Immunity from vaccination vs prior COVID infection? (spin out from lockdown thread)

[ieta_cassiopeia]

11 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

Anything OTC has to be really inexpensive for the general public.  There's a threshold which people are going to be willing to pay for something like that OOP............and it's not high.  In addition, that sort of benefit would be realized over the long term.....$30bn over 1 year vs $1bn per year for 30 yrs.....I am guessing that that the former is more enticing. 

 

ETA: are any of the current OTC tests created/manufactured by the same companies as the vaccines?  I don't think they are but I dunno. 

The companies that tend to produce antibody kits are largely medical hardware specialists, rather than medical drug specialists - and the hardware specialists I was able to find are mostly large international concerns. It comes across as an interdisciplinary argument, rather than big vs small.

Also, I'm sceptical of antibody tests being cheap because they're too expensive for the NHS (as opposed to regular testing and vaccines, which are in its price bracket. Antibody tests are £49 each, and you'd need 2 per year if it was accepted as being as valid as "recovered from COVID" currently is (making an annual cost of $135.41). Pfizerr currently charges the NHS $19.50 (this is planned to increase to $150 per dose once the pandemic's deemed to be under control), Moderna charges $50, Johnson & Johnson charges $10 (single-dose version) and OxfordAstrazeneca charges a little under $4. The result is that the NHS cannot quite afford 1 full-cost Pfizer dose for the cost of antibody testing, but at the moment could pay for 2 1/2 Moderna, 6 3/4 Pfizer, 13 1/2 J&J or 33 OxfordAstrazeneca doses for each year of antibody testing.

[Not_a_Number]

13 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Wait, I re-read this.   It wasn’t comparing natural immunity to vax immunity.   It was comparing natural + vax to natural alone.  

Yep, that's the one I was saying wasn't all that useful. 

[ktgrok]

10 hours ago, whitestavern said:

Not sure I understand. What do you mean by restrictions based on immunity? As I noted earlier (though maybe on another thread) if by restrictions you mean antibody testing, then vaccinated people should have to be tested for antibodies as well. We have no idea how many vaxxed people might not have immunity or who have waning immunity. We know some do not have any or have decreased levels of immunity but no idea how many that might be. 

Um, we know what percentage of people don't have a good response to the vaccine from the intitial trial data, and ongoing study. As for waning immunity they were working on that right now. But we know the vast vast vast majority of people who are vaccinated have some level of immunity. Also, the vast vast majority of those infected do. For how. long is still being studied. With vaccines, I see they being good for a certain amount of time, and after that you need a booster - we just don't know how long yet since we are still studying it. With natural infection, after a certain amount of time you would need another option, IF we find antibodies go down too low after a certain time. If they don't, then we'd make the cards good for longer. 

Either way, same goal. 

[ieta_cassiopeia]

8 hours ago, KSera said:

I was looking at this again, and noticed a small error I didn't notice the first time. 10+14+9=33, for R=0.33.

 

Still, very low and would make outbreaks likely to die out each time they start.

Thank you for identifying the error in my calculation - and for providing me with information which allowed me to do the R calculation in the first place (most places that give an R figure don't seem interested in providing the component information to check their working or understand the context - an R figure where lots of people infect 1 person is different from a scenario where the same R figure is from a small number of people acting as super-spreaders).

[Not_a_Number]

15 minutes ago, ieta_cassiopeia said:

Thank you for identifying the error in my calculation - and for providing me with information which allowed me to do the R calculation in the first place (most places that give an R figure don't seem interested in providing the component information to check their working or understand the context - an R figure where lots of people infect 1 person is different from a scenario where the same R figure is from a small number of people acting as super-spreaders).

I remember reading about the "dispersion factor" thing like a year ago... it's really interesting. 

[Not_a_Number]

21 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

So I was poking around and found this...

 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00575-4/fulltext

 

It seems that they are saying that with this study (which appears to very large and well done) that natural infection is 80%+ effective at preventing reinfection.  It doesn't say anything about symptomatic vs asymptomatic reinfection, they appear to have gone by PCR testing alone. 

