Live data from Hacker News

Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

cell.com

211–220 of 222 posts

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is an mRNA strand that encode for a single very specific protein on a virus the same as the entire virus? The antibody memory made from a Natural Infection seems like it would be much richer and have much more variety than the mRNA vaccine. I would imagine the attenuated virus vaccine would be closer to Natural immunity.

Your body might accidentally create an immunity to a portion of the virus that mutates. Perhaps the protein produced by vaccine mRNA forces your body to create an immunity against a portion of the virus that is less likely to mutate. I don't know if this is the case, but I offer this as an example of how our biological systems may be complicated beyond intuition.

>our biological systems may be complicated beyond intuition.

right, that's why the natural way provides the best immunity

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#212
post #19

Its important to keep studies like this in mind when talking with people who refuse to take the vaccine because they "already had COVID". In a very real sense, if natural antibodies are durable, persistent, and effective; the vaccine is an unnecessary medical procedure. Doctors would not cut off your legs for no reason; that would be unethical. The vaccine is a medical procedure like any other; if the benefit is ques…

A vaccination isn't cutting your legs off.

First of all, if you've recovered from COVID then you've fought off the whole virus before, not just the spike RNA. You shouldn't have issues with the vaccine.

Secondly, you could have had mild COVID and if you were "young" (under 30) then your innate immune system may have been sufficient to clear the virus and you may not have formed a lasting humoral immune memory.

Third, you may have had a false positive with a high Ct.

And Fourth, many people never got tested, and people really cannot self-diagnose (particularly the people in the USA who think they caught it in late 2019).

If you've caught COVID just take the vaccine, you've already had the spike RNA in your body once. You're like an open water swimmer worried they might drown in the pool.

Of course I really suspect that this argument is being made in bad faith so people have a backdoor to avoid vaccination and to undermine vaccination mandates. And the harm caused by the virus spreading vastly exceeds the putative harm done by an "unnecessary procedure" -- just look at Florida right now.

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked it up. Where I'm staying the tests are 57e, you do it yourself, and get a result within 20mins which is valid for 24h. That definitely is a high cost.

Probably as a tourist it is different? I live in Germany and you can get an antigen test for free per day. They are valid for 24 hours, so it costs 0€ To get tested for any event.

In Italy they are not free, not even if you're a resident.

I think the system is explicitly designed to create inconvenience for those who decide not to vaccinate.

IIRC Germany has a strong culture on trying to not force things on people; not sure if that's really true, but it's certainly brought as an example here in Italy.

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably as a tourist it is different? I live in Germany and you can get an antigen test for free per day. They are valid for 24 hours, so it costs 0€ To get tested for any event.

In Italy they are not free, not even if you're a resident. I think the system is explicitly designed to create inconvenience for those who decide not to vaccinate. IIRC Germany has a strong culture on trying to not force things on people; not sure if that's really true, but it's certainly brought as an example here in Italy.

In Germany it is being mentioned now, to make them non free, exactly for the reason you mention. But until now it has been free.

Also it is a source of income for the places performing the tests (from the government). For instance, many clubs were adapted into testing points.

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#215
post #35
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is a scandal, especially considering the amount of non-immunised people at risk in the rest of the world. i fall in that category (recovered) and i would even pay to give my vaccines away.

It is not being used by people who should get said vaccine here in the states, and it is questionable if we even have the logistics to enable it. I supposed even if the logistics is questionable, we should try to distribute it to people who are actually going to use it.

yeah. obviously mine is a half provocation because shipping "two vaccines" to "one person" isn't feasible considering temperature etc., but if countries had the balls (which they don't) they should take a bit of a U-turn and allow bulks of unused vaccines, perhaps even asking the people "are you sure you don't want to get vaccinated this year? y/n", to get shipped elsewhere once they reach a feasible number.

