Only 28 Percent of Young Black New Yorkers Are Vaccinated | Hacker News Reader

Only 28 Percent of Young Black New Yorkers Are Vaccinated

nytimes.com

What % of African Americans have already been exposed to COVID and thus have natural immunity?

Why not just allow antibody tests to be regarded the same as vaccines? Carving out this kind of exclusion would solve the problem, and allow vaccines to be redistributed.

The CDC estimates that 33% of the American population has been exposed to COVID, and for the African American population its probably about 50% when extrapolating from case counts [2]

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/king-county...

Just because you’ve been exposed, doesn’t mean you are immune.

Just because you’ve been vaccinated doesn’t mean you’re immune.

Tests have false readings, both positive and negative.

Tests are a point-in-time thing. They don’t tell you anything useful about what happens if you get exposed five minutes or five days after the test. Or, if your infection wasn’t far enough along to be detected. So, you have to keep taking them.

There are no panaceas.

But there are measures you can take to reduce your risk of infection, and to reduce the likely severity of infection if you do have a breakthrough.

They seem to be failing to recognize the difference, and failing to even bother to try reducing the risk.

Well, at least they explain everything wrong in the very first line of the article:

"A construction site safety manager in Queens said that as a Black man, he was more worried about the prospect of being stopped by the police than he was about getting Covid-19."

Humans are truly horrible at assessing risk. So many cognitive biases, where do you even start.

You could make the argument that he may have had first-hand experience with police harassment, and not with the effects of covid-19. This may be a cognitive bias but the same issue presents with some vaccine avoiders - no experience with the risks (ie not knowing someone who has had covid-19)

But that risk assessment is right. Why would a black guy worry about COVID, some 1/10000 risk? They face a higher chance of getting arrested for a crime they didn’t commit, a higher chance of getting murdered, and a much higher chance of getting laid.

Start with the media.

Media in 2020: "Racism is a public health emergency, so go ahead and have your 2020 National BLM Super Spreader Event"

Media in 2021: "Black people are more concerned about racism than COVID."

No one could have predicted this.

Mmm, not sure about the numbers here. If you're a young, healthy person, Covid is not particularly dangerous. If you're a young, healthy, inner-city black man, police are actually very dangerous. Seems to me very plausible that the chances of dying in a police stop are higher than dying of covid for some demographics.

If you're a young, healthy person, Covid is not particularly dangerous. If you're a young, healthy, inner-city black man, police are actually very dangerous.

The point is - it's a non-sequitur, regardless. It's like saying: "As a member of group X, I'm more worried about the prospect of being stopped by the police than I am about getting killed or maimed in a car wreck. Therefore, I don't wear a seatbelt."

Sure, but it might change how motivated you are to address threats that don't meet your everyday minima. Nobody worries about being eaten by a bear in manhattan because it's not very likely - you're much more likely to get hit by a car, or eaten by your neighbor even. So you see people preparing against those threats, and not devoting any time to the bears-in-manhattan threat vector. This seems rational to me.

So you see people preparing against those threats, and not devoting any time to the bears-in-manhattan threat vector.

Except Covid risk - especially if you work in crowded spaces, ride the subway, or go to bars and clubs - is much, much greater than from bears in the park.

I find it contradictory how largely the same group that talks about diversity and inclusion and systemic racism etc is happy to champion policies that ignore the views of minority groups (whether ethnic, religious, rural, whatever), tell them they are wrong and their concerns unfounded, and call for them to be segregated and denied service based on their choices. An actual "inclusive" construct would work with people to understand and respect their concerns, and meet them where they are, not just tell them they're wrong.

Not that it's hard to find inconsistencies in religious / dogmatic positions generally. But in this case, it's messed up that people are going ahead with literal populism - enacting policies that placate an angry mob to the detriment and exclusion of other voices, while simultaneously claiming to support the under represented. Its almost as if their goal all along was not expanded rights, but just trying to find wedges to push their agenda forward...

I don't find it contradictory at all; in fact I would be surprised if it were any other way. There is a single unbroken thread of policy positions linking white paternalistic slave owners[0], to white paternalistic parts of the abolitionist movement, to white paternalistic policies of today. You can argue that this is outrageous and unbelievable, and look, I wouldn't disagree except that when you look at the world through this lens you will no longer be surprised by the policy and behavior of this group, only saddened.

"Diversity and inclusion" is, shall we say, the happy side of that movement; the part of that movement which is prominent throughout the intervening years in between abolition and whatever the fuck is happening this century. While diversity holds its memetic ground, I have not heard "inclusion" used in reference to a policy position in many years.

[0] quite possibly a minority of historical US slave owners; I really don't have quantitative details, just synthesis from historical facts

> based on their choices

That's the difference. You shouldn't exclude people for characteristics they can't control (like race or disability) or characteristics core to their identity (like religious views), but I see no problem with excluding people who choose to behave asocially.

> An actual "inclusive" construct would work with people to understand and respect their concerns, and meet them where they are

You're free to not get vaccinated, and we have accommodations for those who are unable or unwilling to get vaccinated. How do you see an alternative inclusive approach working?

I am not black but I can see some extremely strong historical reasons why the black community would be very suspicious of any government claims that a medicine or medical treatment is there to help them. The extent to which vaccine and pandemic related messaging has been politicized and just completely botched is a true tragedy.

I mean, give them one reason why they should be.

No job, no access to covid relief, no access to public services. There will be plenty of sticks. Potentially saving you own life and those of your family should be the carrot.