 

If IIRC the various data regarding vaccines preventing infection....that seems to be pretty on par with the vaccine ability to prevent infection. 

Yes, that seems comparable. These were two waves of the same variant, right? So it's a little hard to compare to our current numbers, which are talking about Delta. 

[Sdel]

8 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yes, that seems comparable. These were two waves of the same variant, right? So it's a little hard to compare to our current numbers, which are talking about Delta

I don’t think so.  There have been studies that show that exposure to one bug provides some protection against it’s kissing cousins.  Such as cowpox and smallpox.

[Not_a_Number]

6 minutes ago, Sdel said:

I don’t think so.  There have been studies that show that exposure to one bug provides some protection against it’s kissing cousins.  Such as cowpox and smallpox.

I really see no reason to generalize from two illnesses like cowpox and smallpox to the Delta variant... there's currently strong evolutionary pressure for mutations that take hold to evade both vaccine-induced and natural immunity, for obvious reasons. 

[Dmmetler]

38 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

So I was poking around and found this...

 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00575-4/fulltext

 

It seems that they are saying that with this study (which appears to very large and well done) that natural infection is 80%+ effective at preventing reinfection.  It doesn't say anything about symptomatic vs asymptomatic reinfection, they appear to have gone by PCR testing alone. 

 

If IIRC the various data regarding vaccines preventing infection....that seems to be pretty on par with the vaccine ability to prevent infection. 

I expect the biggest barrier to including prior infection is a lack of documentation. I know a lot of people who assume they've had COVID and assume they are now immune or at least resistant, but only one family member was ever tested-and sometimes, not even that. It's reasonable to assume that if one parent got sick and tested positive, the kids who had cold-like symptoms at the same time probably had COVID, too-but there is no paper trail of a test or doctor's appointment to indicate so. Which means that if the kids are now enrolling in college classes and the campus requires vaccination and is willing to accept documentation of a prior case of COVID, they don't have it, and if it's a choice between paying for a doctor's appointment AND lab work so that the doctor can write out a waiver based on prior immunity (which would pass muster at my kid's school-but at least on my insurance would probably be a $150 appointment), or driving to walgreens (or getting one on campus) at no out of pocket charge, it's going to be easier to do the latter. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, happysmileylady said:

I think the study I posted earlier about SARS1 immunity being reactive to SARS2 provides at least some reasonableness to this.  That doesn't mean that it should be taken as gospel, but it does mean that it's not exactly crazy talk either. 

I assume there's SOME effectiveness, but I don't think there's any reason to assume that it's high, especially against infection. 

[Sdel]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

really see no reason to generalize from two illnesses like cowpox and smallpox to the Delta variant... there's currently strong evolutionary pressure for mutations that take hold to evade both vaccine-induced and natural immunity, for obvious reasons. 

So, you weren’t aware that cowpox provided immunity to the similar small pox and was the basis for the whole vaccine idea (and how they derived the term vaccine).  Delta is covid 19.  It is the same virus as the original, and is a lot closer to the original than smallpox and cowpox are.  More specifically there are studies for corona viruses as a class that show the same things….infection with one coronavirus improved immunity against the entire class.

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Sdel said:

So, you weren’t aware that cowpox provided immunity to the similar small pox and was the basis for the whole vaccine idea (and how they derived the term vaccine).  

Yes. I was aware of that. What exactly makes you think that I'm not aware of that?? 

 

3 minutes ago, Sdel said:

Delta is covid 19.  It is the same virus as the original, and is a lot closer to the original than smallpox and cowpox are.  More specifically there are studies for corona viruses as a class that show the same things….infection with one coronavirus improved immunity against the entire class.

I am absolutely sure that having once had a coronavirus does not render one completely immune to all coronaviruses, or most of us would already be immune -- there are so many coronavirus colds floating around. 

