I doubt people are going to respond that didn't receive it, after being publicly attacked and shamed for 2 years. Now everyone wants to just act like that mass psychosis never happened.
I've been vaxxed and boosted but have accepted that we won't really know the true efficacy of any of the stuff that went on during the pandemic for decades. Any dissent from the official line was treated as heresy. Can't do any real science in that kind of environment.
I got one shot, the J&J. Didn't want it, but was being threatened with termination at work. Have not had any boosters, and work has since dropped all their vaccine requirements.
It makes more sense when you remember the stated purpose: preventing spread. Once Omicron ratcheted the spread rate up by an order of magnitude and demonstrated enough evasion that the original vaccines couldn’t plausibly prevent enough transmission, that changed from a shared model where everyone is masked & vaccinated to stop the pandemic to a more individual risk tolerance question.
In the former case, having a firm policy to get vaccination rates over the critical threshold to halt spread has a reasonable justification: we literally can’t do that without you.
The problem is, all these mandates were instituted long after the Provincetown study, which made it clear that Delta was also exhibiting significant vaccine escape and herd immunity was impossible. Any notions of "stop the pandemic" were absurd past that point.
A lot was missing from the original trials as well. No study of impact on transmission, no routine testing to detect asymptomatic cases.
Wait, I thought these vaccines weren’t supposed to prevent spread. Instead, they were supposed to keep hospitals from filling up. After all, illness severity was the primary endpoint of the clinical trials used to support marketing approval.
Plenty of senior government officials said they would stop the spread. This seemingly despite no testing of that outcome.
Most vaccines are neutralizing meaning that it primes your immune system so well that you couldn't possibly get sick. It seems that these new vaccines, for whatever reason, doesn't elicit the same benefits that we're used to seeing from traditional vaccines.
That last part is complicated because it’s a function of not just the vaccines but also the virus: some mutate more readily than others both by how well they tolerate mutations and how rapidly they spread (more cases = more chances to get the next big mutation). Our influenza vaccines have a similar problem because that’s also a respiratory virus which mutates frequently. Something which only spread by skin contact might, for example, be an easier target simply because it has a much slower spread and thus mutation rate — nobody gets on a bus and licks all of the other passengers!
The level of effectiveness at preventing spread wasn’t known - that’s harder to measure - and since the protective effects were so strong there wasn’t an approval delay trying to get those numbers.
If memory serves, the subsequent data suggested that we could have reached herd immunity with something like 90% vaccination rates against the original strain. Delta and especially Omicron put paid to that, however, and closed any chance of most people being able to avoid infection.
It could have been measured during the trials. Give everyone regular PCR tests even if not symptomatic and measure viral load. If it's the same then it's reasonable to infer the vaccines are suppressing symptoms but you still get infected.
Researchers did eventually do that, after the vaccines had all been approved and people forced to take them. They found there's no difference in viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. So reducing symptoms is now the consensus position on what they do, but that could easily have been known from the start.
That’s a solid repetition of antivax talking points but none of it is accurate. Data was being collected during the trials and in other studies but it’s harder because you also need to establish the direction of spread, which in the simple PCR model you outlined would require testing not only the person in the trial but everyone around them with timing precise enough to start establishing direction (if my wife and I both get sick and she’s in the vaccine trial, a point in time PCR showing both of us with antibodies doesn’t distinguish between the vaccine failing to prevent her from giving it to me or the reverse).
When the efficacy of the vaccines was so high for preventing serious cases, it would have been a medical ethics problem to delay getting them out to the public while trying to get better data on spread.
When that kind of data did come out later, it showed strong effects — unfortunately, as noted this was against Alpha and Delta was already chipping away at efficacy:
> Two studies1,2 from Israel, posted as preprints on 16 July, find that two doses of the vaccine made by pharmaceutical company Pfizer, based in New York City, and biotechnology company BioNTech, based in Mainz, Germany, are 81% effective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections. And vaccinated people who do get infected are up to 78% less likely to spread the virus to household members than are unvaccinated people. Overall, this adds up to very high protection against transmission, say researchers.
> Before the emergence of the B.1.617.2 (delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), vaccination reduced transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from vaccinated persons who became infected, potentially by reducing viral loads. Although vaccination still lowers the risk of infection, similar viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated persons who are infected with the delta variant call into question the degree to which vaccination prevents transmission.
