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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

If the vaccine worked for more than a few months you would be correct. Everyone get vaccinated and it's over.

But the vaccine failed, it doesn't prevent infection, it doesn't prevent transmission, and it only lasts for a few months.

It does protect against serious illness though.

But because it doesn't prevent reinfection new variants have plenty of hosts. Natural immunity is better in this regard since it lasts longer.

Best option: Get vaccinated, then get infected while you still have immunity - you get all the benefits with much lower risk of serious disease.

That what I do, I try to be in large gatherings at least every 3 months, then I keep getting new immunity without getting seriously sick.

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Talking in absolutes like this ("the vaccine failed, it doesn't prevent infection, it doesn't prevent transmission") is very counterproductive.

No vaccine is 100% effective.

The vaccines were sufficiently effective to let Israel skip the alpha wave altogether with ~70% of the population covered. At the lowest point in June 2021 they were down to less than 20 new cases per day. Then the delta variant came out of the bush (from India which had much less coverage at the time, the more infections, the higher the mutation risk). It's R0 was higher than alpha's and the epidemic kicked back up.

Had there been an initial, aggressive push to vaccinate globally we might have been done with the virus by the summer of 2021.

It should also be noted that COVID has cumulative effects. The all around risk of complications is about twice as high for the second infection (I don't think there's data for more than two, so we don't know if the trend is additive, multiplicative, a combination thereof, or if it peaks there). Among other things, it culls the naive lymphocyte population weakening your immunity to bugs you haven't met yet.

You keep thinking that the loss of immunity is due to new variants. That's not correct, people loose immunity to the Alpha variant as well. Historically Coronaviuses never produced lasting immunity, people hoped COVID would be an exception, but it is not.

So a couple months after the vaccine push they would have been back where they started, even without Delta.

> Had there been an initial, aggressive push to vaccinate globally we might have been done with the virus by the summer of 2021.

That's simply not true. You can never vaccinate everyone, so 3 to 6 months after this massive vaccination campaign everyone would start to get sick with the Alpha variant again.

Not to mention even someone vaccinated still has some degree of infection, allowing new variants to develop.

> You keep thinking that the loss of immunity is due to new variants.

This is our first interaction, not sure why you think I keep thinking something I never thought.

There might have been a need for boosters, it would have been possible to contain the epidemic had we not let covid mutate into more faster, more contagious and evasive variants. And the variants were much more likely to spring up as we let the epidemic go rampant.

> This is our first interaction, not sure why you think I keep thinking something I never thought.

Are you not posting a message demonstrating your current thinking? And your current message is showing the same thought process. You need to adjust your knowledge of the situation.

Giving the entire planet a booster every 3 months is not a viable strategy.

> it would have been possible to contain the epidemic

No, it would not.

> had we not let covid

We didn't "let covid" do anything. This is not a disease we are currently able to control.

Vaccines don't work stop the spread of the virus (they only stop serious disease), masks don't work, lockdowns don't work.

The only failure here is we let fear control us. Once the first vaccine was available the fear should have been over.

But even today hospitals are refusing non vaccinated visitors even if they have immunity due to getting stick. There is no scientific basis for this, it's just fear.

And it's stupid as well - the vaccine only works for a few months, but if you got vaccinated 2 years ago you are permitted entry, but you recovered from illness 1 month ago you are not. This is not science, this is dogma.

> Vaccines don't work stop the spread of the virus

They did stop the spread of the historic and alpha variant in Israel, with a 55-60% rate of vaccination (I mistakenly thought it was 70%, it was even lower). Before the onset of the delta wave, the virus was about to go extinct there.

You can check the graphs. May 11 2021, there were 4.66 new cases per million inhabitants. By June 9 it was down to 1.5. Compare with the surrounding countries, where the alpha wave lasted much longer, and was still lingering when the delta variant came around.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

June 9 coincides with the point where the delta share crossed the 50% threshold.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

But the global vaccine rollout was criminally slow.

I don't know how hospitals devise their COVID policy in the US... In France you need a "Sanitary pass" to access healthcare facilities. You must either provide a negative test taken in the last 24 hours, or a proof of some level of immunity (either up to date vaccination, or a COVID recovery certificate from less than 4 months).

> The vaccines were sufficiently effective to let Israel skip the alpha wave altogether with ~70% of the population covered.

The Alpha wave occurred in Jan 2021, did happen in Israel, and at the time they only had ~10% fully vaccinated (~25% partially).

Compare the evolution of the alpha wave in Israel, France and Lebanon. Israel, had also drastically cut down on community measures like lockdowns, curfews and closure of non-necessary businesses.

This is the most common approach even if it isn’t done on purpose, and I think it should be formalized with terminology and studies. The current zeitgeist of immunity as understood by the general population and, importantly, politicians, just can’t seem to incorporate the concept of something that is so contagious but changes so quickly. But it’s the reality for almost all sickness we get, this is the norm, not the outlier. Why are we still even thinking about vaccinating people with the original covid vax? We give the annual flu shot more respect.

