Vaccine

[dad4]

There is this thing called med school. Maybe you've heard of it?

There is this thing called med school. Maybe you've heard of it? But to your point, you'll notice he cites a study that you didn't read. Or worse, you did read it and did comprehend it but can't bring yourself to admit that there is an Army of doctors out there that are smarter than you

Okay. You got me there. 27.02 is what it said. Happy?

Which thing is 27.02 times which other thing?

From the study:
“After adjusting for comorbidities, we found a 27.02-fold risk (95% CI, 12.7 to 57.5) for symptomatic breakthrough infection as opposed to symptomatic reinfection (P<0.001)”

From your unqualified yokel:
“ On Aug. 25, Israel published the most powerful and scientifically rigorous study on the subject to date. In a sample of more than 700,000 people, natural immunity was 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic infections.”

Can you see the difference? Your yokel saw that one infection rate was 27.02 times another, and thought it meant that one reduction is 27.02 times the other. Not the same at all.

Still claiming that your guy got it right?

 

[dad4]

I wish it had only been a Michigan State employee that covered it up. Unfortunately, the FBI participated as well and now the Justice Department refuses to prosecute. I hope that the might change given the Democrats strong worded objections to lack of prosecution.

You're again barking up the wrong tree. I'm pro-Vax, but you're gaslighting by claiming vaccines are better than natural immunity from prior infection. My point is trust but verify when it comes to vaccines. You want us to ignore any criticism of the vaccines. "Nothing to see here, just obey".

what do you suggest we do with the information on natural immunity?

Clearly, it is not enough that someone thinks they already had covid.

Are you saying that a positive test for covid antibodies should count towards vaccination requirements? Or only those who have a prior positive PCR test result?

 

[espola]

A large proportion of the world's population thinks this guy is always right, so...

Pope urges COVID inoculations, says vaccines are humanity's friends

Pope Francis said on Wednesday he was puzzled why so many people, including some cardinals in Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, have refused to get inoculated against COVID-19.

www.reuters.com

 

[Bruddah IZ]

Why is it that anti-vaxxers claim vaccines are unsafe despite every study imaginable telling them otherwise because "only time will tell" and the future is "unknowable", yet they claim that natural immunity is safer for us in the long term because a study tells us that? Why is it that the future is knowable to them only if they think it supports their narrative, but is not when it doesn't?

Lol! Why is it that anti-immune system folks make the false claim that pro-immune system folks claim that vaccines are unsafe despite every study imaginable telling them that vaccines marginally protect folks compared to natural infection? It is true that "only time will tell" if you bothered to look at the data from previous respiratory pandemics. The future is "knowable" enough if you are willing to look at the past. Natural immunity has been safer for us in the long term because the data is consistent with past respiratory pandemics, even in the absence of NPI and SIP policies. The future is predictable to pro-immune system folks. And CDC data driven too. Your accusations of a narrative that you disagree with is a Strawman.

Regardless, this study is a perfect example of the lengths to which anti-vaxxers will go to misrepresent what something means, or they're just too stupid to understand what a study does and doesn't mean. Yes, those with natural immunity have longer lasting protection against infection, just like pretty much everyone who develops natural immunity from an illness that doesn't kill them, like polio and smallpox had stronger immunity than a vaccine could provide. Do you see where this is going?

Regardless, your response is a perfect example of the lengths to which you anti-immune system folks will go to misrepresent what something means, or are just too stupid to understand what means to your false narrative. Yes, those with natural immunity have longer lasting protection against infection, just like pretty much everyone who develops natural immunity from an illness that doesn't kill them. Is this your mea culpa?

The other thing about this study is that it compares people who got vaccinated with a sample of those who got Covid, excluding the approximately 700,000 unvaccinated people who have died from it plus all the others who have suffered debilitating long term complications. I guess we don't need seatbelts, because if you exclude all the people who died not wearing them, no one dies from not wearing seatbelts. I guess we don't need penicillin because if you just exclude all the people who die from infections because they did not take penicillin, no one dies from infections.