Not on infectiousness or spread, that's the whole point we're making here.
"When the efficacy of the vaccines was so high for preventing serious cases"
They claimed based on trial data 95% efficacy against infection, not just serious cases. That wasn't accurate.
"it would have been a medical ethics problem to delay getting them out to the public while trying to get better data on spread"
They had many months. Regardless even if this wasn't the case, it's easy: make them available and then don't impose any requirements or passporting until such data is available. They didn't do this.
You appear to classify literally any criticism of any process or happening to do with vaccines as "antivax talking points" even though they're precise and specific to this event. Do you realize that for vaccines to be safe and effective, you need a whole lot of people who are willing to be "antivax" in the regulators, pharma companies, doctors surgeries and more? The only reason anyone believes in vaccine safety at all is the assumption of lots of people who will yell stop at the slightest hint of problems. It's clear that this assumption is wrong and the people most afraid of being classed as "anti-vaxxers" are the very people meant to be watching out for safety problems.
> You appear to classify literally any criticism of any process or happening to do with vaccines as "antivax talking points" even though they're precise and specific to this event
The thing is, they’re not precise or specific. You keep repeating vague claims which are contradicted by the scientific evidence. If you’re not anti-vax you should ask whether you’re getting these points from people who are, or whether your belief about how science works is shared by actual scientists. For example, it is a complete falsehood that ‘you need a whole lot of people who are willing to be "antivax" in the regulators, pharma companies, doctors surgeries and more’ — critical review is a core part of the scientific process, nowhere more true than for new drugs and vaccines, but that’s not antivax — that’s scientists doing their jobs. The problem with antivax thinking isn’t that it’s skeptical but that it’s based on unwillingness to follow or accept the scientific process.
Actually, effectiveness against symptomatic infection was the primary endpoint of the trials. There weren't sufficient cases of severe illness in the vaccinated or placebo groups to draw any conclusions from the trials about protection from hospitalization/death.
Nothing is free. Some things are just paid for in other ways like taxes, debt, and inflation.
Also, I know zero people personally who've been seeiously affected by COVID. However,I personally know one pro vaccine person who was hospitalized by a heart attack immediately after his third shot.
The study estimates that risk of myocarditis is much, much higher than previously reported. We simply don't have the data because reporting has not been stringent and no one is doing the appropriate research: https://youtu.be/2mWZY6vmdBM
"The clinical presentation of myopericarditis after vaccination was usually mild and temporary, with all cases fully recovering within 14 days."
And as for your example, there are two things to keep in mind:
1) "Data" is not the plural of "anecdote", so saying you don't know anyone who's been seriously affected by COVID isn't very clear. How many people do you know who have had it? How do you know they weren't seriously affected by COVID? Were they related, or were they random individuals? Sampling error is a real thing.
2) Correlation does not equal causation. One person hospitalized with a heart attack after his third shot could be due to lots of things, including random chance or a hidden heart condition that was just pushed over the edge by his body's immune response to the vaccine.
> "The clinical presentation of myopericarditis after vaccination was usually mild and temporary, with all cases fully recovering within 14 days."
The sample size of the study was far too small to estimate risk of serious illness, and, if you took the time to read the study, you would know that already. The point was to estimate the overall risk of myocarditis using a prospective study and compare it to contemporary estimates, and, unsurprisingly, the study showed that the risk may be much, much higher than currently reported.
> "Data" is not the plural of "anecdote
Thanks for the unneeded lecture! Notice that I:
1) supplied a study with data to back up my anecdote.
2) pointed out that there is actually a dearth of high-quality data which would prevent anyone from concluding anything in either direction based on data alone.
3) The prospective study I linked already addressed correlation versus causation.
It looks to me like, when you see scientific evidence that contradicts your current biases, you reach for some very weak tools to try to justify ignoring the evidence. That's not surprising, frankly. Most people are that way.
Actually, the risk is stratified by age. With this entire pandemic, risk has been stratified by age, co-morbidities, etc.
