Why is there no widespread antibody testing to see if we've reached herd immunity? The push to vaccinate is only necessary if we're not there yet. I recall a study from a couple months ago claiming several times more people caught the virus than was generally thought.
The US on Friday saw the highest daily increase in cases since May. We don’t need to test for herd immunity; it’s patently obvious we haven’t reached it.
We don't need testing to figure out of we are at herd immunity. We know we are not, because the virus is spreading still and increasing speed now. It is only really an issue amongst unvaccinated. This population is basically anti-vax, apathetic, or children for whom the government has banned from getting the vaccine, regardless of circumstance.
In France, most people infected are young (< 55 years old), part of it because we could only access the vaccine at a later date than older people. Everyone that I know got their two shots, but most of them got the second less than a week ago.
Unfortunately, no. Natural immunity is less durable against variants [1]. (Proof of exposure should be fine, though, for low-risk stuff in areas not undergoing an outbreak.)
Given that and assuming we’ll have a permanently unvaccinated population, the virus would be expected to keep reinfecting that group, thereby increasing the selection pressure for strains that reinfect.
Does this study actually conclude that vaccination is better at preventing being infected with variants? It looked to me that the study only proves that specifically the spike protein antibodies from the vaccine bind more generally than spike protein antibodies generated by a natural infection.
However during the course of a natural infection, antibodies would be generated for more targets on the virus than just the spike protein, wouldn’t it? Meanwhile the vaccine exclusively produces spike protein antibodies. This study doesn’t make any statements about how much effect those additional antibodies would have against variants.
The original paper [0] the article you quoted is based on doesn't say that the vaccine is better than natural immunity, just that it is different:
> Therefore, antibody immunity acquired by natural infection or different modes of vaccination may have a differing susceptibility to erosion by SARS-CoV-2 evolution.
They seem to be saying their tests showed that the vaccine antibodies better handled the receptor mutations they created (how much better? 100%? or 1%?), but that antibodies from a natural infection target other parts of the virus besides just the receptor (possibly offering broader protection).
> The neutralizing activity of vaccine-elicited antibodies was more targeted to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein compared to antibodies elicited by natural infection. However, within the RBD, binding of vaccine-elicited antibodies was more broadly distributed across epitopes compared to infection-elicited antibodies.
The problem with herd immunity is that the rate differs based on the variant. For something much more transmissible (like the Delta variant), herd immunity numbers are much different than for the original one. There's an argument that the US reached herd immunity on the original one pretty early on in vaccinations. And alpha with current vaccination rates. It's clear we haven't with Delta because numbers are going way up in unvaccinated people.
You are thinking about individual immunity. The comment you were responding to was about herd immunity.
Herd immunity is when enough people have individual immunity that when those without immunity get infected so many of those around them are immune that the outbreak quickly dies out on its own.
Even if individual immunity is the same for variants A and B of some virus, if variant B spreads more easily than variant A then you will have to have a higher percentage of the population with individual immunity in order to have herd immunity.
99.5% of those dying from Covid in America are unvaccinated. 99.5%.
At a certain point, I don’t know what to say, but the train has to leave the station. If you choose to run around unvaccinated and get Covid, the rest of us shouldn’t have to (a) shut down our lives or (b) pay tax dollars to save you if you end up in the hospital or dealing with the costs of long Covid. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_Motorist_Law.) This keeps everyone happy, and somewhat equitably constrains the harm. (It leaves those who can’t get vaccinated SOL.)
> the rest of us shouldn’t have to (a) shut down our lives or (b) pay tax dollars to save you if you end up in the hospital or deal with the costs of long Covid
still remains true and you didn’t present a counterpoint to that
> Black people were literally experimented on under the guise of vaccination programs. They have no reason to believe that isn't going to happen again.
This is the only sympathetic group out of the bunch. (Lots of people are ignorant of a lot of things for lots of reasons, sometimes at great cost. Those costs are generally theirs to carry.)
Practically, however, that sympathy has limits. Should we shut down New York again because those who refuse to get vaccinated will die? Would there be the political will to?
