[xienze]

> It almost seems like a lot of people don't want the data to indicate that natural immunity is strong and long lasting, even though the data shows that reinfection is extemely rare.

I too remember when the concept of "natural immunity to Covid" was a wild, dangerous conspiracy theory, along with the "came out of the Wuhan lab" theory. Funny watching the narrative change in real time.

[epakai]

They probably just don't want a repeat of the mis-steps that characterized early covid response. Early information changed a lot and resulted in distrust, and poor adherence to recommended measures. Rolling back precautionary measures is a one time thing. They don't get to say "hey we messed up, put those masks back on" because nobody will comply. It just makes sense to come up with a sure consensus before natural immunity is bandied about.

The lab leak theory is still not proven. Collected evidence over time points to it being more likely. The "narrative" was there early on, but attacking China as leverage in a trade war surely cemented any desire to hide their own faults. What did we stand to gain by pointing fingers without proof or even a preponderance of evidence? Even now is it likely to lead to reform in virus and gain of function research?

[ipaddr]

China wants to hide their own faults. Everything they do supports this narrative. To lose face might mean an end to power. Reforms are only possible by pointing likely theories because the proof is gone and it happened months before the outbreak was even registered.

[DC-3]

Natural immunity was never a dangerous conspiracy theory. It was simply the case that it was too early to have blind faith in it. No-one credible ever denied that it was possible or even that it was likely that people would gain natural immunity.

[ultralite]

> No-one credible ever denied that it was possible or even that it was likely that people would gain natural immunity.

Let's not rewrite history. It was clear that the media (e.g. BBC, below) chose to amplify messages that discredited natural immunity.

[Prof Wendy Barclay said:] "On the balance of evidence, I would say it would look as if immunity declines away at the same rate as antibodies decline away, and that this is an indication of waning immunity."

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54696873 Oct 2020.

[8note]

The messages I saw were that achieving herd immunity through infections would result in a whole ton of deaths.

[i386]

> media [sic] chose to amplify messages that discredited natural immunity

The media is not a recognised scientific body.

[ultralite]

The BBC in this case were covering research by Imperial College London, one of the leading contributors to UK COVID-19 research.

In Oct 2020, if someone saw https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54696873 and commented, as you just have, "The media is not a recognised scientific body.", what would you have said?

[i386]

You are deliberately missing the point. BBC is not a recognized scientific body. It’s an editorial body that editorializes stories and publishes them. It is not a journal.

A lot of things have been said in the media about COVID, most of them wrong and few correct.

There is no conspiracy.

[Guvante]

I don't know that discrediting is a fair assessment. There is evidence of fewer or no markers in blood tests of patients who previously tested positive. Unfortunately it was impossible to tell whether that impacted immunity due insufficient time to collect data.

If losing markers is often an indicator of lost immunity then saying the expectation is lost immunity isn't wrong, even if that like ends up being false.

For instance data around infections from recovered and vaccinated people to others is still scarce to my knowledge. While we know that the health benefits for you are there whether it is enough immunity to completely prevent spread is still hard to examine.

[Guvante]

Technically the wild and crazy ones were "it was bio engineered" and "let's ignore it and gain herd immunity". The former was being touted as justification for violence against Asians and the latter would involve millions of deaths in most countries. Tens of millions world wide.

[dsyrk]

Would being a result of gain of function research with a particular furin cleavage site be considered “bio engineered”?

[Guvante]

I don't feel like playing "there isn't enough evidence to prove me wrong"

[dsyrk]

Source: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

Relevant text: For the lab escape scenario, the double CGG codon is no surprise. The human-preferred codon is routinely used in labs. So anyone who wanted to insert a furin cleavage site into the virus’s genome would synthesize the PRRA-making sequence in the lab and would be likely to use CGG codons to do so. “When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus,” said David Baltimore, an eminent virologist and former president of CalTech. “These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2,” he said.

[sdsaga12]

Approximately 3.5 million globally have died from covid according to the WHO: https://covid19.who.int/

If you include deaths from related factors, like increased poverty or unrest, I'm sure the numbers go up a bit, but not to tens of millions.

I don't state this as an attack, by the way. Covid and its entangled cultural and political issues are enormously emotionally charged, and, one way or another, that tends to skew our perception of even relatively simple facts.

