They've always had a good point. This is yet another paper in a line of good (and unsurprising) research going back to vaccine trials in 2020.
The discourse has become politicized, unfortunately, and for whatever reasons the voices of the pro-vaccine faction in the U.S. have become dominated by people who reflexively discount the science. This doesn't seem to be the case in Europe, where the EU-wide immunity passport treats those with prior documented infection the same as the fully vaccinated. This was pointed out to me on HN a few weeks ago, when I opined that it would be logistically impractical to verify and issue immunity passports to the previously infected.
Would it be better if those with a previous infection received a vaccine? Maybe. That's a more complex question. But at this juncture that's moving the goal posts; it's scientifically and politically unreasonable to make that demand.
> [FDA] blocked Americans from finding out the status of their antibody immunity to SARS-CoV-2 ... prevents un-immune Americans from knowing that they are vulnerable ... exposes already immune Americans to the risk of an unnecessary or marginally beneficial vaccination ... prevents vaccinated Americans in whom the vaccine has not induced good immunity from knowing that they remain vulnerable ... discourages a vast majority of American physicians from providing the people with the necessary prescriptions to obtain COVID-19 antibody blood tests ... Every American deserves easy access to information about their personal immunity status in order to make a cogent decision to maximally protect themselves.
Am I immune? Did my vaccine work for me? Am I still immune?
> it would be logistically impractical to verify and issue immunity passports to the previously infected.
If one is donating blood etc, this information is available such as in the Red Cross donor app.
The push by the pro-vaccine groups in the US without accounting for folks who have antibodies acquired naturally - reeks of ignorance from those who are supposedly 'of science'
"Pro-vaccine faction" sure sounds like a loaded term. Look, the CDC says if you were infected, you should still get the vaccine because it gives additional protections. This paper says the same. The vaccine is extremely safe from all of the data we have seen so far, much safer than getting COVID. So just get the vaccine. It's really not that hard unless you make it hard.
Many pro vaccine people basically attack people who have had the infection and don’t want the vaccine, and call them anti science and anti vaccine, and judging by your tone you have similar views.
Yet from a science perspective they have a point, already having the disease matters.
Still, many people don't have proof that they actually had covid-19, some have falsely identified the symptoms of other infections as covid-19, and getting the vaccine will still boost the immune response for an extended period of time. Just get the vaccine, it's not hard.
Getting the Vaccine is easy. What is hard is to trust the what every biased, safety studies done on it and the fact the AEFI reporting system is not strictly mandated, indicating a bias from the authorities to not want to know about potential vaccine injuries.
As usual, this comment will get flagged. If you see this comment check back a bit later to see the shilling on HN.
There is nothing to hide if there is no data collected in the first place. Here in this video, you can see that even injuries sustained by people who took part in the trials are being rejected by the doctors citing as caused by "anxiety".
I think people are completely oblivious to this issue, and is under this fallacy that if there was something wrong with the vaccines, then the information will automatically appear in public perception. If you think this, you need to only look at how smoking went on for a long time without the people noticing any problem with it.
With vaccines, we know that the signal is killed right at the point of generation, because the medical practicioners are conditioned (being charitable here) to reject any injury as not being caused by the Vaccines.
AstraZeneca has not been approved in the US because of potential blood clot risks.
Nearly 2 billion people have been vaccinated against COVID-19, including >150 million people in the US, and hundreds of millions in the EU. There are very few adverse reactions, and no deaths. The risks of COVID-19 injury and death are far higher.
Currently, the best science says if you had COVID you should still get the vaccine. The CDC and all of the evidence points to that. This isn't close. This isn't like, what happens if you fall into a black hole, where there are multiple interpretations. If you had COVID, you should still get the vaccine. If you don't believe that, you are not using science to make your decisions.
Thank you for saying this. Despite taking all precautions, I was infected in Jan 2021 before becoming eligible for the vaccine. Once I recovered, I was comfortable venturing outside again and doing some traveling but there was practically zero information about natural immunity following infection. As states easing travel restrictions, these only applied to people who had been vaccinated. There was no exception for folks who were previously infected (at least for the states I researched). At a time when vaccine appointments were scarce and there were long waiting lists (my how times have changed), I still got the first appointment I could so I could get my vaccine card.
The lack of guidance for those who were previously infected was strange. When I'd read about immunization rates and progress towards "herd immunity", previous infections also weren't included in these stats, which again was strange.
I'm in Europe now, and here it seems like natural immunity is essentially as valid as vaccination, at least for travel.
I can't explain why previous infections seem so widely discounted in the US. It feels like an intentional omission, which makes it hard for me to trust at face value what I hear and read about the pandemic.
