Comment by criticaltinker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by criticaltinker | Hacker News Reader

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> For the recovered? No

The scientific literature supports your position, see [1][2]. In fact there is no benefit to vaccinating these individuals, at least nothing published in the literature yet (please share links if anyone has evidence otherwise).

> Is there a significant chance that the vaccine will apply selective pressure to the virus leading to an escape variant? It's an interesting topic, I recommend exploring some of the lit and the current trends with Delta

Here are some great resources to learn about this topic [3][4][5][6][7][8]. If you're new to this topic try starting with [6]. Otherwise [3] is an accessible paper to jump into. [8] gives you an idea how this could play out, with evidence from chickens.

> Is it plausible that the vaccine industry is applying financial incentives to folks at [BIG MEDIA] to promote max vaccination?

I have no peer-reviewed references for this (yet), but to those reading please share if you do!

[1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf

[2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...

[3] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/

[4] SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion by the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant of concern https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/30/scie...

[5] mRNA vaccine-elicited antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and circulating variants https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03324-6

[6] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016...

[7] The adaptive evolution of virulence: a review of theoretical predictions and empirical tests https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

[8] Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fj...

Your first two citations merely suggest there would be limited benefits to previously infected getting the jab. Other research disagrees with this.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01609-4

Thanks for the citation. Here is a link to the paper cited in the article you've referenced [1]. It does not make claims that are in disagreement with my previous citations.

Quotes from [1]:

- "The notable evolution of neutralizing breadth after infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the robust enhancement of serologic responses and B cell memory achieved with mRNA vaccination SUGGESTS that convalescent individuals who are vaccinated should enjoy high levels of protection against emerging variants without a need to modify existing vaccines."

- "No statistical methods were used to predetermine sample size. The experiments were not randomized and the investigators were not blinded to allocation during experiments and outcome assessment."

In summary [1] shows that "Vaccination increases all components of the humoral response" [1]. This is well established in the literature, and not really up for debate.

However, the mistake you're making is jumping to the conclusion that higher neutralizing titre levels (or antibodies, anti-RBD IgG, etc) are inherently more beneficial. This has not been demonstrated in the literature yet, and it's extremely difficult to determine at what level someone is "protected enough".

Here's a direct quote from the article you linked to, supporting this fact:

- "At the moment, the quantity and vigour of a person’s neutralizing antibodies are the best markers for assessing whether that person is protected from infection and illness — although scientists are still working to confirm that antibody levels can serve as a realistic stand-in for immune protection."

> Your first two citations merely suggest

The evidence provided by [2] goes well beyond "mere suggestion", with statistically significant findings and N = 52,238.

Quote from [2]:

- "The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated"

[1] Naturally enhanced neutralizing breadth against SARS-CoV-2 one year after infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9

[2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...

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