If you're a male under 40 years old your risk of myocarditis is higher from the vaccines. Not to mention, if you don't have co-morbidities, your risk of death from COVID is quite low. It's a simple cost benefit analysis, really. According to a linked study (ahajournals.org link), risk of cardiac related issues from vaccine for males under 40, like myself, is 1/10000 or 0.0001. Risk of cardiac related issues from covid-19 for males under 40 is about 0.0000016, so about a factor of 6 lower risk. Additionally, as we know from more recent studies, especially with the Kraken XBB variant, vaccines offer virtually no protection and almost everyone will get infected. So we can code probability of infection post-vaccination and post-natural infection as equal for the sake of simplicity. Additionally, there is a growing body of research discussing reinfection issues during a subsequent infection by vaccination status, and the latest numbers I extracted from the paper are coded below. In summary, for me, a 32 year old male, we get the following risks profiles:
vaccine risk = P(problem | vaccine, male under 40, no comorbidities) * P(covid | vaccine immunity) * P(problem second infection | vaccine immunity)
vaccine risk = 0.0001 * 0.95 * 0.51
vaccine risk = 0.000004845
natural immunity risk = P(problem | covid-19, male under 40, no comorbidities) * P(covid | natural immunity) * P(problem second infection | natural immunity)
natural immunity risk = 0.0000016 * 0.95 * 0.47
natural immunity risk = 0.00000007144
vaccine risk vs. natural risk
Vaccine 67X more risky than natural route (FOR ME)
Just because clinical symptoms of myocarditis resolve after 14 days does not mean the subjects in question will not suffer increased risk from cardiac scarring on an ongoing or even permanent basis. It would be extremely irresponsible for any scientist to conclude "they're totally fine after that point" and that is not what is implied by the paragraph you quoted.
This is the salient point here. Despite the data showing effectiveness of vaccines, all it takes is one personal connection to have a negative response to make me swear to never take one again. Much like this user, I think the pandemic was a blessing in disguise to show me who the real free thinkers are, and who is simply a sheep following what others say is best.
It depends? Medical professionals are certainly not some kind of infallible bloc. Ignaz Semmelweis, who advocated for hand washing before delivering babies, was mocked and derided by doctors at the time. Then there's this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
I've just been lazy to get the 4th, but I don't have any reason not to. I also haven't had covid yet (that I know of), so whatever I've been doing these last few years seems to have been working (primarily, I just wear a mask in enclosed public spaces).
I've noticed that there is a lot of anti-vax stuff surfacing on Twitter recently though (thanks Elon!), so maybe that is where the OP's comment is coming from. For example:
I'm sure you're certain about quite a few things -- you just probably don't spend time thinking about them, hence them not "registering" as things you're certain about.
"extremely low risk" could still be of marginal benefit depending on how high your risk is for severe outcomes from COVID. It could be quite low if you are reasonably young, in good health, and have already recovered from an infection.
They define effective using a complicated statistical derivative that inverts the data. This is mostly visible in UK data and other occasional studies, because most public health reports hide the true numbers. UK does now too but for the longest time published both pre and post adjustment data.
The actual effectiveness, as defined by case rates by vaccine status, have been strongly negative for a long time. Around a year now. Vaccinated people catch COVID a lot more often than unvaccinated people do.
The reason they claim effectiveness is they use an adjustment procedure to try and correct for "bias". The procedure dates from before COVID. It breaks if people can volunteer to get tested, by making the vaccines look more effective. They don't care because it turns bad news into good news.
Also they classify people as vaccinated weeks after someone gets the shot. Negative consequences from the shot are then assigned to the unvaccinated cohort. Again they shouldn't use stats that way but they do.
> Also they classify people as vaccinated weeks after someone gets the shot. Negative consequences from the shot are then assigned to the unvaccinated cohort. Again they shouldn't use stats that way but they do.
"Unknown" also tends to get grouped in with "unvaccinated", skewing it even more.
I was once like you. When I first learned about negative effectiveness I thought that was crazy. That's not possible surely? Hah. I was such a child. It can happen, has happened in the past with other vaccines and has now happened in a big way with COVID vaccines. The biological mechanisms are well known by immunologists for many years, look for "OAS" and imprinting. Or heck read the fine article we're discussing on this thread, which is about the body making the wrong sort of antibodies due to over-exposure (which makes it easier to become infected).