Although I think covid vaccine hesitancy is dumb at this point (yet don't think you can punish hesitant people) - Why should only those groups be hesitant? Anyone who can read history can see that happened even if it didn't affect their relatives. The government isn't known for being very effective or trustworthy lately, why should people think their incompetence/malice should be limited to those groups? Plenty of people of all races were attacked by the police last year during peaceful protests. Biden went on to lump protestors with anarchists as well as called doubt on Trump-led vaccines.
They shouldn’t. But there is daylight between the government having done something unfavourable to a group you identify with and it having abused the specific thing you’re being asked to do (saying you’re being vaccinated while administering a disease).
I agree the precedent exists for all Americans. That’s scary. But “the government has done bad things” isn’t a valid excuse for ignoring the other evidence. (I don’t give Black Americans a free pass on non-vaccination. I just sympathise with the hesitance.)
> millions of people who don't know basic biology or medicine, and vaccines are no more fathomable than magic.
But you could say the same about most things that most people do every day.
Nobody needs to become an amateur biologist.
But everyone needs to have the self awareness to step back and realize that vaccines are one of a hundred things they do that they don't have the expertise to build or explain, and that the only reason they're hesitant about this one is because they've been drawn into a culture war about it.
Whereas the rest of life that's equally unfathomable, we do it without controversy because nobody's found the value in making us pawns over it.
All I know is that if I was black, I’d have be damn distrustful considering the history of experimentation—especially when news came out last year that some folks at the CDC were advocating prioritizing the delivery of the “non-fda approved, experimental and rapidly developed” vaccine on people of color because “anti-racism.”
Not saying that the sentiment wasn’t genuine, but damn that is some poor optics considering the history.
>Black people were literally experimented on under the guise of vaccination programs.
There's been a lot of stories and allegations about vaccination programs in Pakistan in the 21st century, in relation to attempts to find Osama Bin Laden. That they were fake, and/or covertly collecting DNA for the CIA.
Is this a valid reason for all Americans to be suspicious of vaccines or at least not to blame them?
If you read the essay they made a good example of why black people are hesitant- their history of mistreatment by a racist medical industry. So to say we should leave these people “SOL” strikes me as deeply non-sympathetic to efforts at reparative racial health justice. Another thought I had is that figuring out ways to influence (trick?) these people into making the “right” choice now wrt vaxxing may not make them less hesitant about “following advice” in the future.
Same applies to obesity in your opinion? The risks are very well known but people don’t do enough to prevent it and take care of themselves. Should obese people not relieve medical care due to their negligence and unwillingness to eat less?
Of course not. We don’t understand how to prevent obesity. And losing weight—or keeping it off—involves more than visiting a Walgreens.
Also, if you’re obese, you’re suffering the effects of obesity all the time. If you’re unvaccinated, you are fine 99% of the time. If you stay home as much as possible, wear a mask outdoors and avoid large gatherings, you’re likely to continue being fine.
Which is why I included it first and did not bury it and did not ignore it on my search. But I will give you brownie and taco points for actually reading the references
I have read many scientific, peer-reviewed papers on this subject. There is too much 'insufficient' data and too much correlation/causation issues. I am a hardware engineer, so am driven, delimited, and succeed or fail on the veracity of my data. I can generally depend on good data provided by suppliers and its efficacy because it is based on Physics. I have read may MS and PhD papers in botany and cellular biology, and a few CDC/NIH/FDA papers on the OT. I will conjecture that there are too many life scientists on these research teams and not enough physical scientists and engineers.
Humans evolved to allow hunger to override the rational thinking part of the brain. The older parts of the brain can basically shut off the newer (logical thinking) parts. So even if you know you have to eat less to lose weight, often if food is available you won't be able to resist it if you are really hungry. Your statement is wrong, it is more complicated than that because we are hardwired to not starve if food is available.
And yet no country in the world, rich or poor, Western or non-Western, managed to reduce its obesity levels to, say, three quarters of the maximal value or less.
So it seems to be, in practice, a more complicated problem than reduction of smoking, which has been rather successful in many countries.
While obesity is a problem and the solutions heavily involve the person changing their life, it is not comparable to vaccines.