Lol! I cant imagine why they would have excluded 700,000 DEAD people from the study. You sound desperate.

None of this changes the unquestionable conclusion that acquired immunity through vaccination is safer overall than natural immunity. If you get vaccinated, it is much less likely you will get Covid than if you aren't, and there is virtually a 0% chance that you will get seriously ill let alone die from Covid. If you rely on natural immunity, however, you'll only be in much better shape unless it kills you or you become seriously ill from it of course. Natural immunity has a 100% chance of saving your life if you aren't like one of the approximately 700,000 so far for whom it didn't work at all. And if you're vaccinated, you are a much lower risk to transmit it to someone else, whereas if you rely on "natural immunity", you only become a reduced risk to transmit it to others after you've already given it to everyone around you when you got it.

So much for Science.

 

[watfly]

Are you saying that a positive test for covid antibodies should count towards vaccination requirements? Or only those who have a prior positive PCR test result?

Well I'm opposed to mandates in most cases, but if vaccinations are mandated, natural immunity should be considered as an acceptable alternative since it provides superior immunity. All that should be necessary would be proof of an infection, which would be easily attainable from your healthcare provider, just as a vaccination card is. Antibody tests aren't being required for the vaccinated so it shouldn't be required for the naturally immune. In both cases immunity likely wanes over time, but there doesn't appear to be any substantive evidence of which one provides longer protection.

I would still suggest that its preferable to get a vaccine even if you've been infected. However, having natural immunity is a good faith objection to not getting vaccinated.

 

[Bruddah IZ]

I still don’t get what you are advocating. You seem to think that the best way to reduce covid infections is for everyone to get infected with covid.

I think you're avoiding the Science, past and present.

 

[Bruddah IZ]

Which thing is 27.02 times which other thing?

From the study:
“After adjusting for comorbidities, we found a 27.02-fold risk (95% CI, 12.7 to 57.5) for symptomatic breakthrough infection as opposed to symptomatic reinfection (P<0.001)”

From your unqualified yokel:
“ On Aug. 25, Israel published the most powerful and scientifically rigorous study on the subject to date. In a sample of more than 700,000 people, natural immunity was 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic infections.”

Can you see the difference? Your yokel saw that one infection rate was 27.02 times another, and thought it meant that one reduction is 27.02 times the other. Not the same at all.

Still claiming that your guy got it right?

Lol! Please continue.

 

[what-happened]

Maybe "they" can't figure out the cause because it isn't actually true.

Mr. Makary provides no link for his "27 times" claim.

He does link to a CDC study. The study says that vaccination after an infection improves your immunity. (Natural + vax is better than natural alone.)

Makary misreads this to mean natural immunity is better than vaccinated.

You have a surgeon who is having trouble reading even a basic scientific paper. Do you have anyone qualified?

I don't get you. My point isn't hybrid immunity, it's natural VS vaccine. There are studies that suggest hybrid immunity MAY be better at preventing re-infection. The jury is still out and it's something that should be studied. Talk to you dr. If you are a low risk person who's had covid, getting the vaccine could be pointless. If YOU want hybrid immunity,have at it. Fortunately, for now, we have choices. If you've had covid and in the high risk demographic, get a vaccinated. Pretty simple.

It's the mandates that are going to drive previously infected people crazy..and it should. Mandating stuff for low risk healthy people is silly.

 

[Bruddah IZ]

This particular study has been linked and/or regurgitated out of twitter feeds several times now. If you look more broadly it is clearly a talisman link for the anti-vaxx crowd. I posted a critique of it many pages back but maybe worth repeating a few points. A cohort study like they did is a fine approach to examine the issue of sustained immunity, but it does come with some associated problems. One problem is if the outcome of interest (in this case delta infection) is rare within the cohorts. Then you can get statistical artifacts with how the outcome bins between the two groups. That is a possibility in this study where there are only ~250 cases of delta infection. In some ways, the main conclusion of the study is that, regardless of immune priming by viral infection vs vaccination, subsequent reinfection is rare. The next question becomes what's different about the small ~250 people that had acquired immunity but were re-infected? From a biological standpoint, that's interesting and, from my back and forth with the editors at Science, that's why they decided to do a highlight of it (even prior to completion of peer review). It's known that different people maintain different levels of circulating antibodies post infection or vaxx. It can vary widely. Examples of that phenomenon have even been posted on this site. The why of that probably has to do with lots of stuff that are of interest to immunologists and epidemiologists. At any rate, if those factors are in effect a "comorbitity" that was not accounted for in setting up the original cohorts, and vaxxed represent something like 70-ish percent of the study population, you will also tend to see biased binning between the cohorts.