I assume natural immunity does SOMETHING. I see no reason to assume that the mutation makes no difference in the ability of COVID to evade natural immunity. I'd need to see the numbers. 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, happysmileylady said:

I didn't say it was "high" (a rather nebulous term.)

 

The poster you quoted said "some protection."    You said "I see no reason to generalize."   There is a study that already shows some cross reactivity in immune responses.  

 

Now you are saying "I don't think there's any reason to assume that it's high."  Well, that's not really what was being discussed.  What was being discussed was whether or not it was reasonable to think there could be some protection against a later variant from a prior infection.  It's totally reasonable given there is actual evidence that the two most similar viruses are showing some cross immunity. 

I assume there's some effectiveness. I have no idea if it's higher than that of vaccines, lower than that of vaccines, or about the same. It makes the 80% number a little hard to think about, because I don't know what to compare it to. 

[Sdel]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

I am absolutely sure that having once had a coronavirus does not render one completely immune to all coronaviruses, or most of us would already be immune -- there are so many coronavirus colds floating around.

Neither is the vaccine.  As a point, DH works in a hospital.  He has had fully vaccinated and previously infected patients come in who were asymptomatic for Covid who did not know they had been reinfected and were only caught because they were testing everyone who were positive…..BEFORE delta arrived.

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

This whole thread is about natural immunity vs vax immunity.  So that 80%......................you compare it to the data we have for vax immunity.  If you want to compare either against Delta specifically, that's a whole other thing and there's very little good data for EITHER vax or natural on Delta because time.  This thread wasn't intended to be specifically about Delta. 

My point is all of our 6-month vaccine numbers involve Delta. There’s no comparable 6-month data set for vaccines, I don’t think.

[Dmmetler]

Realistically, if Natural immunity is in the same range as the J&J for most people it makes sense to count it for things requiring vaccination that accept the J&J. Which may be why the college accepts prior infection since they accept international vaccines that are WHO approved,but we're substantially lower than the mRNA ones. 

[Not_a_Number]

To attempt to clarify… I think the 80 percent number is super interesting, but obviously for a direct comparison with vaccines, we’d need to actually have data with the same variant as the one they got the 80% number from. 

Hopefully we’ll get numbers on how well naturally immunity works with Delta at some point. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Dmmetler said:

Realistically, if Natural immunity is in the same range as the J&J for most people it makes sense to count it for things requiring vaccination that accept the J&J. Which may be why the college accepts prior infection since they accept international vaccines that are WHO approved,but we're substantially lower than the mRNA ones. 

I do think that natural immunity ought to count, if it’s documented.

[prairiewindmomma]

Oregon has reinstituted a mask mandate for indoors starting Friday. 56.5% of the state is fully vaccinated.

They offered this info on natural immunity v. Vaccine: https://covidblog.oregon.gov/vaccine-conversations-dr-shimi-sharief-talks-natural-vs-vaccine-induced-immunity/

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, prairiewindmomma said:

Oregon has reinstituted a mask mandate for indoors starting Friday. 56.5% of the state is fully vaccinated.

They offered this info on natural immunity v. Vaccine: https://covidblog.oregon.gov/vaccine-conversations-dr-shimi-sharief-talks-natural-vs-vaccine-induced-immunity/

I feel like the official line on vaccines vs natural immunity is not all that evidence-based… I’ll listen later, though. Does he cite anything specific?

[prairiewindmomma]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I feel like the official line on vaccines vs natural immunity is not all that evidence-based… I’ll listen later, though. Does he cite anything specific?

She… She just speaks generally encouraging vaccination, but I think more to the point, I am impressed that the state is trying to talk about it. Looking at the messaging from other states, there is little official out there. We are rare people to be digging deep into studies.

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Ok, I see what you mean.

Thing is, we actually don't have good data on prevention of breakthrou cases regarding Delta.  Vaccine manufacturers have changed the way they present.  Now, instead of presenting infection, they are presenting "severity of disease."   Which isn't imo, a bad thing.................but that's different than a study looking at straight up infection testing data.  The dutch study doesn't seem to take "severity of disease" into account at all and only.....................positive is a positive, negative is a negative.