Despite what we want and how we wish the world would be, the reality is that if you are constantly exposed to covid you are unlikely to ever be symptotically ill. Since we can’t prevent that from happening everywhere in the world, might as well plan for it. It also puts evolutionary pressure on the disease to be less severe, since if you feel sick you stay home, but if you don’t you go out and spread it.

> Why are we still even thinking about vaccinating people with the original covid vax?

Because the scientific evidence indicates it is still highly effective at reducing hospitalization and especially death.

>But the vaccine failed >It does protect against serious illness though.

This isn't a binary fail / no fail condition.

Not sure why you’re downvoted. I think you just put into words what most of the vaccinated population has been implicitly doing anyway.

Claiming mRNA vaccines failed is ridiculous.

Not mRNA vaccines, COVID vaccines (all of them, doesn't matter the type). To be specific Coronaviruses are known not to produce lasting immunity, COVID is no exception.

They failed in their primary goal: Creating lasting immunity to this disease. They succeeded in a secondary goal: Reducing severity of infection.

The trouble with failing in the primary goal is that COVID is here forever.

Ah that. Yeah - they've been a success but to take a more critical view not for what they were advertised for. They've been hugely successful at reducing the severity of the disease. Also, it wasn't just mRNA. J&J and AZ vaccines are not mRNA based. They haven't provided broad and lasting immunity. At least that isn't the impression I get from reading articles on them.

> Claiming mRNA vaccines failed is ridiculous.

It is not that vacccines failed: the government failed.

If they advertise them as “you will not get sick” they are 100% success.

But they advertised it as “we need to have mandate so that everybody will get immune forever”. This is where things failed adding ammunition to crazies and conspiracy theories.

The vaccine didn't fail. The Delta wave would have been far deadlier without it. It served its purpose.

But now, the vaccine effectiveness is actually negative in several places! I have even seen what seemingly look like nonsense such as vaccinated but unboosted people having much lower infection rates than both boosted and unvaccinated people. It is something that has been puzzling me for a while and that study may be final piece I needed.

What I have seen so far:

- The vaccine was very effective against Alpha, not as effective against Delta but still very good.

- The vaccine has some effectiveness against Omicron, but it wanes quickly. After about 6 months, it doesn't do much, but not nothing, especially against severe cases. I've seen around 20% effectiveness against infection, I suspect even less against BA.4/5

- Almost everyone has some immunity now, natural or vaccine induced.

So, what I think happened is that many people got their booster just before the first Omicron wave, giving them significant protection. Far from perfect, but enough to see it clearly in the stats. Most of those who didn't receive boosters or were unvaccinated caught it (with or without symptoms). Later, in the following waves (BA.2,4,5) and even in the end of the first wave, those who had their boosters found their protection diminished, while the unvaccinated were protected by their first wave Omicron infection, which, according to the article, seems to be highly effective.

I would rather avoid deliberately getting sick though... If you really want to attend these large gatherings because that's what you enjoy, fine, but doing that just to get covid is a terrible reason. There is no guarantee it will all go according you your plan. If that pandemic has taught us anything, it is than not much happened according to plans. I would rather wait for an Omicron optimized vaccine that may not do everything as planned, but at least went through trials.

The only reason I can imagine where getting deliberately infected is worth it is if you plan to be in a situation where you really can't afford to get covid. And if that's the case, getting an extra dose of the current mRNA vaccines at the right moment will offer you some limited time protection.

And finally, I think that vaccine mandates should go. Because almost everyone has some immunity, and these old vaccines offer very limited protection, it won't do much besides pissing some people off. I am still very pro-vaccine, but I don't see the need for mandates anymore.

Did you read the recent study that shows anyone who got the vaccine has lower immunity after 8 months compared to someone unvaccinated. Did that change your pro vaccine stance?

You mean this? https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Yes, I did. And no, it didn't.

It is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned negative effectiveness. And while the study definitely shows waning immunity, the apparent "lower immunity compared to someone unvaccinated" after 8 months is just an artefact resulting from the fact that you are unlikely to get covid twice in a row (i.e. natural immunity).

The Lancet study actually shows an overall vaccine effectiveness of 84% and naturally concludes by recommending booster doses. The 84% figure is may also be an artefact and doesn't account for Omicron, buy I could say that from the study, the vaccine is 84% effective over 9 months, which would be as misleading as the "immunity is lower after 8 months" quote.

> I would rather wait for an Omicron optimized vaccine that may not do everything as planned, but at least went through trials.

The vaccine would only work for a few months - even for Omicron, never mind future variants.

Unless you plan to get a booster every 4 months vaccines are not a viable strategy.

But still, it is better than getting deliberately infected.

And sure enough current vaccines are not a viable strategy, but it tells you nothing about covid vaccines as a whole. Researchers are not standing still, new vaccines are being researched, and even if we can only make short lived vaccines, it doesn't mean that vaccines are not a viable strategy. Flu vaccines are a viable strategy, they save many lives despite a rather low effectiveness and requiring yearly injections.

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