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Comment by raphlinus | Hacker News Reader

I flagged this. It's a perfectly fine paper, and quite interesting to someone with a deep interest in virology. However, the only purpose I can possibly see it serve in a Hacker News discussion is just to go around in circles on vaccine fears.

ADE is definitely one of the things to worry about, especially given that there were some signs in animal models and also in vitro. However, if ADE were an actual problem, we would be seeing massive signs of it, given how much virus is going around and how many people are vaccinated. That, of course, won't stop the "do your own research" people from freaking out.

ETA: Please, please prove me wrong. Post some comments that contribute towards an intellectually curious discussion. That will change my approach to this kind of thing. My cynicism is based on past patterns, but I don't think those are completely locked-in.

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A while back I linked a paper titled "The Technology Effect: How Perceptions of Technology Drive Excessive Optimism" (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-015-9399-4). This is a central trend in the posts I do. It is to consider whether "Excessive optimism that technology will result in success can have negative consequences." So I post within that lineage and to attract comments that may yield unique perspectives. Thus I see it as relevant in the discussion of what is created by technology in possible consequences. For this it relates to the vaccines. Other posts relate to how amish manage to use technology et al.

The secondary reason for posting is that most of what I post is a save for later access for my own use. I have other flag posts that I access in the same manner. So whatever floats your boat.

Thanks for explaining your thinking. I like your theme and think it's worth discussing, but honestly this paper is only tangentially relevant. It would be relevant if ADE were a thing, but basically this is input to a highly technical discussion, and the fact that this discussion is happening (the vaccines are getting serious scrutiny) is good news.

I've been thinking about how to improve the quality of discourse on HN a bit, and I think the philosophy of Wikipedia might be relevant. They discourage linking primary sources (like this paper), but encourage quality secondary sources. A review of ADE in the Covid vaccines, citing this paper, might be a much better choice, as it would provide context and a framework for evaluating the more fine-grained issues.

HN is indeed not the proper forum to have this conversation. The epidemiological data indicates the the vaccines are not exhibiting ADE in the Delta, so no need to panic. Yet framing the conversation in terms of 'those people' is unproductive.

The ADE situation is of high concern. There is a huge open question in deciding whether to vaccinate kids or not. For kids the risk of covid death is a tiny 1% of the share of death from all cases. For hypothetical future strains that may exhibit ADE in combination with current vaccines, the existing epidemiologically data is simply irrelevant. There is a tiny possibility of 'the cure is worse than the disease' situation may develop in the future.

The Li paper is claiming in-vitro infection enhancing antibodies. This paper is modeling increased balance of infection enhancing antibodies for Delta. It appears we don't understand enough how ADE works to make foolproof predictions about future strains. There is huge public pressure to 'just give the kids the vaccine'. This may prove a mistake.

Concerns around kids and vaccinations (unclear of what nature, as we are not supposed to be transparent about such matters) are held by the scientific establishment and by the authorities. As of now, neither EU nor US have approved the vaccines for under 12s. US and half the Europe has approved only Pfizer for teens. In Europe, half the countries have not approved vaccines for teens, and the other half only approved in June 2021. UK and Germany are only vaccinating high risk teens: "STIKO [Ger] said in a statement that it recommends a vaccination only for those youngsters with an illness that raises their risk of a serious case of coronavirus."

PS. Dear downvoters. I'd appreciate if you'd also make a brief comment explaining your reasoning. Perhaps I missed something obvious. Think of it as a code review.

https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/public-health/covid-...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/causes-of-death-in-5-14-y...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w

https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/european-countries...

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-panel-gives-limi...

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