Protecting themselves against a possibly life-threatening disease, not acting as a spreader. It’s literally what vaccines are for. Do you have something else in mind?

But they’re young, so their risk is minimal, and if everybody’s going to get exposed to the virus anyway (that’s what they’re saying now), you aren’t protecting anybody.

> that’s what they’re saying now

source?

Regardless, being exposed after vaccination is better than before vaccination.

Same reason everyone else should be. Why are they special?

There's low net-reason for them to trust incumbent institutions.

I don't blame them one bit.

Also if you're young & non-overweight, the personal risk is negligible.

What are you talking about? For protection from COVID, not spread it to other people, herd immunity etc.

Three million New Yorkers are about to be banned from many indoor businesses and social activities, without a scientific foundation for the proposed policy.

Vaccines delivered to the arm deltoid muscle never promised mucosal immunity, even if politicians have misunderstood their purpose as more than symptom reduction.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7733922/

> The mucosal immune system is the largest component of the entire immune system, having evolved to provide protection at the main sites of infectious threat: the mucosae. As SARS-CoV-2 initially infects the upper respiratory tract, its first interactions with the immune system must occur predominantly at the respiratory mucosal surfaces, during both inductive and effector phases of the response. However, almost all studies of the immune response in COVID-19 have focused exclusively on serum antibodies and systemic cell-mediated immunity including innate responses.

Since NYC was the epicenter of early Covid cases, a sizable subset of the population, especially essential workers, were infected and have long recovered with sterilizing immunity that is better than symptom-reduction from non-sterilizing vaccines. These workers (Covid Veterans?), who bore the risk of serving those sequestered at home, are now to be punished for their service? https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/558757-the-ill-advise...

> During the pandemic, the professional laptop class protected themselves by working from home while exposing the working class that brought them food and other goods. It is now the height of hypocrisy to recognize immunity from vaccinations but not immunity from those exposed while serving the laptop class.

Let's add the fact that vaccinated+infected people can transmit to others while they are free of symptoms, while the recovered have mucosal immunity that protects against both infection and transmission.

As a point of comparison, the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine provides sterilizing immunity. Hopefully, upcoming intranasal vaccines can provide a sterilizing vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. As UK SAGE stated recently, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti...

> Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/10/covid-intranasal-vaccine...

> Vaccines that are injected into the arm have done a spectacular job at preventing severe disease and death. But they do not generate the kind of protection in the nasal passages that would be needed to block all infection. That’s called “sterilizing immunity.” The fact that the vaccines don’t block all infections and don’t prevent vaccinated people from transmitting isn’t a big surprise, said Kathryn Edwards, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt School of Medicine.

In summary, NYC is going to shut out those with proven immunity and allow those who can silently (symptom-free) infect others into the small enclosed spaces of NYC restaurants. Does this sound familiar? Remember what happened last year when NY leadership sent Covid-infected patients from hospitals into nursing homes? Thousands of families of the fallen have not forgotten.

"never promised mucosal immunity" Promising something and providing something aren't the same thing. I might have missed it in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7733922/ but where does it say that no mucosal immunity is provided by the current generation of vaccines.

"infected and have long recovered with sterilizing immunity that is better than symptom-reduction from non-sterilizing vaccines" The article you link to here doesn't make this strong a claim. It says "at least as good" not "better" and references a single study from Israel.

I don't think based upon the evidence presented your summation is supported.

Did you miss the SAGE academic paper statement?

Note the "high and durable" statement. Antibody levels in the upper respiratory tract need to be high enough to protect against infection, not incidental presence from serum antibodies.

SAGE is asking for research, since current vaccines do not provide this. There is a third article on intra-nasal vaccines, saying the same thing. It is also common knowledge in the medical profession.

This is why the CDC now recommends testing of vaccinated people, https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210729/cdc-reverses-guidan...

> Even if they’re not showing symptoms, fully vaccinated people should “get tested 3-5 days after exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until they receive a negative test result,” the agency’s website says. The CDC previously said fully vaccinated people didn’t need testing after exposure unless they showed symptoms. “Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told The New York Times in an email. “Testing is widely available.”

> Does this sound familiar?

No not at all. You will have to explain more clearly how a risk to others who were vaccinated in order to enter a location is the same as a risk to unvaccinated nursing home residents.

Thanks for the feedback, will seek clarification on legal terminology.

I don't see it as a terminology problem, I see it as an appeal to emotion argument. NY has to have some policy even if it is a refusal to make policy, the details you provided aren't enough for me to distinguish why this is unique from the fact that you can sully any NY policy with inherent familiarity to past NY policy. The choice NY is making that I think you object to is possibly caused by the ability to reference this past with bias; NY needs to be more conservative on deadly outcomes than cities in Massachusetts that have retained political leeway on deadly outcomes and can therefore refuse to impose checks of vaccine status.

From what I’ve gathered sterilizing immunity is not the norm for people who have had COVID-19 (and apparently most other disease). It can only be achieved by vaccines developed for this purpose.

The purpose of vaccines is to simulate the natural process which leads to immunity, while lowering the risk of serious illness. The "gold standard" is natural immunity, not vaccines.

It would be helpful if you could share one or more sources for your claim.

I don’t think that’s how it works. If you have sources showing that natural immunity = sterilizing immunity, please share, otherwise we have to assume the existing consensus that sterilizing immunity is a special condition not usually achieved after infection for airborne viruses.

Not a direct source but you can check refs 41-47 on this paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.5714...

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