It's actually quite hard to get a decent measure of prevention of infection outside of a trial. That's why there was such a wide range of estimates coming out: you get all sorts of weirdness due to the kinds of people who bother to test and the kinds that don't. You need to do some kind of random surveillance to get those numbers.

Israel has been attempting to get the numbers for prevention of infection, and they are quite low... of course, there's also the confounder that it's hard to know if Delta is making things less effective or the fact that the vaccinations were a long time ago is. 

Basically, right now the data is really confusing. 

[Dmmetler]

4 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

What is the difference between prevention of acquiring infection from mRNA vs prevention of acquiring infection from J&J?

J&J has always had effectiveness rates for the single dose lower than the 2 dose mRNA or AZ sequences, yet is considered "fully vaccinated". So, if that's a baseline for being considered fully vsccinated, and having COVID is in a similar or higher  level, it should be accepted. 

[Dmmetler]

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-well-covid-19-vaccines-work-against-the-delta-variant#Vaccines-vs.-Delta-variant

 

According to the CDC, J&J was 66% effective against infection with the first version, and it seems to be continuing at a similar level. That seems like a baseline that it's likely that natural immunity can match, at least for a few months. But, as I mentioned above, documentation is a sticking point for many people. Realistically, if you're already quarantined, it doesn't make sense to send other family members out to be tested if they're symptomatic and risk exposing others!

[prairiewindmomma]

13 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

All that video seems to say is basically...............they don't have a clue about how protective natural immunity is. 

 

 

Which is what was stated earlier in the thread.......the amount of data on natural immunity is small in comparison with vaccine immunity.   That statement doesn't mean vax is better, it means there's not a lot of data to make really equivalent comparisons. 

With re: to immunity, yes. And as pointed out innumerable times elsewhere, vaccination does provide benefit in terms of reducing spread, serious disease, and likelihood of hospitalization compared to acquiring covid naturally.

 

[Sdel]

 

28 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Realistically, if Natural immunity is in the same range as the J&J for most people it makes sense to count it for things requiring vaccination that accept the J&J. Which may be why the college accepts prior infection since they accept international vaccines that are WHO approved,but we're substantially lower than the mRNA ones. 

The really sad disconnect here is that in order to get natural immunity sans vaccination that counts enough for social approval to be allowed to live your life; from this point forward you have to willing to commit the social faux pas of actually getting sick. 

[Dmmetler]

2 minutes ago, Sdel said:

 

The really sad disconnect here is that in order to get natural immunity sans vaccination that counts enough for social approval to be allowed to live your life; from this point forward you have to willing to commit the social faux pas of actually getting sick. 

I'm thinking more of the people who have already been sick-and there are a lot of them.  I know SO many people who got sick between January and April, when it got to the point that all adults qualified for vaccination. And a lot of countries are still in the "vaccines are available, but you have to meet X, Y, Z and be lucky to get one", so they'll have more people developing natural immunity now. It would be nice to know if they don't actually need to fight to get a vaccine. 

[prairiewindmomma]

27 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

You state that like that's fact, but that's really the whole purpose of the thread..............to discuss if that's really fact and how much data there is to support that. 

Actually, this thread was started by Pam to discuss vaccine passports.

What information would be conclusive for you? Would stats on ICU hospitalizations of vaccinated versus unvaccinated work for you? What about spread rates of people who have been vaccinated versus the unvaccinated? That’s all out there but based on my experiences on other threads with you, I am really unwilling to take the time to dig up the data unless you are willing to sincerely engage.

[prairiewindmomma]

My son’s university allows 90 days prior infection or vaccine. But, each university seems to have jt’s own policy. I am not sure why you think there would be a singular answer for every university. 
 

What is good enough? How do you determine that? Good enough to have parents feel psychologically safe sending their kids? Good enough to pass legal muster for liability? It’s clear that both natural immunity and vax immunity fade with time for some individuals given reinfection rates.