You don't have to believe me. Maybe you'll believe Dr Fauci:
so when you have that many people in a trial
56:41 not only are you looking to see if it works but you're constantly keeping your eye
56:47 on safety to make sure that a vaccine actually doesn't enhance disease
He says they have to watch to make sure vaccines don't enhance disease, because negative effectiveness is a problem that's occurred in the past especially with HIV vaccines.
So now we established that my comment doesn't reek of BS, here's data on covid vaxx negative efficacy:
Follow the white rabbit but don't use search engines. Searching the obvious queries on both google and duckduckgo gives back CDC propaganda and none of the results actually discuss negative efficacy. The extent of the coverup is pathetic.
These comment threads are all posted on a link to a scientific paper showing that mRNA vaccines may cause class switching to a type of antibodies which cause tolerance (reduced immune response) to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Vaccine enhanced disease is not a new phenomenon and not outside the realm of possibility for the COVID vaccines.
I know a couple that just got the bivalent boosters. Their teenage son got the first two shots, and subsequently developed a face tick/twitch. But their doctor told them it was nothing to worry about, just dry eye. These are people that I had spoken to in the past about the pointlessness of these vaccines in kids...but, oh well. I hope their son doesn't have any long term issues.
An anecdote is not data. I know about twenty couples (half are relatives, the rest friends and coworkers) who have gotten bivalent boosters, whose children have gotten 3-4 shots, and none of them have had any issues.
An anecdote is data. Whether or not it influences you or another person is another topic. I have never heard of the face ticks but I do experience them as a part of Tourette's Syndrome.
My Tourette's after the vaccine was absolutely miserable. Then I get harassed for having a non-visible exception.
Covid vaccines are not for everyone. Good luck finding a doctor who will tell you the truth though.
You're right, it's not data. I'm glad that none of those children have had any issues. Unfortunately, we'll probably never have any real data, as long as the signals that these vaccines aren't exactly safe, especially for young men, keep getting ignored. How many anecdotes and coincidences will it take for serious monitoring to take place?
You might not know if they did. A lot of health problems that our friends experienced after the shots can be hidden. Messed up periods, getting COVID repeatedly (like 3x a year), difficulty doing exercise and so on. If someone trusts you, they might talk to you about them. If you've been praising the wonderful science then they aren't gonna open up because why would they? They already know you'll tell them it's all just a coincidence and won't be sympathetic anyway.
> If someone trusts you, they might talk to you about them. If you've been praising the wonderful science then they aren't gonna open up because why would they?
Yes, my comment was also an anecdote and therefore also not data. This comment is exactly what I was trying to show - anecdotes don't give a full or unbiased picture.
FWIW I am planning to go to an homeless centre and lie that I haven't had my 2rd booster (which I had in september). I took the opportunity to get the 2nd booster early in september because our gov. told us it was important and there was some stock that would have gone bad so people could volunteer (and they were announcing a spike infection). But it was a bivalent wuhan/delta, not the wuhan/omicron that was made available 2 weeks after I had the shot (we were told those wouldn't be available until this year.. damn lies).
There are no campaign for a 3rd booster in my country, and it doesn't look like they are planning to so far (which is an entirely different story).
I have to read a bit more to evaluate if it's safe or not before I act on my plan.
To be clear, I had: first dose: 2 MRNA shots, then a first booster then a second booster. Planning to get a 3rd.
"The spike protein in this vaccine is produced in insect cells; the Matrix M-adjuvant contains saponin extracts from the bark of the Soapbark tree that is native to Chile."
Definitely: they’re safe and effective against severe cases even if the current variants mean we don’t have a chance at a sterilizing vaccine for a while.
The majority of people now being hospitalized and dying of Covid are vaccinated.[1]
How is that safe and effective? You want to argue you're better off being vaccinated vs unvaccinated, you make that argument. Nobody gets to call it safe and effective anymore, the data says it's not true.
This is a common misunderstanding of statistics: your odds of a severe case or death are much lower if you’re fully vaccinated but the size of that population is so much larger that you’ll have more total deaths than the smaller population which has never been vaccinated.
Think of it this way: the odds of a soldier dying if shot are 10% if they’re wearing a bulletproof vest and 80% if not. There’s a battle and afterwards they realize that 20 dead soldiers were wearing body armor and 10 were not. Does that mean armor was bad? To answer that question, you have to know how many there were in both groups: if it was 50:50 that would support questioning the value of those vests but if it was 90:10, the reverse would be true.
