A new epidemiology study reports that natural immunity confers better protection against COVID than current vaccines. I’ve been publishing JunkScience.com for 25+ years and can’t think of a single epidemiology study I’ve seen that was worth anything. That has now changed. This study reports that vaccinated individuals were 13 times more likely to have a breakthrough infection than individuals with natural immunity. Assuming the results actually are what they are reported to be, that’s an impressive odds ratio, worthy of being taken seriously. The result also has obvious biologic plausibility. For comparison purposes, the usual epidemiology crap we’ve been debunking for decades generally have meaningless odds ratios on the order of 2.0 or below, often 1.1 and below and even on the order of 1.01 and below (where an odds ratio of 1.0 means no effect). Of course, the study results need to be replicated. But it’s lookin’ good so far.
Woke spinning alert in comments.
1. Vaccines are given to HEALTHY people and bear a much higher burden of proof of efficacy and higher safety-risk profile. In this case, SARS-CoV-2 has an IFR of 0.15-0.20 across all ages and only 0.03-0.04% among people under 70 years old. This IFR for children and the majority of adults is far lower than the 0.12% from seasonal flu (according to CDC data). Yet, we’ve never rushed EAU authorization for a flu virus or mandated EAU vaccines for something with such a low risk that over 99.99% of young people to 99.5% of older adults survive.
The commenter ignores the fact that none of the Covid-19 vaccine companies have been able to demonstrate efficacy in a single completed randomized controlled clinical trial; no data has been published in peer reviewed journals; and the first clinical trials are years from completion. Worse, Pfizer and Moderna eliminated control groups. Supposed interim results of vaccine trials were released in a press release, which negates any credibility. Nothing about this is good science or typical for vaccine FDA licensing. The commenter also is naïve, or pretends to be, of the significant amount of research showing the strength and types of natural immunity.
2. Vaccine mandates don’t differentiate the vaccine manufacturer. Pfizer is the most administered in the U.S. to date.
3,4. Pfizer and Moderna’s claims of 95% vaccine effectiveness are based on relative risk reduction: reducing the actual or absolute risk of becoming a “covid-19 case” from 0.8% to 0.04%. The companies’ claims ignore the NNTT: vaccines were so ineffective more than 9,000 healthy people would have to be vaccinated to prevent a single severe case.
Worse, not a single statistically significant mortality benefit has ever been documented. The trials for EAU application weren’t even designed to detect any reduction in hospital or ICU admissions or death. Instead, they looked at self-reported symptoms as mild as cough and fever, and theses cases weren’t even documented by PCR or antibody testing. Few people have even bothered to read the protocols at clinicaltrials.gov.
5. This is the most egregious claim of all. The vaccine trials showed waning effectiveness quickly in the trials, even after weeks, and relied on post-market passive follow-up to identify long term adverse events. The vaccines are all showing plummeting effectiveness over time. Real life data from around the world and even from the CDC (Massachusetts comes to mind) have shown that most recent Covid cases and hospitalizations are among people FULLY vaccinated. More troubling, viral loads among these vaccinated patients are 251 times higher than was seen among unvaccinated patients at the start of the pandemic.
These are vaccines that in a real world, not corrupted by politics, the science would not support.
Amazing when the sides are always Political. When some off the wall so-called opinionated science guru starts off (yet another person from the right) you know that it is already a loser of Science Morals and Rationality, WONDER WHY? I will say Please don’t reply for we already know you don’t care about your comments and Science when you start off a hypocrite of many Professionals who use individuality in keeping their patients safe. Please I know it is sad that over 1.5 million crossed the border illegally and 80% of the Hospital Patients in McAllen Texas that have and spread Covid-19 are all those who came across the border per a Liberal Border City Hospital Administrator. Where is your other one on the right Syndrome when someone from the Left Tells the Truth but your Fair Media hides the TRUTH 90% OFF THE TIME? Sorry about my Liberal Caps as they got infected from my voting for a Liberal that turned out to be my worst mistake in FREEDOM but it wouldn’t matter mine never got counted it was something about a truck that never showed up. I suggest the Truth and non doctored numbers using miss information to tell Free People that their Doctor is not Free. Hint why did President have to talk about his Basement Science with Israel Primeminister behind closed Doors and they won’t release that meeting’s comments unless you file for the Freedom of Information Act. Truth Matters not Social Division. Did you even read all the pages and pages of facts verified by Many Medical Rekmowned Groups or is this just another Left whatever you want it to be? Please don’t reply we already know your unbias comment!
Sigh, yet another person on the Right embracing vaccine denial and killing our sides credibility. I’m really disappointed in you, Steve. It’s going to be so much harder to dispute the climate change alarmists and the mask mandate lovers, because now they can truthfully point to an example where such skeptics did reject science. Also, the Forever Pandemic folks will point to this and say “see, we still needs masks and shutdowns, the vaccine does not work!” This last point completely escapes the useful idiot anti-Vaxxers on the Right.
Here’s the reasons why this study is really being overblown.
First off, natural immunity is not better than vaccines, because unlike vaccines, to get natural immunity you have to first get infected, then not get sick, and then hopefully not die. Oh, and also hope you didn’t suffer any lung damage afterwards. Yes, there is a rare risk of side effects and death from the vacs, but it’s still much lower then getting COVID itself.
2. The study did not test all the vaccines, notably the Moderna vaccine was left out, so stating the study showed that natural immunity was better than “the vaccines” is false.
3. While stuff like “13-fold more’ sounds impressive, when you look at the actual numbers the difference is fairly small. Out of 32,000 people, there was only nine hospitalizations, 8 in the vaccinated group and one in the COVID group. When it comes to “symptomatic” illness, only 238 out of more than 16,000 vaccinated had them. (69 of the previous infected had them.) This shows that the vaccine is still pretty damn potent after all this time, and while natural immunity might afford more after the fact protection, the vaccine is still pretty damn effective.
4. The study has some serious limitations:
It’s voluntary: which means it suffers from the bias that those who had COVID and got symptoms may be less likely to report to the hospital because they think they are 100% immune.
It’s retrospective as opposed to prospective, so there was no actual tracking done, it was all after the fact and thus different groups may have got tested at different rates and the like.
5. The vax deniers are conveniently missing something else the study says: namely, that those who had the infection and then got a dose of the Pfizer vax subsequently had MORE protection than just those who got infected and did not receive the shot. Thus even with natural immunity (which needs to be said is also not 100%) getting the vaccine has benefits.
It’s amazing and sad that many on the right are turning what should be illustrated as a triumph of the free-market (the vaccines) over federal bureaucracy (the FDA with it’s unnecessary delays and medicine denying paternalism) into a quite frankly Marxist diatribe about big, bad evil Big Pharma.
It seems that actually being infected and recovering from the symptoms gives you the benefit of being only 15% as susceptible to reinfection as ‘vaccinees’.
However….the authors note:
‘Additionally, as this is an observational real-world study, where PCR screening was not performed by protocol, we might be underestimating asymptomatic infections, as these individuals often do not get tested.’
Surely ‘asymptomatic infection’ is the true natural immunity, presenting a real risk of contagion to people who have no [or even vaccine derived] immunity…….
It appears that the overall reduction in risk by vaccination is ~50%……………… as for other ‘Flu-vacs’
Real Epidemiology, anyway……………