[prairiewindmomma]

I am going to bow out. Today is too busy for this for me…

[Pam in CT]

(I started the thread because there seemed to be interest in the topic of immunity accorded by vaccination vs prior infection; I'm pretty agnostic about different directions folks riff off from there.)

 

I am *personally* interested in the implementation / documentation side of the issue.  It's much easier for a university (for example) to ask for and receive fairly standardized 3rd-party verification of vaccine status than to get 3rd-party verification of prior infection status.  And as several pp have noted, how well the vaccines are holding up over time/ against new variants is being assiduously studied around the globe, while -- for a variety of reasons, including the Follow the Money reasons raised by pp -- that kind of systematic data collection is not happening for immunity afforded through prior infection.

So while I "believe" that prior infection is likely to afford a degree of immunity protection, that does not, to me, translate very easily into public policy or private employers' / universities' / business' decisionmaking. 

If I were a business who took my employees' health seriously, or a school trying to safeguard students' health, or a business making a calculation that more customers were concerned about COVID transmission > customers irritated about passports... I would *not* view proof of vaccine as equivalent to (say) employee statement that "I had it last April."

Regular titre tests, I probably could get comfortable with.  Regular, because the extent to which the vaccines are holding up is being tested in the aggregate, whereas for all the reasons being thrashed out here, the extent to which immunity conferred through prior infection is not being studied anywhere nearly as systematically... so to my mind there needs to be individual stopgap where there does not for vaccinated.

But among the folks disinclined to vaccinate, there seems also to be disinclination to test (PCR or blood draws). So it's hard for me to see how implementation would work (whether the "level" of any mandate is federal-which-I-cannot-imagine, state which seems almost equally unlikely, or business/ university / employer patchwork which is the usual American way.)

[Spy Car]

3 hours ago, Sdel said:

 

The really sad disconnect here is that in order to get natural immunity sans vaccination that counts enough for social approval to be allowed to live your life; from this point forward you have to willing to commit the social faux pas of actually getting sick. 

And even then natural immunity will likely be incomplete and one risks dying or causing the death of others in the process.

Vaccines are safe and effective. 

Bill

[kbutton]

20 hours ago, whitestavern said:

Not sure I understand. What do you mean by restrictions based on immunity? As I noted earlier (though maybe on another thread) if by restrictions you mean antibody testing, then vaccinated people should have to be tested for antibodies as well. We have no idea how many vaxxed people might not have immunity or who have waning immunity. We know some do not have any or have decreased levels of immunity but no idea how many that might be. 

And what would we do with these people? Tell them they can't work or come on campus? Tell them to go out and get Covid and possibly die? If they don't make antibodies from the vaccine, they probably won't by getting the actual disease.

This seems like being rigid for the sake of proving a point, not achieving a public goal.

4 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

I expect the biggest barrier to including prior infection is a lack of documentation. I know a lot of people who assume they've had COVID and assume they are now immune or at least resistant, but only one family member was ever tested-and sometimes, not even that. 

Yes, that is the care here. And many, many people opted to not test at all, and they sure didn't want to be contacted by a contact tracer. 

4 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I feel like the official line on vaccines vs natural immunity is not all that evidence-based… 

YLE has a link to a study, but I don't know if the study is as definitive as you'd like. Here is a quote below that has a link to that study and gives the proposed mechanism.

Quote

Natural infection can mount a messy response compared to the much more targeted vaccine immunity.

It has to do with how antibodies attach to the virus. Both antibodies (natural and vaccine) block the spike protein from attaching to our cells. One landing target is a specific place on the spike protein called the receptor binding domain, or RBD.

But a recent study found that natural antibodies mainly attach to one region (called E484) on the RBD while vaccine antibodies can attached to many regions. This can be problematic for natural immunity as the virus mutates and regions on the RBD change. Because vaccine antibodies can attach to many regions, the vaccine antibodies have more flexible landing options and thus provides better protection potential as the virus changes.

