Vaccination protects against Covid-19 more strongly than prior infection, study
cdc.gov
cdc.gov
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-15-studies-that-indi...
> these findings differ from those of a retrospective records-based cohort study in Israel, which did not find higher protection for vaccinated adults compared with those with previous infection during a period of Delta variant circulation. This variation is possibly related to differences in the outcome of interest and restrictions on the timing of vaccination. The Israeli cohort study assessed any positive SARS-CoV-2 test result, whereas this study examined laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 among hospitalized patients. The Israeli cohort study also only examined vaccinations that had occurred 6 months earlier, so the benefit of more recent vaccination was not examined. This report focused on the early protection from infection-induced and vaccine-induced immunity, though it is possible that estimates could be affected by time.
[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
They did address the one study from Israel. They did not address the nearly 20 other studies also done which share its conclusion that natural immunity is at least as powerful as a jab.
The sound conclusion is: "This seems to be complicated; further study needed."
Your choice now is whether to vaccinate or not. It's not whether to vaccinate or be infected. Being infected or not is another choice that luck chooses for you at some point in the future. Being infected again or not is another choice that luck chooses for you at some point still further in the future, assuming that you luck decides to infect you in the previous step.
So: Your resistance against the first infection is near zero without the vaccine, much better with. Your resistance against the second infection is what's being discussed in this study.
I'm not sure how to compare vaccines with natural resistance fairly without that off-by-one infection number. People say it's better than the vaccine, but that disregards the nonzero chance of dying while acquiring the immunity. Some five million people have died in the process of acquiring that immunity — it seems difficult to call that "better than" anything.
I'm comparing immunity acquired by infection with immunity acquired by vaccine, post-factum. I'm definitely not saying that one should use infection as a substitute for vaccine, and honestly I'm a bit miffed that you're suggesting I am.
Also this is far from being a useless fact to know. For example in my country prior infection doesn't count for getting your green certificate. If infection is indeed better than vaccine, than you have a very strong argument that the government is making a pretty big mistake. If it offers the same order of magnitude of protection, that you have a weak argument. If it's significantly worse than vaccine, than you have no argument against this policy, and in fact it's a pretty good policy.
For the first infection, immunity acquired by infection doesn't exist yet, so for the first infection, that strategy offers an increased risk of death of 20× or more compared to vaccination.
For the second infection, the two strategies are roughly equal. Not exact, but the details don't matter, because...
For these two on average, immunity acquired by infection offers about 10.5× the chance of death. If the effectiveness during the second infection varies very much, then that number will be 9 or 13 or something, so who cares about that detail. The number 20 dwarfs everything else. The only way to make the two strategies comparable is to ignore the outcome of the first infection.
Note that 20 isn't meant as a serious estimate, it's a number I picked out of a hat. MUCH higher estimates are available. You may have read that 99.5% of deaths in the US are unvaccinated. If you start with that number and that two-thirds of the USians are vaccinated, then the number 20 becomes 400, and immunity acquired by infection is then roughly 200× as dangerous as the vaccines they use in the US.
:)
I'm only considering already acquired immunity from past infections. And I've given an example on how that's relevant. It's probably another example of polarization that you're assuming almost by default that I'm an enemy anti-vaxxer (I'm not). Oh well, nothing else to do that to keep talking, and hoping civilized conversation helps.
Rather, I thought you were interested comparing kinds of immunity. To to that fairly and well, you need to include the most common case: People's first infection.
Remember that most people's immune system is able to learn quickly enough that natural immunity takes care of the first infection without external help. The immune reaction doesn't start with the second infection, it starts as soon as the immune system starts learning. Excluding the first infection in an analysis seems very, very strange to me.
Independent question: are covid vaccines effective farther away from the immunization event? Could we perhaps plot a chart showing VE performance over time? Time will tell.
Edit: I see that this study did begin with the desired end in mind because they have a blurb titled "What are the implications for public health practice?" that says:
> All eligible persons should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, including unvaccinated persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.
In other words, these "scientists" decided to comment on public policy in their study. Such an act makes it extremely suspect for several reasons, not least of which the scientists are making a political statement in what is supposed to be a scientific study.
