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Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

nature.com

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Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#311

Post by baq »

incrudible wrote: post #309
baq wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you conveniently miss the fact that if more people were vaccinated, delta wouldn't have spread this fast and perhaps wouldn't even come to be or would die out before it could spread.

How is that relevant? The question is: How effective are these vaccines really against that variant? In the real world, not in the lab. If half the cases are in vaccinated individuals and only half the people are vaccinated, how can the vaccine be 80%-90% effective? That's a mathematical impossibility. In the case of the deaths, it might be possible because the vaccinated are far older on average and likely over-coun…

i disagree fundamentally about the question.

for me, the question is: how can we prevent the virus from mutating enough to escape vaccine- and covid-based immunity with another variant? the answer is to stop the virus from infecting a host in which it can mutate freely and from which it can escape. we don't know these people, so we should aim to vaccinate as many as possible before it finds another person who walks around with the virus for multiple months with no symptoms, accelerating natural selection thousandfold.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#312

Post by baq »

incrudible wrote: post #285
baq wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "the benefits still outweigh the risk" this is not handwaving, this is the foundation stone of modern medicine.

Placebo-controlled studies that verify that the benefits actually outweigh the risk can be counted into those foundations. Speculative scenarios based on predictive factors that you could just fudge until the result looks "right" to you, those are the essentially quackery.

no disagreement here, but the same standards should be applied to misinformation from vaccine-skeptical folks. 'we don't know' is an honest answer for both sides.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#313

Post by baq »

wonderwonder wrote: post #276
baq wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can i sue you if i catch covid from you for violating my autonomy? only half joking.

You can try, but to succeed you would essentially have to prove that it came from me and that I all but intentionally infected you. Negligence would require that my actions are not the actions of a prudent person. With 50% of the population not being vaccinated it may be hard to prove what a prudent person would do. I'm vaccinated and would encourage others to get vaccinated but I am very much against forcing it on a…

i imagine perspective of being sued for spreading it would be a good motivation to get vaccinated.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#314

Post by timr »

Pyramus wrote: post #237
timr wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The graph is quite clear. It shows that seropositive (previously infected) people had a higher pre-existing antibody level before vaccination, and it rapidly increased at days 5-8 post-vaccination -- faster and stronger than in unexposed people. It takes 28+ days and a second dose for the unexposed group to approach the titers seen in the group who already had Covid, and they still don't quite get there. Most notably…

I don't follow your argumentation - why would extremely high antibody titres not almost certainly result in a better immune response? On the contrary, from all that we know today, wouldn't we expect people with high IgA titres to even develop neutralizing immunity, at least in the weeks after titres peak?

> I don't follow your argumentation - why would extremely high antibody titres not almost certainly result in a better immune response?

Antibody titres aren't constant. They increase when your immune system sees an antigen, and decline gradually afterward. In individuals with previous exposure to the antigen, they increase more quickly due to immune memory. This is true for any virus. Decline in circulating antibodies does not mean that your immunity has gone away.

Vaccination is, to a first approximation, injecting a large amount of antigen into someone to induce an immune response. Therefore, data that shows that previously exposed people have faster and stronger immune responses to vaccination are simply confirming what we already know about immunity. It does not mean that the vaccination made the response in exposed people stronger than it would have been otherwise.

Maybe it did, but you can't conclude it from this kind of data.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#315

Post by baq »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #307
baq wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was basic logic accessible to anyone that washing hands doesn't matter - it was, after all, just dirt and blood. it couldn't be proven that there was anything bad in dirt and blood.

So you think that Nature as a journal saying previous covid infection gives antibodies like the vaccines, is comparable to how primitive medical science once didn’t know you had to wash your hands before surgery?

yes, in that common sense is volatile and using basic logic in presence of unknown unknowns is a risky proposition. i don't particularly care about the paper because it doesn't apply to the variant which hasn't evolved yet.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#316

Post by amadeusw »

valeness wrote: post #149
reedjosh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because authoritarianism is antithetical to our founding nature. A centralized database that is used to control individuals is akin to China's social credit system. I've actually started seeing people argue for China style systems, and I find it both frightening and sickening. When I start to push back at all, I usually get arguments like `Leave the US if you don't like it.`, and sure I'll just pick up and leave the…

How is our credit score system much different than a centralized database used to control individuals?

