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

#211

Post by mrtesthah » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

polote wrote: post #188

mrtesthah wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well the same can be said of the vaccine. In both case we have no idea. See https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19... * History tells us that severe side effects are extremely rare, and if they if do occur, they usually happen within the first two months. * COVID-19 vaccine technologies have been studied for years and used in other treatments without issue. * The vaccine development process, fr…

The same can be said of unknown longterm side effects of covid

Covid is a virus, the effects of which are not comparable to a vaccine. There's a lot of past evidence (as mentioned in the article) for Moreover, we already have clinical evidence that covid causes long-term side effects in up to a third of people infected. There is no such evidence for any covid vaccine.

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

#212

Post by NalNezumi » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #189

NalNezumi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never ever on HN seen an argument about DNA and mRNA, but then again I don't follow the conversation too much. As it seems like you know someone with correct background on the subject, so I wanted to ask you something I've always wanted to know as a young,(late 20s) healthy person with no existing risky precondition in this pandemic: Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can…

> Why should I take a vaccine > when it is now known that vaccinated people can still spread the virus Because just because you "can" doesn't mean that you're as likely to[1]: > Fully vaccinated people with Delta variant breakthrough infections can spread the virus to others. However, vaccinated people appear to spread the virus for a shorter time […] This means fully vaccinated people will likely spread the virus fo…

Hi thanks for the reply and the perspective.

>I have people around me who are not so young or not so healthy; while I might live, I do not want to transmit a a virus that could be potentially lethal to them.

This is also the reason I did sign up for vaccination,(traveling with work and all) but it also put a dent in the reasoning that the people I'll meet will highly likely be vaccinated due to their age.

>I also don't think it is worth putting stock into fear of the unknown with this vaccine

You have a valid point and I do trust the scientist to do their work well(although after entering research this year my trust for science have been slightly jaded), but trusting the vaccine means I have to trust not just the scientists but all entities involved along the line (mass production, distribution, quality control, government logistics, safe storage and transportation).

With the entire vaccine thing being so highly politicized and tribalized, having the (healthy) level of scepticism and trying to express it to inform myself through dialogue have been very hard, so I appreciate your comment a lot. I'll ponder a bit where my doubts are valid/not valid and what action is reasonable based on that

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

#213

Post by mikepurvis » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #77

mikepurvis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, I think it's been just as frustrating to the health officials setting out those targets— between non-compliance with the initial guidelines (both due to idiocy, and due to governments dragging their heels on the income/rent supports that would have allowed poor people to actually stay home), and then the appearance of the delta variant just as vaccination campaigns were getting seriously under way, I'm s…

I think we tend to under-acknowledge that the "return to normal" line is also a moving goalpost. I'm typing this comment out from a cross-country trip; when I return, I can eat in a restaurant or work from the office or even dance in a crowded nightclub if I want to. There's still mask mandates here and there, but I think there's a strong argument for the perspective that vaccines already did work and we already are…

It's not quite as lax for families with kids under 12, but broadly speaking, I agree with you.

Some things are just never going to be completely as they were in February 2020— for example, I think there's far broader cultural awareness of factors like indoor air sharing, aerosols, hand sanitation, personal vaccine records, etc than probably at any other point in history. I expect that the lower-than-usual flu numbers from last winter will persist for some time as people continue to take care about these kind of things.

And no one alive today will need to be reminded to get the malaria shot before going on safari— checking your vaccine status is permanently embedded in the current generation as travel-thing now, just like making sure you have your visa lined up and your insurance in order.

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

#214

Post by criticaltinker » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #205

criticaltinker wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> there's no over-the-counter cure

All of those medications can be prescribed prophylactically (early in the symptomatic phase) by just about any clinic.

I'm not advocating against vaccination, just pointing out that early treatment with widely available and existing medicines has also proven to be effective in reducing severe outcomes.

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

#215

Post by inglor_cz » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

tinus_hn wrote: post #208

inglor_cz wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’.

To which degree is this statistic confounded by the Delta mutation emerging?

The original strain upon which the current vaccines are based has basically died out and Delta carries a lot more viral load (400x or so?), which changes the game a bit.

In comparison, smallpox virus was pretty much the same across centuries, so it was comparably easy to target and eradicate. No animal hosts helped, too.

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

#216

Post by fredros » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

hackingforfun wrote: post #131

NalNezumi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never ever on HN seen an argument about DNA and mRNA, but then again I don't follow the conversation too much. As it seems like you know someone with correct background on the subject, so I wanted to ask you something I've always wanted to know as a young,(late 20s) healthy person with no existing risky precondition in this pandemic: Why should I take a vaccine, when it is now known that vaccinated people can…

> If the chance of me getting hospitalized is so low to begin with I just don't think this is true. Again, look at the states in the US with the lowest levels of vaccination. They are running out of ICU beds due to the amount of cases. I'm not sure where you're located. Maybe there's a low amount of cases there, but in general, the risk of being hospitalized (and maybe not having a bed to go to) is rather high. The d…

We should not consider the US to be a good sample, given the sky-high obesity rates.

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

#217

Post by mikepurvis » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #202

Griffinsauce wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, what do you suppose the decisions makers could have done in the moment that would have persuaded you and other contrarians that they had a plan worth following, or at least worth trying?

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

#218

Post by rssoconnor » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

unknownOrigin wrote: post #154

Tenoke wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annual flu jabs aren't exactly uncommon. Obviously the mechanism isn't quite the same but there's no real reason to expect a high chance of issues at that rate of revaccination.

I wouldn't exactly call a comparison between gene therapy "isn't quite the same". Flu shots contain inactivated/weakened flu virus (depending on the version), to the presence of which/antigens the body reacts by creating antibodies. RNA vaccines are a different technology, which transfect (reprogram in IT speak) your own cells to produce spike proteins similar to the ones sars-cov-2 does (the consensus seems to be th…

> The result is esentially the same, but the way you get there contains an extra step and it is this extra step that is the source of the vast majority of (rare) adverse reactions. Blood clots etc.

The blood clotting issue was found in the Adenovirus vector vaccines, not the mRNA vaccines.

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

#219

Post by grey413 » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

dfawcus wrote: post #197

hackingforfun wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify I was talking about the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. AstraZeneca’s vaccine uses adenovirus-vectored technology, which is different [1]. [1] https://www.prevention.com/health/a35118263/astrazeneca-vs-p...

I was aware of that. From what I read, the mRNA vaccines manages to get the spike in to the cytoplasm, just like the real virus, so it to that extent mimics what is desired. Whereas the viral vector (a different delivery technology) used for the AZ vaccine manages to get the spike in to the nucleus, due to picking the "wrong" vector, so to that extents it could be said not to mimic what is desired. There was speculat…

mRNA vaccines deliver mRNA to the target cell, via merging a lipid bubble into the cell membrane and dumping the contents into the cytoplasm. The mRNA is then translated into a specially designed variant of the spike protein that is embedded facing out of the cell membrane. As it happens, the physical details of embedded protein translation means that the spike proteins never see the cytoplasm at all, being restricted to the endoplasmic reticulum.

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

#220

Post by NalNezumi » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #201

polote wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks for the informative reply. Yes, I think my demographic group are way more concerned about the side effects/long term effects of vaccine/covid than hospitalizations or death. And covid is not "risk free" after a influenza like symptoms for weeks.

I know same age group friends that have had covid and "loss of taste" have been the most common experience I've heard. It's anecdotal, but also a good data point to me since I know these people's lifestyle / demographic a bit better than sweeping big stats.

I'll check out the link you gave regarding this specific topic about covid long term effects and compare it to what we know about the vaccine