Item — HN Reader

I call bullshit. Antibodies wane but the memory cell response is robust and holds up over what looks to be a pretty long period (studied intensively for 6 months but with no sign of decline). Here's a new paper that shows that in detail (paper itself is dense but Twitter thread is fairly accessible):

https://twitter.com/rishirajgoel/status/1448711946010710023

By basically all measures, these vaccines work better than the flu vaccine, which for some reason doesn't attract the same sort of criticism.

2 comments

Great link, summarizing recent research showing strong post-vaccination long-term B cell response.

Then Twitter surfaces a recent breakthrough infection study among 620k US veterans in the "More Tweets" section: https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1448815262522773520 After six months from initial vaccination (Mar-Aug) the J&J vaccine appears to have zero (!) VE against infection. Pfizer is holding at a modest 53% against infection. Worse, the curve has the same shape as J&J, merely 2 months delayed.

In spite of very promising cellular and molecular studies, I am left scratching my head: are the vaccines any good at preventing infection in the long term, where we define long term as a few years down the road? The question is somewhat rhetorical, as we don't have epi studies from 2025 yet.

PS. I am more than happy to make a distinction between infection and severe infection. The main reason I pay attention to VE against infection are vaccine mandates and the whole stigma buildup against unvaccinated people.

PS2. > the flu vaccine, which for some reason doesn't attract the same sort of criticism.

People are free to get or not get a flu vaccine. Not getting a covid vaccine means loss of livelihood, loss of basic liberties and social ostracism.

COVID-19 vaccines aren't sterilizing to any meaningful extent. They provide only limited and temporary protection against infection. The real benefit is in protection against severe symptoms.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

> People are free to get or not get a flu vaccine. Not getting a covid vaccine means loss of livelihood, loss of basic liberties and social ostracism.

Gee, I wonder if something happened recently that made stopping Covid more pressing than making everyone get a flu shot? Sure seems like there’s some reason, maybe a few hundred thousand reasons, why as a society we’re taking Covid and vaccination against it more seriously than the flu.

It’s weird to be so focused on infection, when efficacy against severe disease is more practically relevant. And the latter remains high, around 92% or higher, even against Delta.

Vaccine protection isn’t binary. Even if you end up infected your disease will be less severe AND you will be less contagious.

I call bullshit. Your source doesn’t address the efficacy decrease at all.

Yes, there are lasting changes from the vaccine, no that doesn’t indicate much about level of protection.

I definitely would never get a flu shot with its ridiculous efficacy numbers. If you forced me to get it to remain a part of society it would require my resistance by any means.

If you didn’t respond like an asshole id give you a couple sources. But, bullshit and all.