Allegation of your excessive alcohol consumption or unpopular opinions is not going to decrease your credit score. Your donation to the government "charity" is not going to increase your credit score. With low credit score, you can still take a train to anywhere you want.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#317

Post by timr »

nokcha wrote: post #258
timr wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The graph is quite clear. It shows that seropositive (previously infected) people had a higher pre-existing antibody level before vaccination, and it rapidly increased at days 5-8 post-vaccination -- faster and stronger than in unexposed people. It takes 28+ days and a second dose for the unexposed group to approach the titers seen in the group who already had Covid, and they still don't quite get there. Most notably…

I'm not sure what you're saying -- are you saying that I inaccurately stated the experimental results of the study, or are you disputing their clinical relevance? I didn't really make any claims about the clinical relevance of this antibody study, but I do think that it suggests that the current CDC guidance (of recommending 2 doses even for those previously infected) might be overkill and that it would be worth furt…

> I do think that it suggests that the current CDC guidance (of recommending 2 doses even for those previously infected) might be overkill and that it would be worth further study of whether 1 dose (or even 0 doses) would be sufficient (including against variants) for those previously infected.

We agree on this.

> I don't know of any study of the Delta variant (or other recent variants) comparing immunity acquired from infection versus immunity conferred by vaccination -- AFAIK, it's still unknown how these compare and whether a vaccination might provide additional immunity against variants.

I'm not aware of any study of this, either. So far, everyone is focusing on the vaccines.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#318

Post by the_only_law »

amadeusw wrote: post #316
valeness wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is our credit score system much different than a centralized database used to control individuals?

Allegation of your excessive alcohol consumption or unpopular opinions is not going to decrease your credit score. Your donation to the government "charity" is not going to increase your credit score. With low credit score, you can still take a train to anywhere you want.

> you can still take a train to anywhere you want.

Generally agree, but have fun finding a place to live though, it seems around me even small landlords seem to want credit checks.

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#319

Post by superkuh »

timr wrote: post #178
superkuh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes. But we only get one influenza vaccine per year. The expectation has been for antibody neutralization coverage (not just T-cell mediated infected cell killing) lasting that long.

15 weeks is rather short. Additionally, it's not really 15 weeks. The study time scale starts at the 1st vaccine dose (week 1). Then it's 3 weeks until the 2nd dose and 2 more weeks till full protection. So the actual protective coverage span in this study is week 8 to week 15, or 7 weeks.

This study being held up as proof of long lasting immunity doesn't hold water. It is not bad news though. Decent B-cell responses (though tailing off) till 7 weeks after full vaccination is good. But we definitely need to know what happens after the first 2 months too. This exact study should be repeated again in 6 months (24 weeks).

Re: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may produce lasting immunity

#320

Post by sjwalter »

peter422 wrote: post #293
sjwalter wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you didn't read the link you pasted as well. Note the correction at the top of the page. It is clear that I'm correct. The vaccines are still in phase 3 clinical trials, as reported by clinicaltrials.gov, the source of truth for such questions. Estimated Study Completion Date literally means the date that the Phase 3 trial study is estimated to be completed, at which point FDA goes through the process of…

How do the ethical calculations stack up when we account for the hundreds of thousands of lives saved? Regardless of whether you think the vaccines are safe, they are quite clearly effective.

I'm having a hard time understanding your question because the only way I can interpret it seems to imply that you think it is better to lie to people about the status of a medical treatment than it is to be honest, in a gambit to ensure more people accept administration of the treatment.

Is that what you're implying?

To directly answer your question: I do not think the ethical calculations change one single iota based on any other outside calculation.

You should never misrepresent or elide any relevant information from people when they're about to make a decision about their health (or, hey, ever, in any situation).

It seems you're thinking if we were honest with people about the status of the vaccines, they'd be less likely to take them.

Like, here's the messaging I think is appropriate: Hey, we have some limited safety and efficacy data about these vaccines. The limited, phase 2 information shows that we think they're safe and effective, however, these vaccines have nowhere near the testing and trials that normal vaccines have prior to authorization. As well as lacking phase 3 long-term study, we eliminated animal studies and animal toxicity studies for some inexplicable reasons, so we're flying a bit blind. But we're in the midst of a deadly pandemic. The risk is yours to take.

I think the majority of people would still take the vaccines.

I think you think we should lie to the masses because they're too stupid to handle the truth.

I think that's evil.

The point of principles is to practice them when it's hard, not when it's easy. If you abandon them when it's convenient or during an emergency, you don't really have any principles.

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