Natural Immunity

[nett]

Of course the papers don't say that. I calculated the decrease in risk of reinfection from COVID that vaccination provides, and compared it to the likelihood of a serious reaction, not local. According to the data, they are both very rare event, but reinfection is much rarer than serious vaccine side effects.

I don't think this is a controversial finding, and I don't think we need an expert from the NIH to help us with this. the data is right there...

Oh, so you simply point to a paper, claim it says something, and don't even mention that the paper reaches a different conclusion? I think that has happened time after time.

I believe this is a controversial finding. I bet you can't find experts who agree with you that the paper actually says that. Am I wrong about that? Can you point me to the FDA or CDC or NIH experts who agree with you? "Nett says" does not mean "this is not controversial".

Are you going to show your math and explain the underlying model? That's what an actual expert would have to do. Better yet, can you subject this to analysis by experts, just as experts have to do?

What are you talking about? Compare the relative risk yourself, it's not that complicated.

[nett]

Bootstrap is demonstrating the precise art of doublethink. The study clears shows a difference, the authors do not conclude that there is a difference (because it would be wrongthink), therefore we conclude there is no difference.

Oh come on. You repeatedly cite papers that do not say what you claim, then accuse me of being in denial because I read the papers and point that out. And if you believe that the 15 cases are statistically significant in the Cleveland study are statistically, show your math. But so far, you won't, you will keep making ugly claims about me and playing rhetorical games instead, then claiming that you are just following the data. If you have the ability to follow data, show me how you computed that, if you don't, please stop bragging, and regardless, please start admitting what the papers you point to say when someone else points it out.

Here's another example: I am not the person who says that vaccination can be helpful for those who have already had Covid, that's the Israel paper you keep citing, pretending it says the opposite.

You have a pattern of making bold claims, then pointing to papers that do not actually support those claims, then trolling anyone who notices. Please start answering specific questions, and please start admitting when a paper you cite says something that contradicts your own opinion.

My own position is that it's too early to take a firm stand on some of these things. I don't know if the Israel paper you cite is correct when it says that people get better protection if they get a vaccination even if they have had Covid, but I can read well enough to know that it does say that. I do not know if another experiment might find a statistically significant difference where your Cleveland study did not, but I do know that it did not.

And for now, at least, please expect me to pin you down on these specific claims where you accuse me of ignoring the proof you have provided and I am simply saying that the papers you cite do not say what you claim they say. Time to stop slipping out of the loop by insulting me and actually address the papers and the data.

In the case of the Cleveland Clinic study, I'm not making my own conclusions, it comes right from the authors..

Conclusions Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.

Take it up with them if you don't like their conclusions...

[Bootstrap]

Of course the papers don't say that. I calculated the decrease in risk of reinfection from COVID that vaccination provides, and compared it to the likelihood of a serious reaction, not local. According to the data, they are both very rare event, but reinfection is much rarer than serious vaccine side effects.

I don't think this is a controversial finding, and I don't think we need an expert from the NIH to help us with this. the data is right there...

Oh, so you simply point to a paper, claim it says something, and don't even mention that the paper reaches a different conclusion? I think that has happened time after time.

I believe this is a controversial finding. I bet you can't find experts who agree with you that the paper actually says that. Am I wrong about that? Can you point me to the FDA or CDC or NIH experts who agree with you? "Nett says" does not mean "this is not controversial".

Are you going to show your math and explain the underlying model? That's what an actual expert would have to do. Better yet, can you subject this to analysis by experts, just as experts have to do?

What are you talking about? Compare the relative risk yourself, it's not that complicated.

Nope. Your conclusion, you do the work. You point to papers and come to different conclusions than the paper does, please explain how you are coming to this conclusion. Then we can all see if it holds water.

I can read and understand the conclusions the paper reaches and the reasons given. That's often what happens when you point to a paper, it doesn't say what you claim it says, but you didn't bother telling us that. Then you tell us you have done some calculation that should be obvious. I doubt it. And you act like your conclusion is the accepted norm, insulting people who disagree, refusing to show your work.

That's not how data is done. That's not how science is done. That's not how truth is done. That's just trolling.

[Bootstrap]

In the case of the Cleveland Clinic study, I'm not making my own conclusions, it comes right from the authors..

Conclusions Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.

Take it up with them if you don't like their conclusions...