The article you linked is well worth reading as it explains this and several other confounds for analysis, namely the higher likelihood for high risk people to get vaccinated even though their failing immune systems still leave them at elevated risk (a vaccinated 80 year old’s risk goes down to a level similar to a 50 year old, not a 20 year old), and the fact that waning immune response and new variants mean that we really need to avoid thinking of vaccination for COVID as a lifetime boolean toggle – someone who got a single dose 2 years ago has a different status than someone fully vaccinated with a bivalent booster.
The problem with that refutation is the direction it's been trending: Proportion of hospitalizations among the vaccinated has been going up while the percent of the population that is vaccinated has pretty much been stable. We're not there yet but if the trend continues then this refutation won't work at all, and we're currently posting on a study that gives one mechanism that could cause this.
That’s a related but separate issue: what I was describing is the base rate fallacy, which is the most important concept for these comparisons, but it’s also important to remember that “vaccinated” isn’t a lifetime Boolean value even if people often treat it that way to simplify discussions. It’s not uncommon for immune response to wane over time (this is one reason why other vaccines need boosters over your life), and there are really two separate responses being talked about: do you have neutralizing antibodies ready to immediately stop the virus (likely with minimal symptoms and less spread), and do you have the memory T cells to prevent an infection from being worse? The former response tapers off relatively quickly compared to the latter, and is less effective as variants change the target. That means that people who have had vaccine doses a while ago are more likely to get a case than someone more recently vaccinated, and treating both of them the same will confuse your analysis.
It's not a misunderstanding of statistics, you just didn't answer the question. How can something be considered "safe and effective" when the majority of people dying have had the vaccine?
You're making the argument that you're better off with the vaccine than without it, and depending on your demographic cohort this is generally true (young males excluded). That's the question you answered, but it's not relevant to the question I asked. How can you call it safe and effective when most people dying are vaccinated? That's not very safe or effective.
The polio vaccine is safe and effective. MMR vaccine is safe and effective. This shit is neither.
I would strongly suggest reading your own link, which explains this, or the replies you’ve been getting summarizing this. The reason people say they’re safe and effective is because that’s what the preponderance of scientific evidence around the world shows.
> In November 2022, compared to adults ages 18 years and older who received an updated COVID-19 bivalent booster dose, monthly rates of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations were 16.0x Higher in Unvaccinated and 2.7x Higher in Vaccinated Adults without an updated booster.
Let's try it this way, since we're speaking different languages.
Most people have the Polio vaccine, more even than the Covid vaccine. Yet thousands of people aren't regularly dying from polio in the US despite being vaccinated. Same goes for MMR, and the other vaccines we all got.
So the polio vaccine is "Safe and effective". The MMR vaccine is "safe and effective". See the difference?
The only misunderstanding is that you think that you can refute the guy on the n-th time that they trot out the same old known-false talking point. They wanted an argument, because algorithms can't tell it from engagement with the story that they're pushing. They didn't want and don't even known truth, and just give more confident aggressive BS replies to further the con. Don't waste your time, use the "flag" button.
If 100% of the population was vaccinated, 100% of the hospitalization and deaths would be of vaccinated people. Can you see how your argument is so very stupid?
Edit: post limited, so I’m going to dump this here and not further engage in refuting such inane idiocy:
> Full dose vaccination reduced the need for ICU admission by 49.7% (95% CI = 17-70) and mortality by 56.5% (95% CI = 20-77).
Again, you have to look at the rates. When most people are vaccinated at least partially that just tells you that the larger population is larger. What you instead want to look at are the rates between comparable groups.
Here are some examples from 3 separate publications, all recent:
> Among more than 700,000 participants age 65 and older, who either had the bivalent or did not, there was an 81% reduction of Covid hospitalizations (Figure below) and an 86% reduction of deaths.
> Here are the data for age 65 and older, showing marked protection vs. hospitalization ranging from 73 to 84%, comparing not only to those unvaccinated but also those individuals who had been vaccinated and boosted. A second report was for all adults age 18 and up, showing bivalent booster 38 to 57% effectiveness vs hospitalization, which is consistent, but of lower magnitude than for seniors. This would be expected in a lower risk group with a high incidence of infections in the unvaccinated controls.
