What do we know about the nature of infection of vaccinated people, or re-infection of people who have recovered from Covid? It seems to me, this will have a big impact on Covid epidemiology in a mostly-vaccinated country.
I have three mental models:
Immunocompromise: some people will never build up Covid resistance, no matter how much they get vaccinated or infected
Exposure: a person has resistance, but is exposed to Covid in a way that overwhelms them. High viral load, maybe, or their immune system is somehow having a bad day
Vaccination failure: for some reason the vaccination doesn’t ‘take’. If the sufferer catches Covid, they will build up more resistance and be better protected next time round
[I’m leaving out the impact of variants and the decline of immunity over time]
(1) means that we’ll permanently have some segment of the population where Covid circulates, but could conceivably identify and protect those people
(2) is the same, but with less we can do in reaction.
(3) would imply things getting gradually better over time, as those people are exposed to endemic covid. Booster shots might help speed this along
Does anybody have a sense of which of these models (or something else) is closer to reality?
What do we know about the nature of infection of vaccinated people, or re-infection of people who have recovered from Covid? It seems to me, this will have a big impact on Covid epidemiology in a mostly-vaccinated country.
I have three mental models:
Immunocompromise: some people will never build up Covid resistance, no matter how much they get vaccinated or infected
Exposure: a person has resistance, but is exposed to Covid in a way that overwhelms them. High viral load, maybe, or their immune system is somehow having a bad day
Vaccination failure: for some reason the vaccination doesn’t ‘take’. If the sufferer catches Covid, they will build up more resistance and be better protected next time round
[I’m leaving out the impact of variants and the decline of immunity over time]
(1) means that we’ll permanently have some segment of the population where Covid circulates, but could conceivably identify and protect those people
(2) is the same, but with less we can do in reaction.
(3) would imply things getting gradually better over time, as those people are exposed to endemic covid. Booster shots might help speed this along
Does anybody have a sense of which of these models (or something else) is closer to reality?