I’d caution you against spending too much time diving down infinite crank rabbit holes: true believers will always find some new detail or theory for you to rebut. At some point, if someone is committed to denying the clear scientific consensus, there’s no point trying to get through to them.
At a high level, we have a pretty deep understanding of how covid vaccines work and how they perform over time, and there’s absolutely nothing in there to suggest that, unlike every other vaccine ever, covid vaccines display the bizarre transition from positive protection to negative protection that you’re asking about.
Vaccine effectiveness declines over time because (in large part) antibody levels wane over time. That’s very well understood and in no way unique to covid vaccines.
Protection has shifted from protection against infection to infection against severe outcomes because of antigenic drift: the vaccines are most closely targeted to the ancestral strain. That match is most important for antibody protection: since antibodies are critical to protection against infection, the vaccines produce significantly less protection against infection as the virus drifts further from the ancestral type. T cell immunity is less affected by antigenic drift, so their protection against severe disease isn’t as attenuated.
ADE is a real thing, and it was a concern early on. In particular, there was a feline coronavirus vaccine some years ago that triggered ADE, so there was concern that covid might have similar issues. But we’ve seen no sign of that.
Original antigenic sin is also a real thing, but wouldn’t produce the effect you’re asking about.
Two pieces of advice:
Get your next vaccine. It’s incredibly safe and incredibly effective.
Spend less time engaging with lunatics on the internet. Too much time listening to cranks is bad for your epistemic health.
abstractapplic did their best in communicating fairly and honestly their epistemic state—considering the fact that Covid vaccination has become a highly politically charged topic they did a commendable thing by doing their utmost to be transparent about their motives and their uncertainty.
yes usually blindly following mainstream advice is better than following cranks and sometimes one can waste a lot of time debunking cranks—but I hope you’ll agree that mainstream advice is not always the best. I do agree about being aware of the danger infinite crank holes. At the end of the day it is abstractapplic’s choice to do so.
This topic has become unfortunately very political—we need more, not less dispassionated analysis. True understanding, both personally & for society at large, comes from honest questioning and rigorous scholarship. There is no need to scold anybody for honestly asking questions.
That is the spirit of Less Wrong.
I personally learned a bunch of things from this post. I look forward to more knowledgable people chiming in.
mRNA vaccines are a new invention, so that line of reasoning isn’t particularly reassuring.
Protection has shifted from protection against infection to infection against severe outcomes because of antigenic drift: the vaccines are most closely targeted to the ancestral strain. That match is most important for antibody protection: since antibodies are critical to protection against infection, the vaccines produce significantly less protection against infection as the virus drifts further from the ancestral type. T cell immunity is less affected by antigenic drift, so their protection against severe disease isn’t as attenuated.
An extremely helpful paragraph, which taught me several things I’m embarrassed not to have known; that’s worth a strong upvote by itself.
ADE is a real thing, and it was a concern early on. In particular, there was a feline coronavirus vaccine some years ago that triggered ADE, so there was concern that covid might have similar issues. But we’ve seen no sign of that.
In retrospect, I can see how I gave the impression that ADE was the main concern, instead of just the worst-case scenario; that’s my bad. The scenario that seems not-vanishingly-unlikely to me is unprecedentedly homogenous immune responses incentivizing unprecedentedly rapid antigenic drift, until patients end up with immune responses (enshrined by antigenic sin) less effective than what their bodies would have come up with by themselves. I’ll edit the OP to clarify.
Thank you for expaining the shift in protection, and for getting me to make the OP clearer. You’ll definitely get to allocate part of the $2k; I’ll figure out how much after more people have had a chance to provide answers.
I’d caution you against spending too much time diving down infinite crank rabbit holes: true believers will always find some new detail or theory for you to rebut. At some point, if someone is committed to denying the clear scientific consensus, there’s no point trying to get through to them.
At a high level, we have a pretty deep understanding of how covid vaccines work and how they perform over time, and there’s absolutely nothing in there to suggest that, unlike every other vaccine ever, covid vaccines display the bizarre transition from positive protection to negative protection that you’re asking about.
Vaccine effectiveness declines over time because (in large part) antibody levels wane over time. That’s very well understood and in no way unique to covid vaccines.
Protection has shifted from protection against infection to infection against severe outcomes because of antigenic drift: the vaccines are most closely targeted to the ancestral strain. That match is most important for antibody protection: since antibodies are critical to protection against infection, the vaccines produce significantly less protection against infection as the virus drifts further from the ancestral type. T cell immunity is less affected by antigenic drift, so their protection against severe disease isn’t as attenuated.
ADE is a real thing, and it was a concern early on. In particular, there was a feline coronavirus vaccine some years ago that triggered ADE, so there was concern that covid might have similar issues. But we’ve seen no sign of that.
Original antigenic sin is also a real thing, but wouldn’t produce the effect you’re asking about.
Two pieces of advice:
Get your next vaccine. It’s incredibly safe and incredibly effective.
Spend less time engaging with lunatics on the internet. Too much time listening to cranks is bad for your epistemic health.
abstractapplic did their best in communicating fairly and honestly their epistemic state—considering the fact that Covid vaccination has become a highly politically charged topic they did a commendable thing by doing their utmost to be transparent about their motives and their uncertainty.
yes usually blindly following mainstream advice is better than following cranks and sometimes one can waste a lot of time debunking cranks—but I hope you’ll agree that mainstream advice is not always the best. I do agree about being aware of the danger infinite crank holes. At the end of the day it is abstractapplic’s choice to do so.
This topic has become unfortunately very political—we need more, not less dispassionated analysis. True understanding, both personally & for society at large, comes from honest questioning and rigorous scholarship. There is no need to scold anybody for honestly asking questions.
That is the spirit of Less Wrong.
I personally learned a bunch of things from this post. I look forward to more knowledgable people chiming in.
Thank you for the reminder to explain and not scold—I shall strive to do so.
No. Thank you for exemplifying Rationalist virtue!
mRNA vaccines are a new invention, so that line of reasoning isn’t particularly reassuring.
An extremely helpful paragraph, which taught me several things I’m embarrassed not to have known; that’s worth a strong upvote by itself.
In retrospect, I can see how I gave the impression that ADE was the main concern, instead of just the worst-case scenario; that’s my bad. The scenario that seems not-vanishingly-unlikely to me is unprecedentedly homogenous immune responses incentivizing unprecedentedly rapid antigenic drift, until patients end up with immune responses (enshrined by antigenic sin) less effective than what their bodies would have come up with by themselves. I’ll edit the OP to clarify.
Thank you for expaining the shift in protection, and for getting me to make the OP clearer. You’ll definitely get to allocate part of the $2k; I’ll figure out how much after more people have had a chance to provide answers.