We agree that the paper says that, I have cited that conclusion myself. Have you forgotten all the other conclusions you claimed the paper supported? I can list them for you if you need me to. The ones you have taken me to task for not agreeing to because they are not conclusions of the paper?

Could you please quote the part from the Israel study that says the opposite? That's the other study you have mentioned so frequently. Can you admit that it does? Any particular reason that you did not even mention the Israel study in your response to the message where I bring it up?

[nett]

In the case of the Cleveland Clinic study, I'm not making my own conclusions, it comes right from the authors..

Conclusions Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.

Take it up with them if you don't like their conclusions...

We agree that the paper says that, I have cited that conclusion myself. Have you forgotten all the other conclusions you claimed the paper supported? I can list them for you if you need me to. The ones you have taken me to task for not agreeing to because they are not conclusions of the paper?

Could you please quote the part from the Israel study that says the opposite? That's the other study you have mentioned so frequently. Can you admit that it does? Any particular reason that you did not even mention the Israel study in your response to the message where I bring it up?

The Israeli study had no justification for their conclusion. It's very common for population studies to find lots of things that the author do not admit in conclusion, usually because they are paid for a specific conclusion, or their tenure relies on it.

Are you not aware of this problem?

[Bootstrap]

Could you please quote the part from the Israel study that says the opposite? That's the other study you have mentioned so frequently. Can you admit that it does? Any particular reason that you did not even mention the Israel study in your response to the message where I bring it up?

The Israeli study had no justification for their conclusion.

But you pointed to it, claiming that this study supported your claims. And it reaches the opposite conclusion. You didn't even mention that, then you implied that I was being dishonest or stubborn because I quoted what the paper concludes, saying it was the conclusion of the paper.

Don't you see that's a problem?

And now you claim they had no justification. What justification do they give in the paper? Could you please cite their conclusion and the justification they give?

It's very common for population studies to find lots of things that the author do not admit in conclusion, usually because they are paid for a specific conclusion, or their tenure relies on it.

Are you not aware of this problem?

It's just so easy to make that kind of thing up. How could you possibly know the motivation of these particular researchers? Why do you feel so free to paint vivid images of other people's motivations when you don't know them at all?

Why not focus on their data and their findings instead? Those are completely knowable. After all, you tell me you just "follow the data". Show me how you follow the data.

This much is clear: if they cited other papers in support of their claims, and those papers did not support those claims, their colleagues would be pretty scathing. If they claimed to do a re-analysis of the findings of another paper, they would be expected to say so up front and to provide enough information to assess their re-analysis.

If they tried to publish scientific papers where they just make up stories about the motivations or honesty of other people, those papers would never be published at all.

[nett]

In the case of the Cleveland Clinic study, I'm not making my own conclusions, it comes right from the authors..

Conclusions Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.

Take it up with them if you don't like their conclusions...

We agree that the paper says that, I have cited that conclusion myself. Have you forgotten all the other conclusions you claimed the paper supported? I can list them for you if you need me to. The ones you have taken me to task for not agreeing to because they are not conclusions of the paper?

Could you please quote the part from the Israel study that says the opposite? That's the other study you have mentioned so frequently. Can you admit that it does? Any particular reason that you did not even mention the Israel study in your response to the message where I bring it up?

Ok, I'll give it a shot.

First I did not distinguish between positive baseline N-binding antibody test and positive nucleic acid amplification test. Differentiating them does not result in enough incidents to be statistically significant.

here are the relevant incidences of reinfection among placebo and vaccinated populations from the 6 month study

16/716 placebo = 0.022
12/682 vaccinated = 0.018

subtracting we get an absolute risk reduction (ARR) of .004. this would not be statistically significant enough to show efficacy, but we can use it for comparison, because there were enough incidents for the population results to be significant.

We will now calculate Number Needed to Treat using the formula: NNT = 1/ARR

This gives us NNT = 250. meaning we need to vaccinate 250 patients with prior infection in order to prevent 1 infection via vaccination.

Meanwhile, the reactogenicity study found a Number Needed to Harm (NNH) of around 11 for moderate to severe reactions to the COVID vaccine. The data for that study is not presented as precisely, but this is what i was able to put together from the graphs, and it matches what other's analysis came up with.

Note that the reactogenicity study found a significantly increased risk of adverse reaction to the COVID mRNA vaccines in those with prior infection as compared to those without. I did not factor this in to my NNH. if i had, it would make the results even more extreme.