One thing I think the Hacker News community does well, at least aspirationally, is try to keep sight of the fundamental technical details of issues. For a pandemic, having an accurate intuition of its scale falls into this category IMO.

[Guvante]

COVID has a death per case rate of 3% give or take. It is estimated that only 1/3 of cases are confirmed. Thus we lose 1% of the people infected.

70% herd immunity without vaccines is 0.7% of your population basically. While I don't think we would lose the 49 million that implies unless we ignored it completely that does make saying we would lose 10s of millions if not for vaccinations not far fetched.

Yes I would put good odds we stay under 10 million in reality. I was only talking about the "natural herd immunity" idea.

[sdsaga12]

I see, I thought you were listing your understanding of the death toll that had already been reached in actuality and not the theoretical potential death toll without vaccine intervention. That makes more sense.

[jonnycomputer]

Natural immunity is great. If you survive. And if you don't give it to others.

Almost impossible not to give it to others.

Relying on it was pretty reckless, especially given how little we understand it.

[procombo]

> Almost impossible not to give it to others.

Your facts are old, very old.

Transmissibility has been linked to the nasopharyngeal viral load during onset symptoms. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33296437/] The virus may not be as present in your nasal discharge, or breath. We've also known from the start transmissibility is also definitely not linked to the severity of symptoms.

When you read from articles from the CDC such as [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...] they don't mean all people spread it the same way, just "we have found it spreads commonly in these three ways".

Ironically enough, we traced my positive infection to a non-human animal which sneezed in my face. Within a day I had conjunctivitis (pinkeye). I had non-typical symptoms before severe fatigue set in. I just thought I was going through bad caffeine withdrawal at the time.

Locked inside the house with my spouse and kids for two weeks with symptoms, breathing all over each other, laughing in each others faces, touching the same items, etc.

I only got tested on day 13 when the respiratory and heart symptoms set in. 6 months later I still have some lingering issues. Nobody else in the house or who I associated with ever got it, and they tested every 5 days for a month.

[jonnycomputer]

I hope you are recovering well.

Honestly not sure what your point is. Are you saying that for someone who is infected that the probability of not giving it to others around you is not very high?

The gist of what I'm saying is that even if you think that your chances of dying, or even inconvenience, from the virus is extremely low, your ability to control its spread to others is also pretty low. Meaning that you can become a vector to someone who is at high risk. So people going to corona-parties thinking only about the impact on themselves is reckless and selfish.

[procombo]

Initially my point was to correct misinformation. I added my own history as an anecdote.

There's a lot to say about Covid-19. We've learned a lot about it since the start. But objectively, its transmissibility is not what was feared. So the scare tactics about that -today- is wrong.

Covid-19 can be deadly. All people and politicians should have taken it seriously. I don't fault people for being enthusiastic in their political corner, and in the U.S. there were a lot of lines crossed by both sides.

My personal reaction was to be overly cautious. I got it anyway when I started being less strict. And it was nearly as bad as I feared. But I also think governments were wrong to force shutdowns, prevent assembly, etc. It was a misuse, and a spectacle.

High risk people have the option to do what they need to, or to be surrounded by people who advocates for them. (And that right there, I bet, is where you and I will fundamentally disagree). And I respect your disagreement.

Without safe vaccines we'd be having a different conversation. But now is the time to find more answers, spread truth, and be good to one another.

I actually find it a little fascinating that your comment, the first two replies (and mine) all differ tremendously in what we deem important takeaways.

As my doctor puts it "It is definitely a strange bug".

[jonnycomputer]

I still don't see the misinformation. I said, that it was "almost impossible not to give it to others". I said the virus was extremely transmissible. It is. With an R0 of approximately 5.7 [[1]]. I didn't say anything about when or how transmission happens.

There was a moment where we thought our daughter had the virus. It became quite clear how futile it was to avoid her infecting everyone else in the house. Fortunately for everyone, it was something else.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002251932...

[plank_time]

This statement is overly alarmist. 98% of people survive covid. >85% are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. The vast majority of people survive without any issues. The biggest problem with covid is how infectious it is, which is what really overwhelms health care systems.

[jonnycomputer]

Over alarmist? You're saying 2% of people who get an incredibly transmissible disease die, and you aren't alarmed? I mean, sure its not Ebola, but its not a cold either. Sheez.