Study: COVID Vaccination Boosts Protection For People Who Recovered From COVID

[aygart]

I'm vaccinated, I helped a bunch of people get vaccinated when it was tougher to find appointments, and I continue to try assuage people's fears (in person, online discussions are worthless).

If you keep lying to people, or omitting facts that don't suit you, people lose trust in everything you say. This has been a mantra for the entire covid.

Be honest, say what you know from the available info, and if that shows you should get vaccinated, more people will get it than if it appears you're trying to brush some info under the rug.

The actual facts are so pro vaccine without that garbage so all that stuff accomplishes is to make people wary

[Yehuda57]

Actual conversations I've had, "but they're hiding so much about the vaccines!"
"like what?"
"well, they don't say that if you have natural immunity it's better than being vaccinated"
"did you have covid?"
"No, but..."

[biobook]

I still scratch my head that there haven't been more studies like this, the American health and media mainstream establishment seems to overall be paying very little attention to the whole question of prior infections and natural antibodies for some reason....

So attention must be paid. Attention, attention must finally be paid...

And it is being paid.  The article above was posted on the CDC website in its weekly MMWR newsletter at 1:00 PM, and quickly appeared in the media, at 1:23 on CNN and at 3:52 on Miami Herald, both with poor headlines!  But I'm sure there will be more articles today or tomorrow written by more knowledgeable journalists.

1:23 p.m. ET, August 6, 2021
Vaccination more than halves your chance of Covid-19 reinfection, study suggests
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-08-06-21/index.html

Unvaccinated people face more than double the risk of COVID reinfection, CDC says
BY KATIE CAMERO
UPDATED AUGUST 06, 2021 03:52 PM
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article253313233.html

[aygart]

So attention must be paid. Attention, attention must finally be paid...

And it is being paid.  The article above was posted on the CDC website in its weekly MMWR newsletter at 1:00 PM, and quickly appeared in the media, at 1:23 on CNN and at 3:52 on Miami Herald

Good thing they are paying attention to me

and quickly appeared in the media, at 1:23 on CNN and at 3:52 on Miami Herald, both with poor headlines!  But I'm sure there will be more articles today or tomorrow written by more knowledgeable journalists.

Lol

[biobook]

Thank you for posting this, this is the kind of actual data that can actually help change hearts and minds. I also appreciate your disclaimer, and I'm hoping for more data like this to come out. I still scratch my head that there haven't been more studies like this, the American health and media mainstream establishment seems to overall be paying very little attention to the whole question of prior infections and natural antibodies for some reason....

Once the data comes out, it's publicized.  The reason it hasn't come out is because it takes time to get that data.  There are three ways we can get data about the immunity of the four categories of people we're discussing: prior covid, prior covid + vax, no covid + vax, no covid + no vax.

1. Take a group of people from each category, expose them to a high dose of delta covid, and observe and test them for the next two weeks to see who gets sick, how sick, etc. 
This kind of experiment is generally seen as unethical, and to my knowledge isn't being done.

2. Wait for people to get covid, and when they do ask about their covid/vax status.  Once you collect enough data in the above 4 categories,  you can use the appropriate statistics to compare them.
This kind of study is being done, on different groups of people in different locations.  But it takes time to get results because a) the chance of infection is so much lower than if we were to intentionally infect them, and b) many people are taking care not to get sick, and c) we're specifically asking about people who we think have very good immunity, so of course the rate of infection will be low.  Vaccines became widespread in May, so we're talking about 3-4 months during which we might have gotten data, and the results are now starting to come in. 

3. Look for a marker that is associated with disease, even if disease hasn't actually yet occurred.  We try to do this with other diseases, like when we measure blood cholesterol as a marker of future heart disease.  For covid, the obvious marker is antibodies, and people have been comparing antibody titers in the 4 categories of people mentioned above. 

When the vaccines first came out people complained: Everyone knows it takes 10 years to do this right!  Why do they think 18 months was enough?
And after a few weeks passed: Why haven't they already discovered answers to all my questions?

TTT

[biobook]

Excuse me for being lazy and not reading the study, but it's there any data on it the increased protection requires both doses or if one dose combined with prior infection provided the same protection?

It looked like one dose might give partial protection, but they didn't have enough people in this category to say that with any certainty.  Remember, they're not creating intentional groups of people who had 1 vs 2 doses, but just waiting for people to get sick first, then ask about vax. 

Here's how they phrased it:

The lack of a significant association with partial versus full vaccination should be interpreted with caution given the small numbers of partially vaccinated persons included in the analysis (6.9% of case-patients and 7.9% of controls), which limited statistical power. The lower odds of reinfection among the partially vaccinated group compared with the unvaccinated group is suggestive of a protective effect and consistent with findings from previous studies indicating higher titers after the first mRNA vaccine dose in persons who were previously infected.

[yesitsme]

Then keep it simple. My statement was simple and straight to the point.

Who are you going to call to remove your tail?

[iwlw2]

Once the data comes out, it's publicized.  The reason it hasn't come out is because it takes time to get that data.  There are three ways we can get data about the immunity of the four categories of people we're discussing: prior covid, prior covid + vax, no covid + vax, no covid + no vax.

