[throw0101a]

This is does not appear to be true:

"Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection"

* https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abi9915

> These findings suggest that among persons with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, full vaccination provides additional protection against reinfection. Among previously infected Kentucky residents, those who were not vaccinated were more than twice as likely to be reinfected compared with those with full vaccination. All eligible persons should be offered vaccination, including those with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, to reduce their risk for future infection.

* https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm

[sojournerc]

I don't know enough about immunology to say whether "binding more broadly" confers more immunity or not.

It would certainly go against prior knowledge about human immune responses for a single spike protein (vaccine) to elicit a greater immune response than _the actual virus_.

That CDC study is so bad I'm surprised they had the gall to publish it with the conclusion they did. Testing positive says nothing about severity of infection.

> were about five times more likely to test positive for the infection than people who had been vaccinated

Testing positive is not a very good metric. Were they hospitalized? Was it severe? Did they even get sick, or just test positive?

They even admit to a sampling flaw in the discussion:

> Second, persons who have been vaccinated are possibly less likely to get tested. Therefore, the association of reinfection and lack of vaccination might be overestimated.

The best study on this so far is from Israel with a much larger sample in a highly vaccinated country. Here's a Harvard doctor discussing the contradictory studies.

https://brownstone.org/articles/a-review-and-autopsy-of-two-...

> For a low-risk person, which includes most people with natural immunity, a 35% risk reduction is more marginal in terms of absolute risk.

> Based on the solid evidence from the Israeli study, the Covid recovered have stronger and longer-lasting immunity against Covid disease than the vaccinated. Hence, there is no reason to prevent them from activities that are permitted to the vaccinated. In fact, it is discriminatory.

[angelzen]

I found a Feb 2021 piece from Derek Lowe a good 30k ft overview of how the immune system works. tl;dr it is stochastic, with a wide range of antibodies having different effects against an infection, some of them even negative (OAS). Usually the aggregate effect is positive, and the infection is cleared out.

"It's important to realize, though, that all immune responses to a viral infection generate a mixture of neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies. That's one of the things about the immune system - it revs up production of a wide variety of antibodies, selected from the untold billions of them circulating around in your bloodstream. Some of them bind to one part of the pathogen, and some to another. And they bind in different conformations, sticking to different parts of the surface of the invading virus from different directions."

It is conceivable that a targeted vaccine is more effective at shutting down an infection than natural immunity by focusing the immune system to produce a narrow band of very effective antibodies. The tradeoff is that a virus mutation can create a catastrophic situation where the same antibodies are less effective, possibly having negative efficiency enhancing the infection. The risk is amplified by vaccinating the entire population with the exact same protein sequence, creating hundreds of millions of living incubators for the virus to learn how to evade the narrow antibody response.

We are creating a biological landscape prone to black swan events. Good luck convincing any total vaxer that this is a very real risk. They will laugh and sneer and maybe call you criminal because obviously the data shows the vaccines are safe and effective. "Hahaha, I've been told that we're all going to be dead by now, look at those peddling conspiracy theories." Just like the Wall Street crowd created the run-up to the 2008 crisis. Who could have possibly predicted that CDOs were prone to a black swan?

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/antibody-dependent...

[throw0101a]

> We are creating a biological landscape prone to black swan events. Good luck convincing any total vaxer that this is a very real risk. They will laugh and sneer and maybe call you criminal because obviously the data shows the vaccines are safe and effective.

If you don't survive the problems of today, then there's no point in worrying about tomorrow's possibilities because you're dead.

The data does show that the COVID vaccines are generally safe and pretty effective. Not 100%, but the perfect is the enemy of the good, and so let's try to improve our lot now so we have a chance to fight for later.

[angelzen]

Generally speaking, under 50 populations survive covid fairly well. Under 18 survive almost perfectly, with a higher survivability rate than drowning. Therein lies the problem: we expose the young(er) populations to a black swan event.

Please spend a few minutes to refresh on the data. Some nice dashboards from Singapore (ongoing delta wave), but also e.g. King County, WA (Seattle) shows similar data, though you have to drill down a bit (Demographics tab, then Deaths metric). For example in the past 30 days a total 12 deaths in the under 50 population, for a total of 10% of total covid deaths. Or, since the pandemic started, a death rate of 22/100k or less in all age groups <50, going as low as 0-3/100k for under 30s.

This is not to say that people, especially the elderly, should not get vaccinated if they choose so. It is only a reminder that there is a perception problem around covid and that the long term risk calculus is more complicated.

https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/statistics

https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/daily-summ...