Hacker News Reader

Comment by cat_plus_plus | Hacker News Reader

First Omicron infection is like a bad flu even after shots and older variants, but immune system does wise up to the virus with repeated exposures.

View on HN

> immune system does wise up to the virus with repeated exposures.

“Repeatedly catching Covid-19 appears to increase the chances that a person will face new and sometimes lasting health problems after their infection, according to the first study on the health risks of reinfection.”

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/05/health/covid-reinfection-risk...

Repeatedly catching Covid-19 at severity enough to prompt one to get tested / seek medical attention is a sign of poor health in itself?

The article mentions that, as well as points out that the material it is based on is not peer reviewed.

> The article mentions that, as well as points out that the material it is based on is not peer reviewed.

The article says that even when controlling for prior existing conditions, age, sex, etc, that outcomes are still statistically worse with each infection. The material is also preprint and will be undergoing peer review.

People test for a lot of reasons (for ex: their employer requires routine screening, or they are going to be proximate with immunocompromised people, etc.). Testing positive is not an indicator of poor health.

"increase the chances"?

More likely these people always had a less-effective immune system, which is why they catch Covid repeatedly.

Classic correlation mixup of attributing cause to the result.

Not entirely the case, BA2.4 and .5 are exhibiting immune escape. And wait till you hear about BA2.75 that’s going to be a wild ride

Immune escape is not a binary. Natural infection produces t-cells trained on every viral protein rather than just ones on the surface, they don't prevent infections but get them under control. In the meantime memory b-cells accumulate and diversify with every exposure. Vaccine kick start was sure helpful, but natural adaptive immunity is not easy to outsmart.

Also, it's inevitable that the virus will adapt our best antiviral, Paxovid.

https://www.science.org/content/article/bad-news-paxlovid-co...

Unfortunately the evidence is that prior omicron infection does not prevent BA.4 and BA.5 infection.

Which to be honest is the wrong metric to look at. The right metric is whether you get sick from it. If previous infections or vaccinations downgrade the virus to just a cold, then it’s good enough. Clearly we have no mean to stop this virus, not even slow it down. But if it is mostly harmless, is that really a problem?

Nothing prevents infections anymore, just infections getting out of control. The later part is a huge silver lining.

Infections are bad because the virus transmits. The virus is capable of mutating to evade the immune response. Future variants may also attack different body systems. For example, it looks like BA.5 reverts back to the lungs vs the original omicron variant.

Also, it is quite unfortunate that we now have evidence that multiple acute covid infections may cause long lasting health problems.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com