4 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

What is the difference between prevention of acquiring infection from mRNA vs prevention of acquiring infection from J&J?

This WaPo article touches on this with a reference to a South African trial that seems to show better results with J and J than what other studies have shown. It's still getting reviewed, and the article discusses some of the cons: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/10/johnson-johnson-covid-vaccine-worry/?utm_campaign=wp_to_your_health&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_tyh&wpmk=1&pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJjb29raWVuYW1lIjoid3BfY3J0aWQiLCJpc3MiOiJDYXJ0YSIsImNvb2tpZXZhbHVlIjoiNWZlZjYzNzI5YmJjMGYyNTEyYmNmYzQyIiwidGFnIjoiNjExNDMxOGI5ZDJmZGEyZjQ3ZWZkZmJhIiwidXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2FzaGluZ3RvbnBvc3QuY29tL2hlYWx0aC8yMDIxLzA4LzEwL2pvaG5zb24tam9obnNvbi1jb3ZpZC12YWNjaW5lLXdvcnJ5Lz91dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249d3BfdG9feW91cl9oZWFsdGgmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fc291cmNlPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXImd3Bpc3JjPW5sX3R5aCZ3cG1rPTEifQ.Ic2UlXfPjB9xI6ABB8TecvxYx5LRIEmsnF3qMx8mbt0 

[Pam in CT]

re immunity conferred by prior infection in COVID vs diseases like chicken pox

22 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

On the one hand, I do agree. 

 

On the other hand, it seems that even the vaccine manufacturers are stating that vaccine immunity does wane over time.  So, if they are even saying that, I am wondering if titers across the board aren't really the better option for what you are discussing. 

 

DD25 got C-pox when she was in Kindy.  The c-pox vaccine was available but I did not get it for her.  We moved in the middle of her first grade year and at her new school, EITHER proof of the c-pox vaccine OR proof of having had c-pox was required.  For proof of having had c-pox...............doc note or titers were valid proof. 

 

I think there's plenty of precedent for what sorts of PROOF could be required. 

 

I think the question of the effectiveness of natural immunity vs vax comes in when trying to figure out if natural immunity is good enough, not necessarily how to prove it.   For c-pox, it's generally been accepted that if you had it, you can't get it again.  The fact that a small percentage of people who have had it can still get it again (and that it causes shingles and that people with a shingles flare can still actually spread c-pox) has generally been accepted as 'well, ok, but it's good enough.'    Right now, in many situations, it's just not accepted that natural immunity of covid is good enough.  Some of that is because of the novelty of covid, some is because the IFR is higher than C-pox at the moment, and a lot is just straight lack of data.   The more data we have, the better acceptance of the concept will be. 

On the one hand, I also do agree.  At the moment, COVID is different from chicken pox both because it is transmitting at a rate, and responsible for a level of death / hospitalizations / extreme HCW shortage / medical expenses that chicken pox is not; and also as you say because there is a lot more information over a much longer time available about how well immunity lasts after chicken pox infection, than for COVID infection.  But there may *over time* be a roughly comparable appreciation for immunity conferred by prior infection as demonstrated by one-time titres.

On the other, until we get to that point uncertainty is high and data collection is important.  And the patchwork of employer / business / school programs that are arising are unlikely, I think, to opt for regular titres of every employee / customer / student every 3 months or whatever even if that would make sense for everyone -- the implementation of regular universal titre-counting would be unwieldy, expensive, put a yuge burden on the poor minimum-wage-employees at the door or in HR. The standardization of vaccination has a lot of efficiency to it.

(And as I said upthread, I'm not convinced regular titre-counting would much allay the controversy anyway. A lot of the loudest vaccine-resistant voices seem resistant to ANY needles for ANY public policy purpose; I dunno that regular titre-count-tests would really be deemed any less invasive or controversial than the vaccine itself.)

