In a recent march on DC antivaxxers were angry and spread misinformation. Robert F. Kennedy Jr was number 2 on the list. Kennedy was a one-time environmental activist who became involved in the world of anti-vaccine misinformation because of confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. You can find a conspiracy if you look hard enough. Kennedy claimed at the rally that if you take the vaccine, you will have a 21 percent increased chance of dying over the next six months.
I couldn't find the claim with anything published, but Kennedy keeps mentioning VAERS, an unscientific source of information that anti-vaxxers love to troll. CDC data is compared by comparison.
During October–November, unvaccinated persons had 13.9 and 53.2 times the risks for infection and COVID-19–associated death, respectively, compared with fully vaccinated persons who received booster doses, and 4.0 and 12.7 times the risks compared with fully vaccinated persons without booster doses.
An unvaccinated person was more likely to die from COVID than a fully boosted person.
The pandemic has been a long and difficult experience with many twists and turns, but it has played out like experts predicted once we knew what we were dealing with. This is how major respiratory illnesses happen. They rip through the population, killing the old and sick first but also indiscriminately, then moving on to others and spawning new variant as it goes. After a few years, it slowly burns itself out, mainly through increasing immunity in the population, until it becomes a mild cold or flu.
The modern world has been a boon and a bane. The global economy allows the virus to spread quickly. Modern medical technology gives us unprecedented tools to fight the epidemic, minimize its impact, and perhaps shorten its course. The most important tool for fighting the Pandemic is the COVID vaccines.
A recent study adds more weight to the body of evidence supporting the use of vaccines as a major strategy to fight the Pandemic. Three groups of people were looked at by the researchers.
- Those who were vaccinated but never infected
- Those who were vaccinated after being infected
- Those who had a breakthrough infection after being vaccinated
The results were obtained.
We find that human immune sera following breakthrough infection and vaccination following natural infection, broadly neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants to a similar degree. While age negatively correlates with antibody response after vaccination alone, no correlation with age was found in breakthrough or hybrid immune groups. Together, our data suggest that the additional antigen exposure from natural infection substantially boosts the quantity, quality, and breadth of humoral immune response regardless of whether it occurs before or after vaccination.
Good news. The Omicron variant is able to be defeated by hybrid immunity, which is about 10 times more powerful than a vaccine alone. This robust hybrid response was not diminished with age, which might be critical for protecting the older and more vulnerable population.
The goal is not to get conclusive. This is a deadly virus that can cause long-term symptoms. The ideal is to get a vaccine, to be responsible for exposure and to never get Covid. The second best scenario is to get a vaccine and if you do get it you will have super hybrid immunity for extra protection against reinfection or new variant. If you have been exposed to the disease, you should get the vaccine to help you with hybrid immunity. The reality is that many people use past infections as an excuse not to get vaccinations.
Slowly, we will get a more resistant population, and that will allow us to beat back the Pandemic into a respiratory illness that we live with, but not disrupt society. We want to get there through vaccination, not through the spread of the virus. Vaccination slows the emergence of new infections and increases the risk.
Pfizer has an Omicron version of their vaccine ready for release in March, according to the CEO. By adjusting the available vaccines to cover new variant as they emerge, we can stay ahead of the Pandemic. Anti-vaxxers make a big deal about the fact that we need booster shots to maintain immunity. Every year, we need an annual flu vaccine that is adjusted to track the different flu strains. We may need an annual vaccine which will be updated to track new variations of the disease. This is part of modern life, and is better than the alternative.
The reality is that COVID-19 is a severe pandemic, historically a once-a-century one, and that it may become more common given the human population and our propinquity to wild animal populations increasing the risks of zoonotic cross-over infections. Also, vaccines work. They are safe and provide effective resistance to the virus, which can cause serious illness and even death, if you get it.
The anti-vaxxer rally in DC shows that the community is not based in reality. The rally was angry and seething with conspiracy theories. They don't have facts or basic common sense. The spillover effect of their anger is that they are making it harder to get the Pandemic under control.
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Steven Novella is an academic clinical neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine. He is the host and producer of the popular weekly science show, The Skeptics, Guide to the Universe, and also the author of the daily neuroscience website, Neuro LogicaBlog. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe was published by Dr. Novella, as well as two courses with The Great Courses.
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