Fixing obesity involves education (not everyone knows why McDonalds is junk, or that too much of anything can be bad, meaning portion control), skills training/learning (cooking healthy food can be a big leap for someone who only microwaves a frozen meal), local environment (there are places with poor selection of fresh vegetables), lifestyle stuff beyond food (stress from working two jobs leads to eating badly, drinking, etc), and socioeconomic changes (not everyone can afford all of the above easily). That doesn't even involve things like getting you kids on board, fitness, etc.
And with all of that in place, significant weight loss is a long term effort spamming years for some people.
Getting a vaccine involves rolling up a sleeve then sitting for a bit in case of reactions. And maybe making an appointment.
Equating the two grossly overstates how hard it can be to deal with obesity vs getting a shot.
To a degree, yes. Not literally, because obesity isn't caused by a bug. But kids born and raised by fat parents have a high probability of ending up fat too. In this case, obesity is transmitted to other people through internalization of bad eating habits.
A big problem is parents with young children (who cannot get vaccinated). Even if the risk to kids is relatively low, it is still non-zero and increased by the ignorant behavior of a few adults.
63% according to this link [1], along with an explanation as to why this is not an alarming number (TL;DNR if everyone were vaccinated, then 100% of deaths would be vaccinated).
I have one friend with an allergy. Their doctor said to not get the vaccine. They’re high risk. I hope this is a rare combo but some people have something to worry about as they get sent back to work
There’s also just plain distrust of government and media pushing something. Our trust in government and media is so low that when they say do something, most rational people are immediately suspicious.
Exactly this. There is an unbelievable irony in the fact that the current administration is on a intense PR push to get unvaccinated Americans to trust the vaccines and get vaccinated when they specifically communicated during their (Biden and Harris) campaigns last year their distrust regarding the vaccine due to its association with Trump, speed of development, and experimental nature.
This is what happens when people check in their common sense for political allegiances. I have no doubt that if Trump had won, we would still be having this issue of the distrustful unvaccinated, but their politics would be more on the democrats side.
In 2020 California and several other states said that they would conduct independent safety reviews of the vaccines because they didn't trust the Trump administration. When state government officials make irresponsible statements like that it's not surprising that some people are hesitant.
With three out of those four states having vaccination rates that are now above average, how can you be sure that an independent safety review didn't have the opposite effect?
At this point it’s impossible to say what the effect would have been. The states that have the above average rates are all very blue and that tracks with the current political winds of the democrats regarding vaccines. The political opinion on vaccines immediately shifted 180 degrees on Biden’s win, because there there was no need to resist Trump and vaccine hesitancy was a tactic being employed by the resisters.
Independent review may have convinced some who were hesitant but I suspect they would have been the folks independently hesitant as opposed to the “politically hesitant”. The politically hesitant would hold out until their trusted party authorities blessed the vaccines.
1. Co-worker, apparently healthy cauc make age 43, received Pfizer vaccine, contracted covid approx 33 days after 2d dose. Was in hospital for 3 weeks and has had various problems for several months.
2. Neighbor's kid, very fit (volleyball, track) hispanic female age 16, received Pfizer vaccine, has had joint problems, headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms since being vaccinated.
3. Myself, cranky geezer of dubious health and doubtful usefulness male age 64, received Janssen vaccine and approx 19-20 days later had mild symptoms that were originally believed to be a cold but later tested as covid positive, and still feel normal and cranky.
So from my little world, the only observed efficacy is the national and global statistics on covid spread and prevention per vaccinations. Your mileage may vary.
I did not say that we should not vaccinate against the covid virus.
I did not disparage any political view point.
I did not include any racial or ethnic slurs.
Supposedly educated and informed people need to be careful and always remain analytical whether or not the presentation of empirical data are coincident with your belief system. And if you down-vote, have the technical and ethical veracity to provide a comment as to why you think I am full of doggy doo-doo.
You didn’t get downvoted because you had the wrong opinion or behavior; you got downvoted because you have the wrong facts. In this day and age, some truths just cannot be spoken anymore.
It sucks to get downvoted, but it happens to everyone. Moreover, unfairly downvoted comments usually (though not always) eventually get corrective upvotes: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... This happened with your comment above. Meanwhile the off-topic meta complaint lingers on as uncollected garbage even after it has been falsified.