[Not_a_Number]

39 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Right now, in many situations, it's just not accepted that natural immunity of covid is good enough.  Some of that is because of the novelty of covid, some is because the IFR is higher than C-pox at the moment, and a lot is just straight lack of data.   The more data we have, the better acceptance of the concept will be. 

But the thing with chickenpox is that the immunity genuinely does last a lifetime, give or take. We don't necessarily expect that with COVID. That makes it trickier, no? 

[Guest]

Well, as someone who is married to a vaccine-reluctant COVID survivor, I sure do wish we had reliable data as to natural immunity and how “good” it is. 

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

I think that over time, we might very well find that natural immunity does confer very long term immunity, I think that SARS1 immunity sort of turns the path that way (for all who are reading, don't take that to the extreme, I am not saying the study mentioned provides 100% definitive proof or anything of the sort.....I am only saying that it provides some hope of that.)

I've heard of way too many reinfections to have hope for that 😕 . 

[catz]

Ok, I wish I could find the article I read this week but I read an interview by a doctor/epidemiologist about break through infections.  And I will keep looking, I'll link it back if I can find it.  But this was the gist of it ...

So when you get a vaccine or have a natural infection your get antibodies build up to a peak.  They will live in your nose too.  They clear out of your mucus membranes before they clear out of your blood.  Even if they clear out of your blood, those memory cells have the info and will ramp that response up quickly.  BUT in the mean time, you can have a gross upper respitory viral infection like a cold.  Without really much if any risk of it attacking your organs or developing pneumonia as long as your immune system can mount a response.  So this made a lot of sense to me.  Especially given the existing common cold corona viruses out in the world today that for the vast majority of us cause niggling but minor colds that our bodies fight off without a whole lot of effort most of the time.  

He also theorized that a nasal spray kind of vaccine could help build further/different immunity.  And he won't be surprised if we need further vaccination to solidify our antibody/memory cell immunity either, though a nasal spray vaccine may cover that too if any of those ever get through trials   But that also shouldn't be super surprising given how many vaccines are administered in a number of doses to build immunity.  

So it wouldn't surprise me if natural acquired immunity builds those memory cells up reasonably well, but it is a much higher risk to get your antibodies that way obviously.  Plenty of data to support that. It also may require a number of exposures.  But at the same time, all of us may not hold active antibodies in our noses for super long that can totally hold off a symptomatic infection.  

Edited August 12, 2021 by FuzzyCatz

[Terabith]

53 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I've heard of way too many reinfections to have hope for that 😕 . 

Yeah, it seems very clear to me that covid is less like SARS and more like other coronaviruses that grant short term immunity but not long term immunity.  Whether that's because of mutations or because of the nature of immunity, I do not know, but at some level, it does not really matter.

I DO think that infection conveys some immunity.  Possibly even more than vaccine induced immunity, though a number of epidemiologists seem to indicate that probably not.  It's tricky because we don't know how long either one is protective.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Terabith

[Faith-manor]

26 minutes ago, FuzzyCatz said:

Ok, I wish I could find the article I read this week but I read an interview by a doctor/epidemiologist about break through infections.  And I will keep looking, I'll link it back if I can find it.  But this was the gist of it ...

So when you get a vaccine or have a natural infection your get antibodies build up to a peak.  They will live in your nose too.  They clear out of your mucus membranes before they clear out of your blood.  Even if they clear out of your blood, those memory cells have the info and will ramp that response up quickly.  BUT in the mean time, you can have a gross upper respitory viral infection like a cold.  Without really much if any risk of it attacking your organs or developing pneumonia as long as your immune system can mount a response.  So this made a lot of sense to me.  Especially given the existing common cold corona viruses out in the world today that for the vast majority of us cause niggling but minor colds that our bodies fight off without a whole lot of effort most of the time.  

He also theorized that a nasal spray kind of vaccine could help build further/different immunity.  And he won't be surprised if we need further vaccination to solidify our antibody/memory cell immunity either, though a nasal spray vaccine may cover that too if any of those ever get through trials   But that also shouldn't be super surprising given how many vaccines are administered in a number of doses to build immunity.  

