So delta is mostly affected the unvaccinated right now, especially for serious diseases. I think a lot of breakthrough diseases among the vaccinated are among those with comorbidities.
So is as a possible scenario one where the unvaccinated mostly develop herd immunity against covid, but then a new variant comes along that is pretty much immune to the vaccines? Wouldn’t that become a plague of the vaccinated since the unvaccinated would have antibodies that maybe could fight off the disease?
Is that possible, that the unvaccinated get infected in large numbers and develop antibodies that are better than vaccine antibodies, then a new variant comes out that is immune to vaccine antibodies but not as much to naturally produced antibodies?
This would be a bad situation, but is it possible?
I’m assuming if this is possible, its also possible we’d see variants that also evade antibodies from those naturally affected so previous infection wouldn’t protect you. Has that been seen with any of the variants yet where they can reinfect those who had the actual disease before?
In practice, unlikely to the point of impossibility. The vaccines were designed on the original virus and subsequently tested against the major variants.
The hypothetical requires a new variant that is widespread (so people can develop a natural response to it) but also one we simply ignore for a few months (do no sequencing, testing, etc) so that we are caught by ‘surprise’.
That widespread variant doesn’t currently exist. And we know vaccine conveyed immunity covers the same cell sites the spike protein targets that natural immunity covers plus more. So, this would have to be a new variant that affects the unvaccinated and vaccinated alike but somehow first targets the unvaccinated (so they develop natural immunity) before getting to the vaccinated. Basically, a set of hypothetical conditions so unlikely we can just ignore the possibility.
I am a total layman on this stuff, but if there were some variant that came along that were so different than “standard Covid” that our Covid vaccinations couldn’t protect against it, then by that point isn’t it such a wildly different thing that it almost might as well be classified as a new virus altogether by then? In other words, it would be almost like asking “What if smallpox were to infect us?” That variant would be so different that Covid vaccinated and unvaccinated would be totally irrelevant, everyone is screwed.
As for the “unvaccinated develop herd immunity” - I think that would take such a long time to happen that there would be time enough to vaccinate the already-vaccinated against this new variant.
Isn’t it more likely that the unvaccinated who get infected die?
Remember these are likely to be people who don’t believe in science and take no precautions…
AFAIK (and I’m not a doctor, biochemist, etc…) the way our immune system works is that any virus that a vaccine is effective against is going to cause similar acquired immunity in unvaccinated people.
And what you’re describing would take two variants- one to prime the unvaccinated through acquired immunity, and a second to infect the vaccinated. But the catch is that anything the vaccinated would shrug off from the first variant would induce similar immunity in the people who caught it. So when the second one comes around, they’d be roughly similar in terms of susceptibility.
Timing might be an issue to consider though; what we may face in coming months is something similar, in that presumably the majority of unvaccinated people will have caught the Delta variant, and have recent acquired immunity, while the people vaccinated in January-April will have waning immunity in the absence of a booster shot. That could make for interesting times.
The delta variant DOES affect the vaccinated due to how fast it builds up virus load–it’s got you by the nose before your immune system has time to put its shoes on–but the vaxxed are much more likely than the unvaxxed to get it either asymptomatically or get a light case of it. If there’s enough of a difference in the delta genetics to cause your body to make specific antibodies for it then you’re double protected I guess.
I think that was the idea behind coming up with the mRNA vaxx, they noted that a shit ton of strains of SARS and coronavirus all had the same mRNA sequence so teaching your immune system to go after that sequence should give a bigger umbrella of protection overall. We’ll see how well it proves out but so far, pretty good.
My answer to the OP — no more risk than any other vaccine. And medical history says this will not happen. There is no diphtheria of the vaccinated, or tetanus, or chickenpox, or measles, etc., etc.
Americans who qualify to donate blood can confirm that they have vaccine-associated antibodies (or disease-acquired antibodies) by getting the free test given donors.
" A preprint study conducted by nfrence and the Mayo Clinic found that Pfizer’s effectiveness dropped substantially when up against the Delta variant. The Aug. 8 study concluded that the vaccine was only 42 percent effective against the virus in July when Delta was the dominant variant. This is a significant drop in protection for a vaccine whose efficacy was 95 percent in clinical trials. “If that’s not a wakeup call, I don’t know what is,” a senior Biden official told Axios."