But even if I did trust these scientists before, I don't know that they decided to put a political statement in a scientific study. The only agenda scientists should have is truth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...
So he lied. Plain and simple.
I used that word because it's the truth, even though it's strong because sugarcoating the truth is lying. Using the term "sugarcoating" is, in fact, trying to sugarcoat the fact that sugarcoating is lying!
> He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...
Sure, if he said it was because of more information, I could take him seriously. But when he says the above, it means he's making excuses for lying.
> “ We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”
We don’t know, he doesn’t know, no one knows the exact number. Yeah he’s being a bit coy, but all the numbers he’s thrown out since the delta are in that range
Btw Fauci technically isn’t cdc. Just saying bc we’re being ultra strict on the herd immunity estimates but very lax on other facts when accusing the cdc. Seems inconsistent.
Also, if "we need to have some humility," then perhaps maybe experts should stop thinking that they know best for everyone?
Fauci, on the other hand, does not believe himself. He says things as we are "ready to hear" them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...
That's lying. If he got updated information and told us so, that's not lying. But he didn't; he just decided to say something different because it was now politically expedient.
Fauci is a political operative, not a scientist.
The relevant quote is:
> In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
(Emphasis added.)
In other words, he only tells us what is politically expedient. That is, by definition, what a political operative does.
I would suggest you not assume I'm ignorant before reading articles I link to.
Percentage of people/herd immunity: they straight up did not lie. They said that based on what we know of similar diseases the guess would be 75-95% of the population need to be vaccinated. Everyone immediately latched onto the 75% mark and also this was in 2020 when we knew comparatively approximately nothing about COVID. This is like saying “based on our knowledge of Toyota Corollas, a Ferrari will do 0-60 in at most 5 seconds”. Technically true, but not backed by studies until studies are able to be completed.
Your last sentence sounds like you formed an opinion before doing the research so I see no point in addressing it.
Sounds like there is no study you can point to that was compromised?
Any lie from an expert is a big deal. We are supposed to "trust experts", right? Any lie makes them lose trust.
> Percentage of people/herd immunity: they straight up did not lie.
Fauci did. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...
> Sounds like there is no study you can point to that was compromised?
Not one from the CDC directly, but https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydrox... .
However, the CDC is definitely fudging the numbers on deaths, per https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-I... :
> COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.
given the decreasing efficacy of vaccines over time, it's disappointing to see the same old "6 month" cut-off, as well as no regard for normalizing over time.
"Laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection was identified among
324 (5.1%) of 6,328 fully vaccinated persons and
among 89 of 1,020 (8.7%) unvaccinated, previously infected persons.
A higher proportion of previously infected than vaccinated patients were aged 18–49 years (31% versus 9%), Black (10% versus 7%), and Hispanic (19% versus 12%)."
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e1.htm#T1_down
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e1.htm#T2_down
this study was conducted across nine states using hospitalization rates as data source betweeen Jan-Sept 2021
Having access to healthcare, for example, makes one more likely to seek medical help at the briefest presentation of illness. Being the latter more common among the vaccinated, analyzing for positive cases only among hospitalizations for “covid-like symptoms” is extremely disingenuous.
What does it mean to adjust for local virus circulation in this context?
>Eligible hospitalizations were defined as those among adults aged ≥18 years who had received SARS-CoV-2 molecular testing (from 14 days before to 72 hours after admission) and had a COVID-19–like illness discharge diagnosis† during January–September 2021
So what is that really telling us then? If you are already in the hospital and are vaccinated then its less likely that you have covid than in the alternate universe where you are in the hospital but unvaccinated. That seems useless. I guess I don't understand it.
How good is the vaccine vs immunity at keeping people out of the hospital? Or preventing death? Those are the fundamentals we would obviously care about and neither can be derived from this study. Yet the study will be presented as if it illuminates those fundamentals
They looked at hospitalized cases only.
Chances are they are almost all elderly, who are 90+% vaccinated anyway.
No specific mention of very low-risk groups such as children 5-11 (which are THE lowest-risk group), and no mention of the risk-benefit tradeoff related to adverse events.
Rather, we find a blanket "everyone should get vaccinated" normative statement clouding an otherwise interesting study.