So it wouldn't surprise me if natural acquired immunity builds those memory cells up reasonably well, but it is a much higher risk to get your antibodies that way obviously.  Plenty of data to support that. It also may require a number of exposures.  But at the same time, all of us may not hold active antibodies in our noses for super long that can totally hold off a symptomatic infection.  

This is a very interesting idea. Is anyone working on nasal spray vaxes?

It really doesn't shake my belief in the vaccine just because we need boosters. I have a tetanus shot every 8 years. I had my measles titres tested for every pregnancy.  Many vaxes require 3 or more shots over childhood and even adulthood in order to maximize immune response. I am always a little shocked at those around me who think that needing a booster shot is proof the vaccines entirely ineffective. Yet, same people keep their tetanus up to date.

Patricia

[catz]

11 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

This is a very interesting idea. Is anyone working on nasal spray vaxes?

It really doesn't shake my belief in the vaccine just because we need boosters. I have a tetanus shot every 8 years. I had my measles titres tested for every pregnancy.  Many vaxes require 3 or more shots over childhood and even adulthood in order to maximize immune response. I am always a little shocked at those around me who think that needing a booster shot is proof the vaccines entirely ineffective. Yet, same people keep their tetanus up to date.

Patricia

Yes!  There are nasal sprays in development and trial, this is just one that happens to be associated with my kids U 

https://news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-flugen-bharat-biotech-to-develop-coroflu-a-coronavirus-vaccine/

There was also a small animal study on using AZ as a nasal spray instead of an injectable
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/intranasal-covid-19-vaccine-effective-animal-studies

The other potential benefit of keeping  virus counts down in the nose is get transmission rates down as well.  

Agree 100% on boosters.  I happily get my flu shot every year.  Never had the flu when I've gotten one (and we've had the full blown flu a number of times when we haven't!).  

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by FuzzyCatz

[Sdel]

2 hours ago, Spy Car said:

Vaccines are safe and effective.

Not for everyone.

[Not_a_Number]

34 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

I think that's where the difference between anectdata and actual data matters.  We have to work hard (meaning society in general) to ensure that we are making our policies like requiring immunity proof, based on data and not anecdata.

I don't mind anecdata of certain forms. Depends on the sampling mechanism. Of course, I expect people to actually collect data to verify things, but I tend to trust my anecdata when it meets certain standards. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

https://abc7news.com/covid-immunity-coronavirus-vaccines-cdc-study-unvaccinated-people-who-had-twice-as-likely-to-get-reinfected/10936598/

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, happysmileylady said:

I have a difficulty accepting anecdata over actual data.  It would be less trust, more verify for me. 

Oh, sure, you shouldn't accept it OVER actual data. But the actual data doesn't show anything like lifetime immunity, either. 80% is nowhere near 100%, and that's just at 6 months or so. 

[Spy Car]

1 hour ago, Sdel said:

Not for everyone.

Pretty much everyone. Exceptions are quite narrow and not what the anti vaxxers would wrongly like people to believe.

In contrast, Covid can be deadly.

Bill

[Spy Car]

19 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

No, but then vaccines don't show anything like lifetime immunity and vaccine immunity isn't anywhere near 100% either so I suppose that still.....................................the two are kind of on the same page there.

No correct about being "on the same page" in terms of protection.

 

Bill

Edited August 12, 2021 by desertflower
Be civil

[Not_a_Number]

51 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

No, but then vaccines don't show anything like lifetime immunity and vaccine immunity isn't anywhere near 100% either so I suppose that still.....................................the two are kind of on the same page there.

I don't disagree with you there. I just don't think we're going to have anything be lifelong. 

[Not_a_Number]

42 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

No correct about being "on the same page" in terms of protection.

And you are fully aware of what Covid can do.

Bill

That's really unnecessary 😕 . 

[Spy Car]

18 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

That's really unnecessary 😕 . 

 

Bill

 

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by desertflower
Don't insist on the last word.