Conclusion: Natural immunity with or without the vaccine provides strong protection against hospitalization. There wasn't much difference between the two.
This study took place during Delta (May–November 2021).
This study took place during Delta (May–November 2021).
I had a family tragedy with the vaccine in May that I commented on at the time here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27467803
The tragedy detailed above made me realize that there was a risk, albeit small, to getting vaccinated. If I didn't have natural immunity, the risk was worth it. But since I did, I chose to not get vaccinated, only after weeks of research and poring through large N studies.
Here is a comment I made 5 months ago that got downvoted for citing multiple studies that had informed my decision:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28170099
The arrogant, smug hive minders deemed it misinformation.
I was harassed by coworkers for not having the shot, and they dismissed my claim of natural immunity as a conspiracy theory. Some of them deliberately selected a restaurant that required proof of vaccination to rub it in my face. They knew I had recovered in February. They knew my family was grieving over my mother-in-law (she lived with my wife and I for ten years until 2 years before her death) but they didn't care. They dehumanized me. I then had to face a federal government mandate for a shot I wouldn't benefit from.
I am beyond bitter. They were wrong. The feds were wrong. Most HNers we're wrong. The censors deleting my posts were wrong. And I know I will never get an apology.
I now have attitudes towards centralized authority I never had before. All due to smug, self righteous people throwing away their principles and cheering on as the US government threatened my livelihood as a cudgel to violate my rights. To those of you who went along, you are cowards, and I hope you reconsider your arrogance in the future.
It's been enlightening to see how quick so many people are to dehumanize "the others" as soon as it becomes socially acceptable to do so. Psychology is fascinating.
Actually the opposite is true.
Data from other countries shows that during the delta wave you had 2-3 times less change to catch it. Both risks very relatively low but yours was still better.
Now with omicron wave that has clear advantage to escape previous immune response, you still have similar advantage but convalescents without vaccination have much higher change to catch it than before. You are now dodging real bullets.
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28170099
You were absolutely correct there in your conclusion.
I believe that people are very reactive to so called natural immunity because of misguided suggestion at the beginning of epidemic to reach the herd immunity by mass infection.
We later wound out that many of those people were actually anti-vaxxers in disguise because they continue to suggest this even after we had vaccines available.
But don't be mad - you now have much better immunity against omicron.
I am sorry for your loss and it was shameful of your coworkers to treat you like this but you were right and you were actually much more protected than they were.
I don't disagree that your natural antibodies probably gave you more or less the equivalent benefit of the vaccine (depending on the strain). However, there are plenty of bad actors saying they had it when they didn't just to bypass any sort of mandate for work, travel, etc. Because of that it's hard to trust folks at their word.
Finally your natural immunity will eventually wear off though I am not sure if there is consensus on when that happens. I acknowledge that there is some risk and hand waving "it's a one in a million chances" doesn't help when it's someone you love.
There are also lots of people that have had bad experiences with the medical field, the government, etc. so don't trust the vaccine. I don't agree with them but I can't blame them for their conclusions. It for sure doesn't help to berate them or you.
These are an older article so not sure if there is something more recent. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/reinfe... https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/about-...
It was also my understanding that recovery from one varient does not necessarily provide protection from a different varient. And also infection is not cut and dried and influenced buy duration, viral load and many variables.
I don't disagree with your points on bad actors either. It should be noted that my positive test in Feb 21 was digitally recorded, reported to the state of Colorado as well as my county health department, and I was then contacted by them. I also have the email from the lab company. My point is that, like the EU, taking people's "word for it" is not a good way to do things, as you said.
I have no doubt my natural immunity will wane. Certainly my free antibodies will, and it's an open question as to how long t-cell memory remains. In fact, there are many countries investigating having people like me be able to go straight to getting booster shots.
One thing that I think is important when it comes to trust, and my family's experience:
My comments from May/June are a lot more hopeful, and optimistic. At the time, I was told my mother-in-law's death was reported to VAERS. I now know it wasn't. I don't think it was deliberate, but I've pulled the flat files for the system twice since August. There is no record of a woman her age in Nebraska with anything remotely like what happened to her. (Sudden cardiac arrest and death aren't hard to spot in that system, and I work with data as a professional all day. I even used Spacy to analyze the dataset to ensure I wasn't going crazy. I was in shock when I realized the hospital forgot to put her in the system.). I investigated this, and it turns out that there is no carrot, and no stick with VAERS. The hospital in Omaha where she died probably was overwhelmed with COVID patients, and they just forgot to put it in. It takes 30 minutes on a shitty website to enter the record in. The end result: I thought somebody was going to investigate what happened to her. I thought we would get some explanation. I WANTED them to tell us that there was an air bubble in the needle, and the vaccine itself wasn't the culprit. I wanted some kind of explanation. Unfortunately, nothing was ever done. No follow up. Nothing. It's been soul crushing for us.