Have others listened to Bret Weinstein on this subject? Thoughts? He by all accounts is credible and provides plenty of nuance for reasons to be skeptical
65 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 98.9 ms ] threadThat’s easy to do—stay on private property. This country’s laws were written to protect those rights. With WFH, it’s more plausible than ever.
Given that and assuming we’ll have a permanently unvaccinated population, the virus would be expected to keep reinfecting that group, thereby increasing the selection pressure for strains that reinfect.
[1] https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/22/how-immunity-genera...
However during the course of a natural infection, antibodies would be generated for more targets on the virus than just the spike protein, wouldn’t it? Meanwhile the vaccine exclusively produces spike protein antibodies. This study doesn’t make any statements about how much effect those additional antibodies would have against variants.
> Therefore, antibody immunity acquired by natural infection or different modes of vaccination may have a differing susceptibility to erosion by SARS-CoV-2 evolution.
They seem to be saying their tests showed that the vaccine antibodies better handled the receptor mutations they created (how much better? 100%? or 1%?), but that antibodies from a natural infection target other parts of the virus besides just the receptor (possibly offering broader protection).
> The neutralizing activity of vaccine-elicited antibodies was more targeted to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein compared to antibodies elicited by natural infection. However, within the RBD, binding of vaccine-elicited antibodies was more broadly distributed across epitopes compared to infection-elicited antibodies.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/
They use the same vector for infection which so the immunities offer protection against. The protection mechanism is a game of catch up though.
Herd immunity is when enough people have individual immunity that when those without immunity get infected so many of those around them are immune that the outbreak quickly dies out on its own.
Even if individual immunity is the same for variants A and B of some virus, if variant B spreads more easily than variant A then you will have to have a higher percentage of the population with individual immunity in order to have herd immunity.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
Because then the show has to stop. It's pretty dark if you think about it long enough.
At a certain point, I don’t know what to say, but the train has to leave the station. If you choose to run around unvaccinated and get Covid, the rest of us shouldn’t have to (a) shut down our lives or (b) pay tax dollars to save you if you end up in the hospital or dealing with the costs of long Covid. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_Motorist_Law.) This keeps everyone happy, and somewhat equitably constrains the harm. (It leaves those who can’t get vaccinated SOL.)
Black people were literally experimented on under the guise of vaccination programs. They have no reason to believe that isn't going to happen again.
And then you just have millions of people who don't know basic biology or medicine, and vaccines are no more fathomable than magic.
Add lots of misinfo from Facebook to that mess, and you have people who can't always be blamed for their fear.
still remains true and you didn’t present a counterpoint to that
both a) and b) have to be satisfied for me to care enough to dissect the similarities and offer an opinion
I’ve come to understand your example is a topic a lot of people care passionately about though. That’s interesting.
This is the only sympathetic group out of the bunch. (Lots of people are ignorant of a lot of things for lots of reasons, sometimes at great cost. Those costs are generally theirs to carry.)
Practically, however, that sympathy has limits. Should we shut down New York again because those who refuse to get vaccinated will die? Would there be the political will to?
They shouldn’t. But there is daylight between the government having done something unfavourable to a group you identify with and it having abused the specific thing you’re being asked to do (saying you’re being vaccinated while administering a disease).
I agree the precedent exists for all Americans. That’s scary. But “the government has done bad things” isn’t a valid excuse for ignoring the other evidence. (I don’t give Black Americans a free pass on non-vaccination. I just sympathise with the hesitance.)
But you could say the same about most things that most people do every day.
Nobody needs to become an amateur biologist.
But everyone needs to have the self awareness to step back and realize that vaccines are one of a hundred things they do that they don't have the expertise to build or explain, and that the only reason they're hesitant about this one is because they've been drawn into a culture war about it.
Whereas the rest of life that's equally unfathomable, we do it without controversy because nobody's found the value in making us pawns over it.
Come on.
In this case, too, anti-vaxxerism is due to a lack of education.
Whatever we do, we need to improve education, or we're going to continue paying for the consequences of not having enough of it.
Not saying that the sentiment wasn’t genuine, but damn that is some poor optics considering the history.