Anyway, it was an interesting exchange with the editors at Science. The issue becomes, in a raging infodemic, to what extent do scientists bear a responsibility to insulate their work from being mis-appropriated. Or is that not a responsibility that should be placed up them. There is no bright line, but editorial policies probably need to change to address the issue. Unfortunately, the outcome in this case is that how ~250 cases bin one way or another gets expressed as an odds risk of 13X which is then talisman linked to mean that there is now indisputable evidence that "natural immunity" (as if there is any other kind) due to viral infection much better than vaccination. It's rediculous, and a silly argument anyway. But that's a extbook example of the infodemic in action.

Whew! I thought you were making a case for mandating vaccines for the previously infected.

 

[Bruddah IZ]

I don't get you. My point isn't hybrid immunity, it's natural VS vaccine. There are studies that suggest hybrid immunity MAY be better at preventing re-infection. The jury is still out and it's something that should be studied. Talk to you dr. If you are a low risk person who's had covid, getting the vaccine could be pointless. If YOU want hybrid immunity,have at it. Fortunately, for now, we have choices. If you've had covid and in the high risk demographic, get a vaccinated. Pretty simple.

It's the mandates that are going to drive previously infected people crazy..and it should. Mandating stuff for low risk healthy people is silly.

The Tyranny of tiny risk

 

[what-happened]

Why is it that anti-vaxxers claim vaccines are unsafe despite every study imaginable telling them otherwise because "only time will tell" and the future is "unknowable", yet they claim that natural immunity is safer for us in the long term because a study tells us that? Why is it that the future is knowable to them only if they think it supports their narrative, but is not when it doesn't?

Regardless, this study is a perfect example of the lengths to which anti-vaxxers will go to misrepresent what something means, or they're just too stupid to understand what a study does and doesn't mean. Yes, those with natural immunity have longer lasting protection against infection, just like pretty much everyone who develops natural immunity from an illness that doesn't kill them, like polio and smallpox had stronger immunity than a vaccine could provide. Do you see where this is going?

The other thing about this study is that it compares people who got vaccinated with a sample of those who got Covid, excluding the approximately 700,000 unvaccinated people who have died from it plus all the others who have suffered debilitating long term complications. I guess we don't need seatbelts, because if you exclude all the people who died not wearing them, no one dies from not wearing seatbelts. I guess we don't need penicillin because if you just exclude all the people who die from infections because they did not take penicillin, no one dies from infections.

None of this changes the unquestionable conclusion that acquired immunity through vaccination is safer overall than natural immunity. If you get vaccinated, it is much less likely you will get Covid than if you aren't, and there is virtually a 0% chance that you will get seriously ill let alone die from Covid. If you rely on natural immunity, however, you'll only be in much better shape unless it kills you or you become seriously ill from it of course. Natural immunity has a 100% chance of saving your life if you aren't like one of the approximately 700,000 so far for whom it didn't work at all. And if you're vaccinated, you are a much lower risk to transmit it to someone else, whereas if you rely on "natural immunity", you only become a reduced risk to transmit it to others after you've already given it to everyone around you when you got it.

How I wish there was a popcorn eating emoji

 

[crush]

How I wish there was a popcorn eating emoji

I heard Jim cut a deal with t and the real military and is playing Biden a 1/3 of the time with a "Biden Mask." Not sure if it's true or not, it's just a rumor from a dear friend of another friend who knows someone in the know.