1. Take a group of people from each category, expose them to a high dose of delta covid, and observe and test them for the next two weeks to see who gets sick, how sick, etc. 
This kind of experiment is generally seen as unethical, and to my knowledge isn't being done.

2. Wait for people to get covid, and when they do ask about their covid/vax status.  Once you collect enough data in the above 4 categories,  you can use the appropriate statistics to compare them.
This kind of study is being done, on different groups of people in different locations.  But it takes time to get results because a) the chance of infection is so much lower than if we were to intentionally infect them, and b) many people are taking care not to get sick, and c) we're specifically asking about people who we think have very good immunity, so of course the rate of infection will be low.  Vaccines became widespread in May, so we're talking about 3-4 months during which we might have gotten data, and the results are now starting to come in. 

3. Look for a marker that is associated with disease, even if disease hasn't actually yet occurred.  We try to do this with other diseases, like when we measure blood cholesterol as a marker of future heart disease.  For covid, the obvious marker is antibodies, and people have been comparing antibody titers in the 4 categories of people mentioned above. 

When the vaccines first came out people complained: Everyone knows it takes 10 years to do this right!  Why do they think 18 months was enough?
And after a few weeks passed: Why haven't they already discovered answers to all my questions?

TTT

I think @Yehuda57 basically made this point above, but just to reiterate, I don't think the problem is so much that people expect to immediately have answers to all their questions or even that the people regularly preaching them will have all the answers, they just expect and would be more swayed by a lot more honesty and quite a bit more humility on the part of all the talking heads (@biobook being a notable exception of course, deserves tons of credit for always trying to be evenhanded and upfront). When the CDC director tweets something like "all people who had COVID should still get vaccinated because we know that natural immunity might not last longer than 6 months", that's not going to win over a lot of skeptical hearts and minds, on the contrary, it provides easy fodder to be ridiculed by those intent on spreading FUD. Like @aygart said, the facts do a good job of making the case about the importance of vaccines, provided you let them speak and not drown them out with added arrogant commentary and extreme language, and making as if you have all the answers. Just my two cents FWIW.....

[biobook]

I think @Yehuda57 basically made this point above, but just to reiterate, I don't think the problem is so much that people expect to immediately have answers to all their questions

Sorry, I should have put a  after those last two sentences.  The contrast just struck me as funny, and I wasn't referring to anyone particular here.

When the CDC director tweets something like "all people who had COVID should still get vaccinated because we know that natural immunity might not last longer than 6 months", that's not going to win over a lot of skeptical hearts and minds,

 
What's wrong with that?  What do you expect her to say differently? 

[4yourinfo]

What's wrong with that?  What do you expect her to say differently?

The CDC all along never aknowledged antibodies/immunity when it became apparent that there is definitely some kind of immunity they changed course and recognized it but only to say we don't know it will last more than 6 months so get a shot. That is not the way you gain the trust of people. I believe that most people out there who didn't get the shot are not anti vaxers as they are being portrayed - they got all the recommended shots till now and a big chunk probably get the yearly flu vaccine. They also would agree that chances are immunity doesn't last forever. But, they need to be shown clear studies that clearly indicate why they should get innoculated. This is a new type of vaccine with side affects the common ones are people feel awful for a day or 2 then there are the heart inflammations and other rare side affects that come out every few weeks. It's alot of unknown for very little proven benefit. People are genuinely scared to get this vaccine. It's a definite unknown shot in your body vs. covid you feel at this point you hopefully won't be getting again..

[iwlw2]

What's wrong with that?  What do you expect her to say differently?

Well how about for starters "we also don't know if vaccination immunity lasts longer than 6 months (newsflash: It turns out it probably doesent), so at this time we are unsure if vaccination is particularly helpful for someone who tested positive for Covid and antibodies. What we can say is that we've found that vaccination usually proferrs a much higher level of antibodies than some people who recover from Covid get naturally, so it may still be something you may want to consider. Additionally we are studying whether the vaccine can give longer immunity than natural antibodies, and/or if it has increased efficacy against variants."
I don't know, IMHO that would go over a whole lot better amongst most people, and saying it in a more extreme and definitive matter just opens you up to doubt and ridicule.

P.S. I also wouldn't have a problem with the addition of "Due to difficulty in verifying Covid recovery, the smartest public health policy is still to restrict certain venues and activities to those who have been vaccinated, and we continue to strongly urge all high-risk people and those around them to make use of the vaccines which have been proven to be highly safe and effective." After the first part. I think this last part would be much more effective.

[aygart]

What's wrong with that?  What do you expect her to say differently? 

It gives an impression of the importance being almost equivalent to the vaccination of those who were never infected. If this hurts credibility among the unrecovered even a little bit then any possible gain of a recoveree vaccinating is יצא שכרו בהפסדו

[PlatinumGuy]

https://twitter.com/erikalynngreen/status/1425059783963516975

[yelped]

https://twitter.com/erikalynngreen/status/1425059783963516975

This line is the whole point of the article.