> During November, for people age 65 and older, there was a 90% reduction of hospitalizations for the bivalent vs unvaccinated, a 13.5-fold increased risk of hospitalization for the latter group, and 2.5 fold higher rate among seniors vaccinated but without a bivalent booster.
Polio vaccine, MMR etc. are safe and effective. You can't compare COVID vaccine to them since thousands of people are dying all the time despite being vaccinated. That's not the case with any of these other vaccines.
I got a fourth round, bivalent pfizer/BioNTech flavor, a couple weeks before I went to a conference in Boston. Didn’t get Covid there (a bunch of people I was with did), but there’s no way to know how much that was just luck.
I had a minimal reaction compared to the moderna ones I had for the first three moderna doses I had, I think because of the lower dose.
I got 4th right before an intl trip and wanted to take advantage of the initial high protection from infection. I have yet to get the virus to my knowledge so I'll probably keep boosting.
I find it hard to believe that anyone hasn’t had it due to how viruses work. Vaccines inherently require infection to work. If the virus never enters your respiratory system then the shot has no opportunity to work. Instead vaccines prevent symptoms by reducing the viral load. However, like HIV, herpes, chicken pox, etc. people who have been infected generally carry the virus for life and can continue to spread it for life depend on their current viral load. Odds are that you have caught a couple strains of post-2018 COVID, even if you’ve never been sick.
> Odds are that you have caught a couple strains of post-2018 COVID, even if you’ve never been sick.
We didn't have a case until intentionally opening border restrictions once vaccines had been distributed, and once we did we were masking long after people forgot about them in the US, so my window to get infected has been quite a bit shorter than most. I don't think I would have been exposed to Delta or earlier dominant strains at all, but it's true I could have had a silent Omicron infection.
Asymptomatic infection is kind of a moot point though because it isn't going to generate the robust immune response of a 'real' infection, my point being since I don't have the well rounded immunity conferred by infection + vaccination I have plenty to gain from continuing to boost (not that infection obviates the need for boosters to maintain immunity after a few months).
Btw, no, you do not hang on to persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection and spread it for life unless you are severely immunocompromised.
I went to 4, still haven't had covid, same for my wife and FiL.
Both my young kids had 2 shots and both got covid. Next flu season i intend to get my 5th.
tangent: I've been saying for some time: "What about a live vaccine?" Meaning an killed-virus version of COVID-19, not an adenovirus with additions. A killed vaccine would present all the proteins and give much better immunity.
But now the answer occurs to me: that's what Omicron and Krakus are doing, too. By now we've all been infected and reinfected, giving us all the value a killed-virus vaccine would have.
You get the RNA vaccine, then mild Omicron that doesn't kill, then mild Krakus that doesn't kill; and then you're as well protected as by getting the killed-virus vaccine, which just takes too long to create.
So maybe the real question posed by this study is, does a subsequent infection by Omicron reverse the toleration induced over time by the RNA?
Inactivated COVID-19 vaccines (that is, vaccines using virus copies that have been killed - live vaccines would be ones where the virus has been weakened) have been a thing for some time. IIRC China used a lot of them.
My understanding is that they're not quite as good as mRNA in terms of efficacy (though I haven't looked this up in some time.)
IgG4 is the class of immunoglobulin responsible for shifting immune response upon encountering some antigen from attack to tolerance, which is good for false positive pathogens like flower pollen that cause seasonal allergies. But that's of course not the type of response one would want from their immune system when encountering SARS-COV-2, since if the viral particles are being tolerated as opposed to being cleared by one's immune system, it leaves the viruses uninhibited to multiply and continuously damage your body.
IgG4 response is how your body would typically treat things like allergens that are basically harmless and don't need a full immune response. Covid needs a full immune response, and an IgG4 response suppresses that. You don't want your body to treat a virus the same way it treats pollen.
The others did a good job of the technical details. The higher level implication is that taking too many of the shots will appear to make you feel better in the short term but create long term internal damage, as the immune system won't fight the virus as effectively/at all and instead will let it get on with replicating.
So it seems the shots convert short term but temporary unpleasantness into long term serious problems - at which point, of course, they will be classed as not vaccine related because they didn't happen immediately.
