, and if and when booster shots will be needed.

Like Panther34543, my wife and I were infected in December in Seattle 2019. My wife had to go to the hospital (Kaiser), where they told her they didn't know what it was.

After the symptoms were identified as "COVID", we knew what had happened. At this point, I assumed the infections were endemic and I had no idea if we could be re-infected. I went remote early on, as infections started to be tracked and we had stocked up on plastic gloves, toilet paper, masks etc. before many other people.

I suspect, a number of people know that this virus was always going to be around. I expect the situation was watched to see how to best manage the fact that every person on earth was going to get exposed, by community spread or vaccine.

I'm interested in the survival rate differences between the vaccinated and those infected through community spread. I suspect, it's not very different due to deaths in my family from the vaccinated who had access to every treatment (including plasma) through Kaiser, before passing. I also suspect it's more or less surviving the flu (tough for the elderly) + a particular genetic interaction, that makes you susceptible.

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

#182

Post by briefcomment »

barbazoo wrote: post #178
briefcomment wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most authorities are downplaying natural immunity, despite evidence like this. The more widely this spreads, the more people will realize it's ok to rely on natural immunity, and to not blanket demonize those who are unvaccinated.

I can imagine it being downplayed out of fear that it could slow down the vaccination program by pushing people over the edge that were hesitant to get vaccinated and possibly questioning covid-19 in the first place.

It's fine if those previously infected don't get the vaccine. I don't see why information on how natural immunity is effective would make people who haven't gotten Covid even less likely to get the vaccine.

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

#183

Post by IgorPartola »

krrrh wrote: post #161
handmodel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My one anti-vax friend (who I make fun of constantly for not getting it) is constantly bombarded with people telling him that his previous infection doesn't give him any immunity. I already knew that was false - and I think he knew that too. It probably fed into his (motivated) reasoning to hold out this long if people are telling him so much information they know to be untrue. Still, I don't see how public health wo…

We don’t know that there is no downside which is why these vaccines were approved via Emergency Use Authorization. At the very least I and several people I know were absolutely flattened by the vaccines for a day or two. One guy I know had very low blood sugar for weeks afterwards and needed medical intervention. The vaccines are important in establishing herd immunity, but I don’t understand the desire to jab people…

Feeling symptoms of COVID after receiving the vaccine is a normal and expected result that makes common sense: your immune system is doing its job. The only possible long term side effect here is partial or total immunity from COVID. On the other hand you don’t know the long term effects of COVID either, but I would bet dollars to donuts that they are worse than from the vaccine, based on what we know as of today.

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

#184

Post by BeefWellington »

mlyle wrote: post #160
josephcsible wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> separated by 8-12 weeks Who's doing that? Isn't the separation 3 weeks for Pfizer and 4 for Moderna?

Canada/the UK have been doing that. Odds are it does make things more effective rather than less, based on our experience with other vaccines. But IMO it's not wise, because it wasn't studied. Still, 2 huge peaks separated by 3-4 weeks provokes really big immune responses.

> Odds are it does make things more effective rather than less, based on our experience with other vaccines. But IMO it's not wise, because it wasn't studied.

It has since been studied[1] (preprint) and that was exactly what was found -- delaying the second dose provoked a stronger response, similar to many other vaccines.

[1] https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2021/05/covid-pfize...

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

#185

Post by mlyle »

roody15 wrote: post #163
microtherion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mental model of this (and I'm not a medical expert) is that (a) for a given amount of spike protein, the immune response is similar, whether the protein originates from the vaccine or the actual virus, but (b) since the vaccine is lacking the actual health threatening properties of the virus, you can expose people to massive doses of it without incurring much risk.

My place employment had almost 280 people get vaccinated (myself included). On the second dose well over 50 percent came down with flu like symptoms about 12 hours later. I was sick for 3 days and my wife was sick for 2. Would be curious on this forum on how many people got sick from Moderna.

30 percent+ have significant side effects on the second dose. This is more significant in people in their early 20's.

My wife and I are in our 40s. I had a really sore arm (like, the whole arm, not the injection site) and we were both tired for a day afterwards.

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

#186

Post by manwe150 »

landemva wrote: post #143
handmodel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Plenty of people who know they almost certainly had Covid weren't tested..." Do you mean tested for antibodies with finger prick blood test, or PCR random number generator (see elon musk wild PCR results). I was sick, had test that showed antibodies, and a confirmation letter from my Dr. Since the EUA to rush out the vaccines does not include those who had it and recovered, it needs more testing and study before it…

That was true when the EUA was issued, but by now, we have vaccinated major segments of the population without seeing issues (e.g. hospitalizations are decreasing even as the rate of exposed population is much higher).

I was in a similar position as you: possible early COVID exposure (though no symptoms), several positive antibody tests, but absolutely zero side effects from either Pfizer shot. Annoyed not a few people though by my lack of any reaction to the shots, so that was kinda fun.

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

#187

Post by nradov »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #176
adventured wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because openly stating this obvious fact would get you downvoted on here a few months ago. Attempting to discuss it here will still commonly get you downvoted. HN is not a particularly rational forum. People make the mistake of thinking it is because a lot of engineers hang out here. Engineers are not especially rational, that's a common myth derived from failing to understand the way people mentally compartmentali…

I’d love to see real numbers of how many people have been infected, but I have no idea how you would get them. Do you have any suggestions?

The most accurate approach would be to do repeated blood tests of a large nationwide study population looking at both antibodies and memory T cells. The CDC really should have been doing that nationwide for the past year.

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

#188

Post by nradov »

jquery wrote: post #167
np_tedious wrote: post #11

I did have covid (not diagnosed while active but shown in antibody test), and I got vaccinated significantly later. This was not driven by belief in medical need, but by social/rules need. You get no "points" for being recovered like you do for a proof of vaccination.

Antibody test is not proof of prior infection.

What do you mean by that? The false positive rate is extremely low. It's as close to proof as we're going to get.

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

#189

Post by barbazoo »

briefcomment wrote: post #182
barbazoo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine it being downplayed out of fear that it could slow down the vaccination program by pushing people over the edge that were hesitant to get vaccinated and possibly questioning covid-19 in the first place.

It's fine if those previously infected don't get the vaccine. I don't see why information on how natural immunity is effective would make people who haven't gotten Covid even less likely to get the vaccine.

I can only imagine it's because it might convince people that don't take Covid-19 seriously to not get the vaccine because even if they didn't get it, they'd be immune once infected going forward, missing the point about hospitalization, protecting the vulnerable, etc.

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

#190

Post by krrrh »

IgorPartola wrote: post #183
krrrh wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t know that there is no downside which is why these vaccines were approved via Emergency Use Authorization. At the very least I and several people I know were absolutely flattened by the vaccines for a day or two. One guy I know had very low blood sugar for weeks afterwards and needed medical intervention. The vaccines are important in establishing herd immunity, but I don’t understand the desire to jab people…

Feeling symptoms of COVID after receiving the vaccine is a normal and expected result that makes common sense: your immune system is doing its job. The only possible long term side effect here is partial or total immunity from COVID. On the other hand you don’t know the long term effects of COVID either, but I would bet dollars to donuts that they are worse than from the vaccine, based on what we know as of today.

> The only possible long term side effect here is partial or total immunity from COVID.

You don’t need to convince me to get vaccinated, but this is a profoundly unscientific statement. The mRNA vaccines are a brand new technology that would not have been approved without several years of human trials if there was not a pandemic justifying rushing through the normal process.

So far so good, but the immune system is a complex system and we can’t rule out some unexpected side effects for some people some of the time.

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