Consistently, compared to the first dose of the vaccine, we found an increased incidence and severity of self-reported side effects after the second dose, when recipients had been previously exposed to viral antigen. In view of the rapidly accumulating data demonstrating that COVID-19 survivors generally have adequate natural immunity for at least 6 months, it may be appropriate to re-evaluate the recommendation for immediate vaccination of this group.

Simply taking NNT / NNH from the two studies, you end up with 250 / 11 ≈ 23

please do note, that the reactogenicity study is not a pre-print, and was published in Life

[nett]

Could you please quote the part from the Israel study that says the opposite? That's the other study you have mentioned so frequently. Can you admit that it does? Any particular reason that you did not even mention the Israel study in your response to the message where I bring it up?

The Israeli study had no justification for their conclusion.

But you pointed to it, claiming that this study supported your claims. And it reaches the opposite conclusion. You didn't even mention that, then you implied that I was being dishonest or stubborn because I quoted what the paper concludes, saying it was the conclusion of the paper.

Don't you see that's a problem?

And now you claim they had no justification. What justification do they give in the paper? Could you please cite their conclusion and the justification they give?

It's very common for population studies to find lots of things that the author do not admit in conclusion, usually because they are paid for a specific conclusion, or their tenure relies on it.

Are you not aware of this problem?

It's just so easy to make that kind of thing up. How could you possibly know the motivation of these particular researchers? Why do you feel so free to paint vivid images of other people's motivations when you don't know them at all?

Why not focus on their data and their findings instead? Those are completely knowable. After all, you tell me you just "follow the data". Show me how you follow the data.

This much is clear: if they cited other papers in support of their claims, and those papers did not support those claims, their colleagues would be pretty scathing. If they claimed to do a re-analysis of the findings of another paper, they would be expected to say so up front and to provide enough information to assess their re-analysis.

If they tried to publish scientific papers where they just make up stories about the motivations or honesty of other people, those papers would never be published at all.

The conclusions of a study are up to the author(s), they are not bound to conclude every statistical finding in their study. I'm allowed to do my own analysis of the data, and draw conclusions from that.

Are you familiar with the tobacco lobby studies that concluded that smoking did not contribute to lung cancer, even though the data in their studies showed exactly that?

[Bootstrap]

The conclusions of a study are up to the author(s), they are not bound to conclude every statistical finding in their study. I'm allowed to do my own analysis of the data, and draw conclusions from that.

But aren't allowed to say whatever you want, then point to a study as though it supported your claim, then accuse someone else of being dishonest or stubborn if he mentions that the study does not say that.

Are you familiar with the tobacco lobby studies that concluded that smoking did not contribute to lung cancer, even though the data in their studies showed exactly that?

Precisely. Really, that's just not OK. Don't be like that.

And if you are going to do your own re-analysis, you should say so, and show your work. As you did above - thanks for that, I'll take a look at it when I get time.

[nett]

The conclusions of a study are up to the author(s), they are not bound to conclude every statistical finding in their study. I'm allowed to do my own analysis of the data, and draw conclusions from that.

But aren't allowed to say whatever you want, then point to a study as though it supported your claim, then accuse someone else of being dishonest or stubborn if he mentions that the study does not say that.

Really, that's just not OK.

And if you are going to do your own re-analysis, you should say so, and show your work. As you did above - thanks for that, I'll take a look at it when I get time.

At no point have i pointed to anything other than the data in a study...

A researcher would have to be suicidal to publish exclusively explicitly vaccine-negative conclusions, that's why you have to look at the content and substance of the study, not just the conclusions.

Look at the reactogenicity study.

The conclusion is:

For the first time, our study links prior COVID-19 illness with increased incidence of vaccination side effects and demonstrates that mRNA vaccines cause milder, less frequent systemic side effects, but more local reactions.

Buried in the text is

Consistently, compared to the first dose of the vaccine, we found an increased incidence and severity of self-reported side effects after the second dose, when recipients had been previously exposed to viral antigen. In view of the rapidly accumulating data demonstrating that COVID-19 survivors generally have adequate natural immunity for at least 6 months, it may be appropriate to re-evaluate the recommendation for immediate vaccination of this group.

There were a lot of caveats to them showing that AstraZeneca (viral vector) caused somewhat more severe symptoms than mRNA, and it wasn't longitudinal, yet that made up half of their conclusion, even most of the study is dedicated to showing how much worse mRNA vaccines are for those with COVID infections. And you'll notice their policy recommendation did not finds it's way into the conclusion.