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will try to answer your questions from my point of view. It appears "off" that there is no nuance to this vaccination strategy. It seems especially odd to advocate for vaccinating children who stand to benefit very little personally. I had planned to get vaccinated but have been pretty concerned by the totalitarian vibes I've been getting lately. So I guess I've decided to let my civics slide to match. I will get t…

Are those stats based on the alpha variant (COVID-classic) or the delta variant (new and improved)? Also worth considering that rural areas are underserved wrt to healthcare, and typically experience worse outcomes under the same disease burden. Your risk of catastrophic illness from COVID may be low - keeping in mind that population level statistics are not very good predictors of individual outcomes - but significa…

Submitting to what I see as overreaching propaganda when my own county has reached herd immunity is stupid plain and simple. Whoever thought of the idea to "blame the unvaccinated" as a strategy lost my cooperation because the stats say our rural community already succeeded.

Why isn't the guidance a bit more tailored?

"If your community is below herd immunity ur gonna have bad time mmmkkk, especially if you have comorbidities"

Instead in popular media it seems to be edging towards:

"Vaccinate the babies in the womb!!! Its the only way to be sure!!!"

Now the above is absurd today but 2 years ago if someone told you where we'd be today would you have believed them?

Vaccinating every man woman child was not the original bargain. A renewed discussion is needed with a clean slate. I don't think we even have an agreed set of goals anymore nor common modelling which explains the choices.

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Pot, meet Kettle? My statement literally starts with "I'm not sure...". You begin yours with "That's actually incorrect." Which expresses more confidence? My opinion is based on a conversation with a Ph.D immunologist that happens to be a friend as well. And if that's not enough here is a paper from a totally separate lab that has similar conclusions, with actual data https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.0…

Just wanted to say thanks for the citation here, and FWIW all the literature I'm aware of supports the statements you've made in these comments.

You’re not aware of all of the literature, then. Vaccination results in fewer reinfections, less severe reinfections, and of course doesn’t require you risk a course of the virus upfront to get said protection.

Maybe reach out to an immunologist. There is a lot of literature and you shouldn’t trust my or anyone’s take, but expecting you’ll have a better take than several actual career immunologists based on some google scholar research is ill-founded.

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is an mRNA strand that encode for a single very specific protein on a virus the same as the entire virus? The antibody memory made from a Natural Infection seems like it would be much richer and have much more variety than the mRNA vaccine. I would imagine the attenuated virus vaccine would be closer to Natural immunity.

Your body might accidentally create an immunity to a portion of the virus that mutates. Perhaps the protein produced by vaccine mRNA forces your body to create an immunity against a portion of the virus that is less likely to mutate. I don't know if this is the case, but I offer this as an example of how our biological systems may be complicated beyond intuition.

The spike protein is part of COVID-19's infection mechanism.

The thinking (if I understand correctly) in targeting the spike protein was that mutations to the spike protein may render the vaccine less effective, but would also render COVID-19 less infectious.

It's a clever hack to rely not on whether the spike is mutation-prone, but instead on the odds that a mutation would result in a less effective virus that the vaccine wouldn't be necessary for.

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#219
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think other comments may have pointed this out already, but there are several problems with this line of reasoning. When deciding on whether or not to administer a procedure or treatment, one must consider the balance of potential harms and benefits, while accounting for uncertainty. In this particular case, the potential for harm from the vaccine is quite low (this is borne out by the data), and the benefits are m…

This line of thinking assumes you can reliably separate people that have had covid from those that haven’t. In the real world requiring vaccines for everyone means vaccination of people that thought they had covid but didn’t. Which I suspect may be the underlying reason studies are showing the vaccines are more effective than getting covid.

I have proof of infection from several tests. I’m starting to wonder why I can just use that instead of vaccine evidence?

Re: Longitudinal analysis shows durable immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection

#220
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of thinking assumes you can reliably separate people that have had covid from those that haven’t. In the real world requiring vaccines for everyone means vaccination of people that thought they had covid but didn’t. Which I suspect may be the underlying reason studies are showing the vaccines are more effective than getting covid.

I have proof of infection from several tests. I’m starting to wonder why I can just use that instead of vaccine evidence?

You have evidence of infection from several tests, they could still be false positives.

Even ignoring that I t’s really difficult to have a policy around this because of how limited and error prone testing was early on. Many people where told they had covid based on symptoms or a single low accuracy test. Things have improved, but when you start talking millions of people being tested it’s really just a question of the rate of false positives not their existence.

Post reply on HN