"In the case of a full-blown infection, scientists found that the body had fewer antibodies against that critical piece. It’s like giving someone a study guide of the most important class material versus telling them to reread everything from the whole year for the final exam."

Source is here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/

Anyone have more details? I don't seem to find the actual numbers in that source.

[biobook]

This line is the whole point of the article.

"In the case of a full-blown infection, scientists found that the body had fewer antibodies against that critical piece. It’s like giving someone a study guide of the most important class material versus telling them to reread everything from the whole year for the final exam."

Source is here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/

Anyone have more details? I don't seem to find the actual numbers in that source.

I think the link you give is to the Abstract only.  In the top right, you can click on the source for the article, in Science Translational Medicine, and the pdf is there.  A bit too technical for me.  But I googled the first author and this CNN report seems to be based on that research.

7:38 p.m. ET, June 17, 2021
Researchers present more evidence coronavirus vaccines protect against variants
From CNN’s Maggie Fox

There’s more evidence that at least some of the current coronavirus vaccines protect people against the ever-changing variants of coronavirus.

Tests done using the blood of both people who had recovered from Covid-19 and those who had been vaccinated with Moderna’s vaccine showed big differences in how the immune system responded to mutations in the virus, Dr. Allison Greaney of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington told a meeting of federal vaccine advisers.

“We know that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is evolving to evade antibody immunity,” Greaney told a meeting of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, which advises the US Health and Human Services Department.

“What we found for the Moderna-1273 mRNA vaccine was that, overall, that antibody immunity elicited by this vaccine to be less affected by single mutations,” Greaney said.
The team, which is tracking viral mutations and their effects, made artificial versions of mutant virus and tested them against samples of blood. While some mutations caused a 30-fold loss of antibody effectiveness against the virus in the blood of people who had recovered from an infection, the loss of efficacy was far lower in the blood of people given two doses of Moderna vaccine, she said.

In some samples, there was no effect on the immunity – which suggested that the vaccine stimulates a broad immune response that covers the current mutations, she said.

“This suggests that the vaccine-elicited antibodies are much more broad and are less affected by single mutations,” Greaney told the meeting.
Federal officials have been urging Americans to get vaccinated quickly to stop the virus from circulating and acquiring the mutations that help it evade the immune system. Tests such as those done at the University of Washington lab support the idea that people who have been infected will be more vulnerable to catching variant versions of the virus than vaccinated people will be.

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-06-17-21/index.html

[iwlw2]

https://twitter.com/erikalynngreen/status/1425059783963516975

Maybe I am not reading right or comprehending right, but as far as I can tell, other than a nice explanation of how antibodies work, the only argument being made here is to get vaccinated instead of relying on GETTING covid, not about someone who already recovered from COVID and thus has natural antibodies. The CNN article @biobook quoted a few posts down does actually offer some data on that which is indeed helpful but this is nice but useless on that question (despite putting it in the title, fake news at its best).

[biobook]

Maybe I am not reading right or comprehending right, but as far as I can tell, other than a nice explanation of how antibodies work, the only argument being made here is to get vaccinated instead of relying on GETTING covid, not about someone who already recovered from COVID and thus has natural antibodies. The CNN article @biobook quoted a few posts down does actually offer some data on that which is indeed helpful but this is nice but useless on that question (despite putting it in the title, fake news at its best).

I also thought it was an excellent explanation of the immune system.  The part that yelped highlighted (and that was in the CNN article) mentioned that the antibodies produced after a COVID infection don't seem able to bind as many potential variants as do antibodies produced by vaccination.  You're right that it isn't definitive evidence that those who've been infected should get the vaccine, but it does lend a bit of support to that idea. 

I don't see "fake news" - No obvious inaccuracies in the article - but I'd agree that the title gives an exaggerated idea of what the article will cover. 

[Yehuda57]

I don't see "fake news" - No obvious inaccuracies in the article - but I'd agree that the title gives an exaggerated idea of what the article will cover.

This is a massive problem in media in general. The headline is not written or approved by the article author. It is done by a separate editor trying to generate clicks or views.

Then you have the social media team which will take an exaggerated or misframed headline and create an even more misleading tweet or ad to promote the article.

That's how you have headlines like "Delta as catchy as chickenpox even if you're vaccinated"

Or "75% of patients in Massachusetts covid outbreak were vaccinated, CDC says"

[biobook]

This is a massive problem in media in general. The headline is not written or approved by the article author. It is done by a separate editor trying to generate clicks or views.

+1 
One of the assignments in the upcoming course Critical Reading in the Time of Covid asks students to find the same news item published on different platforms, and discuss how and why the titles are so different.

[iwlw2]

This is a massive problem in media in general. The headline is not written or approved by the article author. It is done by a separate editor trying to generate clicks or views.

Then you have the social media team which will take an exaggerated or misframed headline and create an even more misleading tweet or ad to promote the article.

That's how you have headlines like "Delta as catchy as chickenpox even if you're vaccinated"

Or "75% of patients in Massachusetts covid outbreak were vaccinated, CDC says"

Agreed. But I had more of a problem with this one considering that the tweet above seems to be by the author of the article and she restates the same overreaching idea in how she describes the article which proceeds to not be so accurate.