The short answer is, yes, delta variant could become a vaccine buster. But then again, there are other viruses that are even scarier than COVID-19 that could make their way around the globe in a hurry. Ebola and its cousins are a lot deadlier than COVID. We could have a strain of influenza that could be as deadly as the 1918 flu. We live in a world of pathogens. We’ve been able to beat them for the better part of the last 100 years, but the pathogens are making a comeback.
I go back to global climate change. What are the implications of a population that continues to explode toward 10 billion people but lives in a world in which habitable zones are very likely to decrease dramatically over the next 10-30 years? Those 8-10 billion people will be forced to move closer together, along with the animals whose habitats we’ve destroyed. What do you think the pathogens are gonna do?
It’s been already talked about in the media and I completely agree: this pandemic is just the dress rehearsal for climate change. It’s climate change that will dramatically alter the course of humanity, and it will be something we experience in our lifetimes. We can still do something about it, but we really, really, really need to lose our smugness as a species, or we’re going to end up with a population loss on the order of something like 50-80% of our global population within the next 100 years, and maybe even sooner.
But its still very effective at preventing hospitalization and death. Somewhere between 10 and 100 times more effective. Its just a lot less effective at keeping you from getting a positive test and being able to spew virus on other people.
Yes, it’s less effective at preventing infection – which is why the CDC really should have erred on the side of caution and really pushed the issue of masking and looked into boosters as soon as Israel’s data came out.
At the same time, they are still very protective in terms of preventing the worst outcomes, which is a great argument for getting a shot.
Your version of medical history apparently has never heard of the flu. Viruses CAN, in fact, mutate rapidly to the point where they can evade previously-effective vaccines. The fact that most of them do not is no excuse for ignoring the possibility.
Did you actually read the OP? The question was, can there be a version that only makes the vaccinated sick, not the unvaccinated. That’s what PhillyGuy was responding to. Do you have a cite for a version of the flu that only hits the vaccinated?
I think PhillyGuy was responding to the OP’s question, and saying there was no history of vaccinated people becoming MORE susceptible to variants of the disease they’re vaccinated against — compared to the unvaccinated.
And as for the OP’s question:
Is there a history of people who get annual flu vaccines being more susceptible to some new variant than people who never get annual flu shots? I haven’t heard of such a thing, and think the opposite is true.
It’s conceivable that “natural” immunity (acquired by having one of the Covid-19 variants) could protect against some new deadly variant better than the immunity from one of the common Covid vaccines. And conceivably the vaccinated could die in vast numbers before a vaccine against that new deadly strain is developed. But I sure wouldn’t bet on that happening — that’s like not wearing a seatbelt because you hope to get thrown free of the accident and land in vat of delicious tapioca pudding.
This part is possible. Yes, especially given that only part of the population has had any vaccine at all, and given that many of the vaccinated have only had one shot, we’ve basically dared the virus to become more transmissible. Delta accepted the challenge, and there’s no reason to think this process won’t escalate even more. Get vaccinated fools, before the virus picks the locks and we need another vaccine!
No. If a strain is immune to vaccines, then we can no longer speak of a “vaccinated” and an “unvaccinated” population. We’re all back to square one in March 2019, together. It’s logically not possible there would ever be a “plague of the vaccinated.”
Yes, but so will the unvaccinated. “Natural immunity” isn’t just some organic vaccine alternative, it’s another word for contracting the disease and risking serious illness and death.
There’s no conceivable scenario where a vaccine-resistant virus selectively infects vaccinated people after the entire vaccinated population. If it’s vaccine resistant, then nobody’s actually vaccinated anymore. Wherever that takes us, we’re all going there together.
But it’s uncommon, and when it’s a problem, “natural immunity” from prior infection causes exactly the same problem. It’s well known that Dengue is worse if you’ve had it before. (there are four strains, and exposure to the SAME strain isn’t a problem, as far as I know, but exposure to one of the other three strains is much more serious if you’ve had Dengue.)
So no, it’s extremely unlikely that any of the covid vaccines could make anyone more susceptible than they would be if they previously had covid. I mean, biology is weird, and I’m sure there are things that are possible that we’ve never seen. But I have zero fear of that particular outcome.