As such the social implications of this discovery are more of the same. The population will continue to be split into camps that think all vaccines are perfect and reject any link with bad outcomes as not proven, denied by public health so it must be false. Public health bodies will continue refusing to break down incidence data by vaccine status, or will do so in fudged ways by redefining what "vaccinated" means. Other people will observe long term disparate outcomes between people who had lots of shots and others who had none, but if they try to speak about what they see they'll be shut down, told it's just anecdotes and not data and maybe fired. Polarization will continue to spiral.
Overall: this finding is bad, and the long term implications are bad.
Full title: "mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 induce comparably low long-term IgG Fc galactosylation and sialylation levels but increasing long-term IgG4 responses compared to an adenovirus-based vaccine"
This part means that natural immunity outperforms vaccine immunity in protecting against reinfection and spread of COVID-19 over time.
"
Discussion
Our study shows that the mRNA-containing LNP vaccines BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 induce high anti-S1 IgG and IgA levels in the blood as well as in the saliva, but these Ig levels steadily decrease over time and approach levels that are comparable to the long-term levels induced by two immunizations with the adenovirus-based vaccine AZD1222. In the long run, such pronounced anti-S1 IgG and (s)IgA reductions in the saliva likely reflect the declining protection against infection and from spreading in the respiratory tract of naïve individuals (16, 17). On the other hand, the observed stronger anti-S1 (s)IgA response in the saliva of previously infected vaccinees – likely generated by re-activation of infection-induced local (s)IgA+ memory B cells – might explain their recently described higher protection from infection and spreading
"
These sections indicate that natural immunity is more effective at preventing infection and spread of COVID-19 than vaccines.
"In summary, the data indicate that the high initial mRNA vaccine-induced anti-S1 IgG(1) and IgA responses decrease over time and approach levels induced with the adenovirus-based vaccine up to day 270. Higher and more stable anti-S1 (s)IgA levels in the saliva of pre-infected vaccinees might explain their higher protection from infection and spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Intriguingly, the mRNA vaccines, and in particular the mRNA-1273 vaccine, induced increasing long-term anti-S1 serum IgG4 levels in naïve individuals with hitherto unclear influences on the fight against the pathogen. Naïve individuals vaccinated with the adenovirus-based vaccine did not show such long-term anti-S1 IgG4 response at least after two vaccinations until day 270.
"
On a separate note, this paper doesn't seem to mention any "negative aspects of the vaccine" - It seems to be concluding that [the likes of AstraZeneca etc. perform better on some measures than the mRNA favorites.] edit: I previously stated the conclusion backwards.
> In a setting of HIV vaccination, a study compared repeated immunizations with two related HIV vaccine formats. The authors described that the protection of one vaccine composition correlated with the induction of IgG1 and IgG3 Abs, whereas the other vaccine composition hardly showed any protection, which correlated with the generation of IgG4 upon repeated immunizations instead.
Right; self-proving point. Also notice I wasn't even espousing them as fact in this context, just providing examples of things one isn't allowed to say.
At the cost of my own karma, let me tell you why. This entire thread is a digression from the articles topic, and meanders around the well worn parts of a contentious political talking point. It serves no purpose. You shouldn’t have responded to the OP. No one should have responded to you, and I should have also left this piece of old flame bait alone.
We aren’t supposed to have pointless arguments and I insightful snark. We are supposed to bring up tangents only if we have something new to add.
I agree with you, but I think it's fine to continue commenting on these threads once they've been flagged, because at that point only people who opt into [showdead] will be able to see them.
It's grotesque to deny the possibility that you're part of one big not even beta-, but alpha-A/B/C../X/Y/Z-test.
That aside, are the countless threads about bloat, insecurity, technical debt in software here counterproductive, too? Because that's just the way 'commercial reality' created by entrenched players is?
Agreed. What's the point of these threads? It's just a bunch of people grinding axes. Over the last year, I've rarely seen anything other than misinformation and vitriol come out of them.
dang said this about moderation:
> The idea is not to maintain a centrist position, it's to try to keep the community from wrecking itself via ideological fracture.
These threads seem like a prime vector of ideological fracture. (And may result in people making poor medical decisions to boot.)
It’d be fine if the threads were centrist. The problem is with the lying, the FUD, the statements than run absolutely counter to factual truth. HN is going to be harmed by the people who do this, because they are going to go do the same thing in other threads. The quality of discourse on HN is going to suffer greatly.