 

[EvilGoalie 21]

Whew! I thought you were making a case for mandating vaccines for the previously infected.

The main point is that the purpose and conclusions of that particular study do not support the claims that you are, directly or indirectly through talisman linking, are trying to place upon it.

My personal opinion on mandating vaxx, while irrelevant, is that I don't care whether an adult chooses to do it or not. I recognize there is a public policy issue at the moment about documenting immune exposure for a viral infection versus vaxx, but I'm agnostic on it. Once the under 12 crowd has the option of the vaxx, my personal opinion, like I've said before, is that its Balfour time. There are those here that say kids have no real risk, etc. The argument for why one might consider that population, however, is precisely logically equivalent to "nobody has a crystal ball so we just don't know if the vaccine will have long term complications".

 

[Grace T.]

The main point is that the purpose and conclusions of that particular study do not support the claims that you are, directly or indirectly through talisman linking, are trying to place upon it.

My personal opinion on mandating vaxx, while irrelevant, is that I don't care whether an adult chooses to do it or not. I recognize there is a public policy issue at the moment about documenting immune exposure for a viral infection versus vaxx, but I'm agnostic on it. Once the under 12 crowd has the option of the vaxx, my personal opinion, like I've said before, is that its Balfour time. There are those here that say kids have no real risk, etc. The argument for why one might consider that population, however, is precisely logically equivalent to "nobody has a crystal ball so we just don't know if the vaccine will have long term complications".

So you'd be o.k. when 5-12 get the vaccine, or are we waiting for 1-5 (because the under 6 months quite possibly will not have the vaccine approved)? If the 1-5 you are saying you are waiting a year plus, or are you privy to a shorter time table (because Fauci said a few weeks back 5-12 was this winter)?

If I understand correctly your argument is that people are making the argument we don't know what the long term implications of a vaccine are. But you point out we don't know what the long term effects of the virus are. Therefore, aren't both risks the same? That argument would be a great one if the vaccine prevented infection, but we know now it doesn't. do that 100%. The public health authorities say it's in the 80% neighborhood, but there's some evidence it is less, perhaps even substantially so. Given that an unvaxxed under 12 has a lower risk of death or hospitalization than a vaxxed over 40, that's just not a convincing argument. It follows if we concerned about the unvaxxed under 12, we should be more worried about the vaxxed over 40. If the vaxx were bullet proof it would at least a compelling argument, but we know the vaxx isn't.

 

[dad4]

Well I'm opposed to mandates in most cases, but if vaccinations are mandated, natural immunity should be considered as an acceptable alternative since it provides superior immunity. All that should be necessary would be proof of an infection, which would be easily attainable from your healthcare provider, just as a vaccination card is. Antibody tests aren't being required for the vaccinated so it shouldn't be required for the naturally immune. In both cases immunity likely wanes over time, but there doesn't appear to be any substantive evidence of which one provides longer protection.

I would still suggest that its preferable to get a vaccine even if you've been infected. However, having natural immunity is a good faith objection to not getting vaccinated.

That sounds fair. I’d be happy with either a confirmed infection or an antibody test. As long as it is verified.

There is also a strong argument that it is unfair to vaccinate known recovered patients while almost all of Africa is unvaccinated.

 

[crush]

That sounds fair. I’d be happy with either a confirmed infection or an antibody test. As long as it is verified.

There is also a strong argument that it is unfair to vaccinate known recovered patients while almost all of Africa is unvaccinated.

You two should get a room and have cheers together....lol!!!

 

[dad4]

I don't get you. My point isn't hybrid immunity, it's natural VS vaccine. There are studies that suggest hybrid immunity MAY be better at preventing re-infection. The jury is still out and it's something that should be studied. Talk to you dr. If you are a low risk person who's had covid, getting the vaccine could be pointless. If YOU want hybrid immunity,have at it. Fortunately, for now, we have choices. If you've had covid and in the high risk demographic, get a vaccinated. Pretty simple.