Except the CDC decided to hang their hat (https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...) on the one published article that claimed to show vaccination was dramatically more efficacious than previous infection, despite that study contradicting multiple, better studies, and despite the study itself admitting in a footnote that the data was exceptionally suspect. Also note how the CDC hedges their bets in the press release, saying that vaccination is better than prior infection alone, which only begs the question.
Here's the rub: is previous infection as good as Moderna? Probably not, especially given the new variants. (Though last year studies were showing infection providing 90%+ immunity.) But nothing is as good as Moderna. (Except maybe Novavax?) Should we require J&J vaccine recipients to be re-vaccinated with Moderna? Nobody is demanding that, though very roughly speaking J&J-level immunity may be about where things stand now for the previously infected.
This seems to be another unforced err by the CDC. Not as bad as some others, but unforced and very politically costly. It also complicates things going forward because it seems we're quickly approaching the point where we'll need to begin requiring a 2nd round of vaccinations. The CDC will need every last shred of credibility and good will left for that initiative. It could have been in a position where it could say, "hey, we tolerated the previously infected skipping vaccination before, but now the situation has changed." Instead, they'll have much less capital to work with.
I'm curious why you think previous infection is not better than Moderna. If we grant that Moderna is better than the vaccine used in the study in the OP, can it possibly be a factor of 6 better? a factor of 12? Those are the kinds of numbers they're seeing in this study. Admittedly it's not yet peer-reviewed and maybe those factors get watered down or thrown out, but if they don't, it would look like the difference between vaccine efficacies are down in the noise compared to the difference between any vaccine and natural immunity.
> I'm curious why you think previous infection is not better than Moderna.
I was trying to be conservative. I don't have any hard opinion on this one way or another. It seems like a degree of precision we'd be lucky to achieve in the best of times--i.e. when the virus and demographics aren't constantly evolving. And it's a degree of precision that is unnecessary to establish in this particular debate, even if we could. It feels like bike shedding.
The question isn't which is better--infection or vaccination. The question is, do we demand that the infected be vaccinated even though the substantial and consistent weight of scientific evidence gives us little reason to believe the previously infected put the population at more risk than the vaccinated, especially relative to vaccines that we affirmatively accept as sufficiently efficacious? The only scientifically justified answer is an unqualified, "No".
There are innumerable other questions people can debate, but from a pandemic policy perspective there's no need to venture there. And, frankly, it seems imprudent considering the level of uncertainty surrounding everything--not just the quality and relevance of data, but even if you're technically correct one moment, things can go sideways the next moment, necessitating a change in policy.
I think you're stuck on the word "previously" infected. If the government says you must be vaccinated or pass an antibody test by Sept 15 to keep your job, what are people going to do?
You misread the study. It does not contradict any study that I am aware of and agrees with the study that this discussion is attached to in particular.
The CDC study you're pointing to says that among people who have been previously infected, those who have been given vaccines are less likely to be reinfected than those who have not.
There is no error from the CDC here, nor any lost credibility.
The CDC study doesn’t control for behavioral differences between the two studied populations, though, which weakens their conjecture that there is a clear causal relationship that confers more immunity to those who’ve had Covid+vaccine compared to those having had just Covid. It seems entirely plausible that people who’ve refrained from getting vaccinated after having Covid are probably not especially careful about their exposure, which can lead to higher rates of infection.
One could just as easily suggest the opposite: that people who have gotten the vaccine, feeling even safer, will engage in more risk-taking behavior because they have the added safety.
With the absence of evidence in either direction, it is unwise to draw either conclusion.
I didn't say anything about the methodology of this CDC study or the study that this comment section is attached to, only that they both say the same thing. They both say that getting the Pfizer vaccine after infection confers additional protection against reinfection. There is no disagreement between these studies' conclusions.
An alternate conclusion to your own is that people who get the vaccine did so in order to take advantage of the reduced restrictions on vaccinated people at the time.
I mean, you know what’s happening here, I presume. The anti-vaccine faction will just lie about prior infection and keep spreading the plague. In exactly the same way as we have people forging vaccination cards now. There’s been a consistent anti-science and pro-disease stance on the right since pretty much day one. It’s breathtaking, no pun intended, to watch.
The discourse has become politicized, unfortunately, and for whatever reasons the voices of the pro-vaccine faction in the U.S. have become dominated by people who reflexively discount the science. This doesn't seem to be the case in Europe, where the EU-wide immunity passport treats those with prior documented infection the same as the fully vaccinated. This was pointed out to me on HN a few weeks ago, when I opined that it would be logistically impractical to verify and issue immunity passports to the previously infected.
Would it be better if those with a previous infection received a vaccine? Maybe. That's a more complex question. But at this juncture that's moving the goal posts; it's scientifically and politically unreasonable to make that demand.