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Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

imperial.ac.uk

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Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#81

Post by squarefoot »

snewman wrote: post #29

It's worth clarifying: un-boosted vaccination or past infection seem to have greatly reduced ability to prevent infection with Omicron. There is still substantial (lessened, but not as drastically lessened) protection against serious illness / death. My understanding is that protection-against-infection and protection-against-death rely on different aspects of the immune system. The primary protection against initial…

This, a million times.

Over here 80-90% of Covid patients in ICUs are either never vaccinated or in need of a boost because of too much time past since their 2nd shot. So, yes, vaccination may not prevent being infected, but for sure it helps immensely in avoiding being hospitalized and shortening the infection, which does actually translate in less people being infected. And believe me, having both lived and seen this with my own eyes, there's a world of difference between staying home 2-3 weeks with a strong cough and living 2 months in an ICU with chances of being carried out from there in a brown bag.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#82

Post by mypalmike »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #49
valine wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sooner they mandate a third does the better. Not sure why this news would lower trust in the government, can you elaborate on that?

Because the promises aren't panning out, and with each stutter step comes another heavy handed proposal (e.g., tracking, vax passports, etc.) In desperation the public has abandoned "trust but verify." Put another way, given the lessons of history, governments should be trusted less, not more. The default shouldn't not be, "Sure, whatever you say."

Governments are adapting to new information. If you expect government policy to be based on an all-knowing oracle, of course you are going to be disappointed.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#83

Post by sdeframond »

mygoodaccount wrote: post #72

What about both? I have both past infection and I'm double vaxxed. Based on the data, should I get boosted? From what I'm reading the answer is yes but does anybody have an estimation of my protection right now?

What do you have to loose?

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#84

Post by kurthr »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #7
jeidz wrote: post #4

If it evades immunity from past infection isn’t it a different virus in the practical sense?

Well, since the booster seems to protect, no? I am hoping that Omicron will boost immunity versus delta while being more mild. This makes me suspect that this will be the case: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/omicron-dominant-was... "Even though there have been practically no cases of clinical infection, wastewater samples show that the new omicron variant is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the Florida…

Unfortunately, the mutation differences between Delta and Omicron are more significant than from the early Alpha/Beta which it appears to be more related.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global (see B1.1.529)

It's fitness is driven (in South Africa) largely by the ability to avoid Delta immunity, where a majority of the population has already had that.

Whether Omicron is more mild or not seems still up in the air. Saying that it is more mild in Southern Africa (or a theme park?) where the average age is in the mid 20s (rather than 38 for the whole US) isn't all that relevant since we know symptomatic illness falls more than an order of magnitude between those two.

That said, I've been expecting COVID immunity in the US to look something like Pfizer-Pfizer-Delta-Omicron-Omega since it was clear that we couldn't get more that 60% vaccination. The goal should be keeping the hospitals available for actual catastrophic accidents (heart attacks, car accidents, ladders) rather than complex suicide lottery attempts.

Frankly, at this point it's a choice. You can be a rude nudist/antimasker, a filthy contagion/antivaxer who will spread disease or you can be a regular human who goes about their life. Other than the old/infirm we don't need to protect people from their (bad) decisions any more. I'm glad I'm not immune compromised, 80 years old, or caring for a very young child... it would suck!

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#85

Post by seeEllArr »

mygoodaccount wrote: post #72

What about both? I have both past infection and I'm double vaxxed. Based on the data, should I get boosted? From what I'm reading the answer is yes but does anybody have an estimation of my protection right now?

What does getting boosted cost you?

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#86

Post by snewman »

abduhl wrote: post #63
snewman wrote: post #29

It's worth clarifying: un-boosted vaccination or past infection seem to have greatly reduced ability to prevent infection with Omicron. There is still substantial (lessened, but not as drastically lessened) protection against serious illness / death. My understanding is that protection-against-infection and protection-against-death rely on different aspects of the immune system. The primary protection against initial…

What you’re saying sounds correct, but is there any evidence that shows omicron is resulting in less serious illness/death because of the vaccines? The reports seem to indicate that the overall risk profile of omicron is lower including for unvaccinated people. Are we just parroting the same fact as for the alpha/delta variants without any substantial evidence here when we say vaccination helps avoid serious illness…

Hard information regarding serious illness / death from Omicron is scanty; it's still early. I've read indications that the vaccines (and/or previous infection with another variant, such as Delta) do seem to provide substantial protection against serious illness/death, but I don't have a link handy. IIRC at least some of the data we're working with is based on lab experiments of how various immune system components react to Omicron, which of course is less definitive than clinical outcomes, but is worth something.

> Why would a variant which has apparently evolved to evade the vaccine continue to react to prior vaccination?

This is over-simplified. In particular, "react to prior vaccination" is conflating a bunch of different things, involving antibodies, B cells, T cells, etc. My understanding is that (1) such data as we have seems to generally point toward protection-from-infection being badly eroded but protection-from-illness/death being only moderately eroded, (2) if you're boosted, protection is less badly eroded, (3) all of this seems to fit with our general understanding of how the immune system works. I don't have the domain knowledge to unpack that further.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#87

Post by [deleted] »

mypalmike wrote: post #82
chiefalchemist wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the promises aren't panning out, and with each stutter step comes another heavy handed proposal (e.g., tracking, vax passports, etc.) In desperation the public has abandoned "trust but verify." Put another way, given the lessons of history, governments should be trusted less, not more. The default shouldn't not be, "Sure, whatever you say."

Governments are adapting to new information. If you expect government policy to be based on an all-knowing oracle, of course you are going to be disappointed.

[deleted]

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#89

Post by eagsalazar2 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #65
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think the CDC and other govt and NGO organizations, as an international coordinated group effort, are in bed with pharma companies, plotting with them to falsify data and craft false recommendations, just so those farma companies can make more $$? I mean, I actually do think that pharma companies are vile, have successfully gained significant regulatory capture, and can influence policy through their own m…

Don't think of it as a top-down conspiracy. Think of it as an alignment of perverse incentives. New variant comes out, CDC is pressed to propose a solution. Pharma companies come in and say "here's a study we did ourselves showing that our own product provides some improvement." CDC recommends pharma product for lack of any better ideas. You can reasonably imagine getting this result whether or not the booster actual…

Are all these studies and conversations from or led by pharma outsiders? If so can you provide any evidence of that? I mean it sounds like people are starting with a strongly held belief that there is a conspiracy and everyone is evil/corrupt (true of pharma I admit), then accepting, rejecting, and constructing arguments and evidence just to suit their preexisting beliefs which in turn have simply been constructed to serve their own goals and world views. Whew, well maybe this theory of why people believe what they do about covid and govt is me constructing self serving conspiracies. Shit is complex, but yeah this is my theory because otherwise I'm completely baffled that mostly smart people seem to be acting so completely irrationally.

Re: Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

#90

Post by marcosdumay »

throwaway_2009 wrote: post #66
valine wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sooner they mandate a third does the better. Not sure why this news would lower trust in the government, can you elaborate on that?

So they "mandate" a third dose, nothing happens long term, so they do a fourth lockdown, close some businesses again, do some travel bans, tell people to put things on their faces, nothing happens long term, so they "mandate" a fourth dose, do a fourth lockdown... And then the virus is still everywhere, it's still significantly more dangerous to be outside than it was in February 2020, and now it's a tremendous admin…

> everyone is terrified due to your big marketing campaign

Yeah, a lot of people dying tends to terrify people.

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