It's the mandates that are going to drive previously infected people crazy..and it should. Mandating stuff for low risk healthy people is silly.

There is no “natural vs vaccine” argument. They both work extremely well.

The vast majority of the US 12+ population does not have verified natural immunity. There are only about 40M people who have tested positive.

The main policy question is whether there should be a vaccine mandate for the 240 million people who cannot demonstrate natural immunity. Whether to exempt the other 40 million is a relatively minor policy question.

 

[dad4]

You two should get a room and have cheers together....lol!!!

productive discussions are rare these days. Worth raising a pint to the concept.

 

[crush]

productive discussions are rare these days. Worth raising a pint to the concept.

You two are Pro-Vax Dads and 99% of my male friends are Pro-Vax too. I am getting squeezed out of the state. I want to stay, I really really do. The warrior ((William Wallace)) in me wants to duke it out with my words but I'm too old for this and we have way too many Robert the Bruce in these parts. Milk toast dads...lol!!! I was hoping I could get some to see my side but their putting their chips in with the jab and compliance. I get it. I will be 55 in November and dont have the mental toughness to deal with folks like you anymore. You win and I will leave 100%. I need some time with my dd before she graduates. I wont tell her the news that I know Grace knows about. It's super weak and low bro but that's how you guys decided to play. This is over my head now and I see the writing on the wall. Bye bye!!!

 

[EvilGoalie 21]

So you'd be o.k. when 5-12 get the vaccine, or are we waiting for 1-5 (because the under 6 months quite possibly will not have the vaccine approved)? If the 1-5 you are saying you are waiting a year plus, or are you privy to a shorter time table (because Fauci said a few weeks back 5-12 was this winter)?

Fauci's timetable? Shrug. What stuffed shirts like Rand Paul have to say? Double shrug.

If I understand correctly your argument is that people are making the argument we don't know what the long term implications of a vaccine are. But you point out we don't know what the long term effects of the virus are. Therefore, aren't both risks the same?

If a risk is hypothetical, or even potentially known but not quantifiable, they cannot be compared to one another in any truly objective way. You can say, likely both are small. You can say here is the one i think is important. but you are forced to weigh them against one another based on a non-quantitative framework. Maybe the come out the same for you.

That argument would be a great one if the vaccine prevented infection, but we know now it doesn't. do that 100%. The public health authorities say it's in the 80% neighborhood, but there's some evidence it is less, perhaps even substantially so. Given that an unvaxxed under 12 has a lower risk of death or hospitalization than a vaxxed over 40, that's just not a convincing argument. It follows if we concerned about the unvaxxed under 12, we should be more worried about the vaxxed over 40. If the vaxx were bullet proof it would at least a compelling argument, but we know the vaxx isn't.

With respect, once you get to "nothing's 100%" in these sort of posts I tend to lose track of what you are trying to say. Of course the vaccine has a lower efficacy for community transmission with delta then earlier lower R0 variants. My hypothetical concern with the youngers has nothing to do with efficacy of the vaccine against community transmission. It has to do with what constitutes a naieve innate immune system and why these respiratory syndroms caused by coronaviruses tend to create such a variable tipping point for some conglomeration of immune mediated cell lysis, cytokine dumping, IL-6 inflammation loop amplifcation etc. If we were to go through subsequent viral waves, with each wave those immune systems are getting less and less naieve. That gets into the weeds, probably not something people want to get into here. But its something some people are thinking about.

 

[Bruddah IZ]

There is no “natural vs vaccine” argument. They both work extremely well.

Nice try. So why the anti-immune system attitude via a vax or else mandate?

The vast majority of the US 12+ population does not have verified natural immunity. There are only about 40M people who have tested positive.

Lol! Is that why you went super nova with the case count? The truth is that you really don't know how many folks have natural immunity.

The main policy question is whether there should be a vaccine mandate for the 240 million people who cannot demonstrate natural immunity. Whether to exempt the other 40 million is a relatively minor policy question.

So much for "There is no “natural vs vaccine” argument. They both work extremely well". Funny watching you go full circle in one post