I pinned all my hopes for some kind of research on a friend of mine, Adam, who is a pretty prominent coder in the ML space. (I won't say his last name, but he was one of the early founders of a well-known name in the machine learning space). Adam suffered an event very similar to my mother-in-law's, but because of his younger age, survived. Also due to his young age, there was a much bigger interest in researching his incident. A team from the Mayo Clinic began working his case. He was kind enough to get them to start to look at my mother-in-law. We thought we were going to get answers. Unfortunately, in August, the team at the Mayo Clinic "ghosted" (his words, not mine) him. As part of the agreement to collect multiple samples of heart tissue from him, he had required he be included in any pre-prints produced by the team. They stopped replying to any of his communications in August. His exact words to me when we spoke on the phone in September: "They are sweeping this under the rug." It should be noted that the damage to his heart is permanent. He's in his mid-30s. He can't even hike anymore.
Our further conversations have reached a the following conclusion: The funding for the Mayo team, for the MRNA vaccine, all come from the same source. This source is treating it like a friendly-fire incident. In the midst of the most massive public health campaign in history, there is no benefit to learning what happened to him or my MIL. Any answer will only undermine that goal. Like a lung cancer researcher funded by Big Tobacco, or a medical cannabis researcher funded by the Feds, questions that potentially lead to inconvenient answers are crushed before they can yield answers that might conflict with the goals of the funding organization.
I kind of disagree that "Any answer will only undermine that goal" because giving both the bad news of side effects with the good news of the efficacy of the vaccine strengthens trust in science and the people doing this research. But I see your point because the average person WILL probably say "I'll take my chances with covid because I (or my kids) will be fine" vs. 1 .001% chance of heart damage.
I appreciate the dialog about this and thanks for giving your story.
Would requiring to show this card be acceptable?
I’m on your side (natural anti body is as good as vaccine) but most of my anti-vax friend have neither and putting the life of my family in danger.
I'm not particularly thrilled with public health authorities using coercion. It would solve my needs, sure, but I just think it's counterproductive in the long term.
The most effective way to guarantee that rednecks will absolutely never do a thing is to tell them they have to do it. This actually doesn't just apply to rural white Americans, but also many other people who are from "honor cultures". Nortenos fall into this category and they are a very high percentage of Latinos in the United States. These are cultures that for historical reasons have absolute hatred of centralized authority. Black Americans in the South and their descendants in many Northern cities also fall into this category. It is truly self-defeating. I can assure you that I know a medical doctor who is fully licensed and runs several clinics and he offered to take me into his office, inject the vaccine syringe into the sink and then write in his records that I was vaccinated and provide me a card. I did not take him up on this because I wanted to make sure that I would feel the pain of the law as an example to my kids. He himself is fully vaccinated but he is completely against the mandate for reasons of principle. How many more are like him? Are we going to do something to prevent doctors like him from doing this? What kind of enforcement will that take? If politicians that most hn readers dislike take over the federal government are they going to be able to use these enforcement mechanisms to outlaw abortion?
Regarding putting the life of your family in danger, I don't think the science supports this, at least not with the current vaccine. It doesn't appear to have markedly diminished transmissibility for Delta and doesn't appear to have any form of reduction for omicron.
However, for the original variant, I think it was completely fair to talk about unvaccinated people being the primary carriers, and therefore putting other people at risk. But it does call into question the fact that a vaccine that requires you to still be afraid of other people who haven't had that vaccine isn't really much of a vaccine is it??
So because I am vaccinated I am 11 times less likely to get sick and this is enough for me to not be personally afraid. But I am afraid for my 4 years old son who still cannot get the vaccine and is at extreme risk of pneumonia if he get a regular cold because of a previous lung injury. So if he get corvid he is almost guarantee to be hospitalized for this reason it make sense to not hang-out with a bunch of people that are 11 time more likely to be carriers.
Regarding your original point "The most effective way to guarantee that rednecks will absolutely never do a thing is to tell them they have to do it" If this is true how come they still file income tax returns, wouldn't they instead decide not to do it because you told them they are required to do it ?
People aren't as stupid as you think they are. They understand and respond to incentives.
This is not true and this very study shows that. The vaccine reduces the chance that you catch COVID and spread it to others.
if of 100 people 90 are vaccinated and your hospitalization number is 6 unvaccinated and 44 vaccinated this would still mean risk is higher for unvaccinated (6/10) compared to vaccinated (44/90).
That’s also why your anecdote are useless and not science
Scotland (14 per 100k vs 10 per 100k): https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/11318/22-01-26-covid...
Britain: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Why do you think scotland and Britain are different?
Where does this study show that?
I’m not sure if there is a good study that can distinguish the change point as due to waning immunity from the vaccines or if it’s because of vaccine escape, or if infection-mediated immunity from delta is just better…
The data I’ve seen from omicron suggest that a primary vaccine series offers about equal protection as infection with delta, FWIW
Regular vaccination poses no such risk.
The take home message should be clear: getting a vaccine is essential to staying safe, especially if you haven’t previously been infected. Even if you have been previously infected, the vaccine will reduce the chance that you get sick and pass the disease on to others.
You cannot treat that as a forgone conclusion that is the whole point of studies like this. As this study states, hazard ratio does not depend on vaccination after someone has recovered.
Recent news would say the exact opposite statement
This article discusses an analysis of household transmission in Denmark. It was much higher in households with Omicron cases, but lower (56% lower) among boosted individuals compared to two dose vaccination:
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
That's a pretty big reduction.