I sympathize with that statement, and maybe this is just semantics, but did we ask Black people to receive the vaccine first?
Everybody has equal access.
There's been a lot of stories and allegations about vaccination programs in Pakistan in the 21st century, in relation to attempts to find Osama Bin Laden. That they were fake, and/or covertly collecting DNA for the CIA.
Is this a valid reason for all Americans to be suspicious of vaccines or at least not to blame them?
Of course not. We don’t understand how to prevent obesity. And losing weight—or keeping it off—involves more than visiting a Walgreens.
Also, if you’re obese, you’re suffering the effects of obesity all the time. If you’re unvaccinated, you are fine 99% of the time. If you stay home as much as possible, wear a mask outdoors and avoid large gatherings, you’re likely to continue being fine.
Please reference below:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25196414/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606061/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...
https://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/products/obesity-resear...
“The evidence base is limited in quantity and quality and insufficient to provide clear guidance“ [1].
The entire paper is about the “major evidence gaps.”
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25196414/
I have read many scientific, peer-reviewed papers on this subject. There is too much 'insufficient' data and too much correlation/causation issues. I am a hardware engineer, so am driven, delimited, and succeed or fail on the veracity of my data. I can generally depend on good data provided by suppliers and its efficacy because it is based on Physics. I have read may MS and PhD papers in botany and cellular biology, and a few CDC/NIH/FDA papers on the OT. I will conjecture that there are too many life scientists on these research teams and not enough physical scientists and engineers.
So it seems to be, in practice, a more complicated problem than reduction of smoking, which has been rather successful in many countries.
Fixing obesity involves education (not everyone knows why McDonalds is junk, or that too much of anything can be bad, meaning portion control), skills training/learning (cooking healthy food can be a big leap for someone who only microwaves a frozen meal), local environment (there are places with poor selection of fresh vegetables), lifestyle stuff beyond food (stress from working two jobs leads to eating badly, drinking, etc), and socioeconomic changes (not everyone can afford all of the above easily). That doesn't even involve things like getting you kids on board, fitness, etc.
And with all of that in place, significant weight loss is a long term effort spamming years for some people.
Getting a vaccine involves rolling up a sleeve then sitting for a bit in case of reactions. And maybe making an appointment.
Equating the two grossly overstates how hard it can be to deal with obesity vs getting a shot.
https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politi...
I don't think that the article does enough to dismiss it. And since every older and at risk person was vaccinated you have no one to compare to
This is what happens when people check in their common sense for political allegiances. I have no doubt that if Trump had won, we would still be having this issue of the distrustful unvaccinated, but their politics would be more on the democrats side.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/10/27/western-states-join-califo...
Independent review may have convinced some who were hesitant but I suspect they would have been the folks independently hesitant as opposed to the “politically hesitant”. The politically hesitant would hold out until their trusted party authorities blessed the vaccines.
1. Co-worker, apparently healthy cauc make age 43, received Pfizer vaccine, contracted covid approx 33 days after 2d dose. Was in hospital for 3 weeks and has had various problems for several months.
2. Neighbor's kid, very fit (volleyball, track) hispanic female age 16, received Pfizer vaccine, has had joint problems, headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms since being vaccinated.
3. Myself, cranky geezer of dubious health and doubtful usefulness male age 64, received Janssen vaccine and approx 19-20 days later had mild symptoms that were originally believed to be a cold but later tested as covid positive, and still feel normal and cranky.
So from my little world, the only observed efficacy is the national and global statistics on covid spread and prevention per vaccinations. Your mileage may vary.
I did not say that we should not vaccinate against the covid virus.
I did not disparage any political view point.
I did not include any racial or ethnic slurs.
Supposedly educated and informed people need to be careful and always remain analytical whether or not the presentation of empirical data are coincident with your belief system. And if you down-vote, have the technical and ethical veracity to provide a comment as to why you think I am full of doggy doo-doo.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It sucks to get downvoted, but it happens to everyone. Moreover, unfairly downvoted comments usually (though not always) eventually get corrective upvotes: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... This happened with your comment above. Meanwhile the off-topic meta complaint lingers on as uncollected garbage even after it has been falsified.