Sure, let's critically evaluate the guidance put forward by our public health institutions, but quoting a statement from Norway's equivalent institution without the backing evidence doesn't make the US "wrong". If the evidence available on the efficacy of vaccines for kids is so ridiculously wide that it goes from -99% to +370% risk of infection, then surely Norway is _also_ drastically overstating its case when it says (about kids) "previous infection offers as good of protection as the vaccine against reinfection" esp since it _also_ seems like the protective effect of prior infection is both uncertain and changing.
How about flatly declaring that guidance was "wrong" about school closures because minority and poor kids did markedly worse at math? Obviously these decisions are complex trade-offs, and one can't conclude that the choice was "wrong" simply by pointing out one of the costs.
How about quoting a CDC scientist, who cannot possibly have strong evidence when making the prediction "CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children." Generations to come? Show us the data that lets this scientist predict the far future with such confidence.
I get that it's deeply unnerving when these institutions make sweeping recommendations based on less firm data than we would normally demand. But not recommending anything, or not taking decisive action because of the limited data would _also_ have been irresponsible. When schools first closed, we didn't know a lot of things, but it would have been pretty reckless if agencies said "well this is putting a lot of people in the hospital and spreading fast, but we don't have the data to give definitive guidance yet, so you're on your own. Depending on the range of things your communities choose, maybe in a few months we'll have the evidence to say something."
For example, let's take just this single paragraph:
> As of February, 75% of children in the U.S. already had natural immunity from prior infection. It could easily be over 90% of children today given how ubiquitous Omicron has been since then. The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons. Many countries have long credited natural immunity towards vaccine mandates. But not the U.S.
First, there's this statement: "The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity." The linked study, reading through it, makes a different claim. The study showed that completion of a course of primary vaccination PLUS having had a prior Covid infection led to reduced severe outcomes more than just having had the primary course of vaccination alone. And even there, the CI (0.27 (0.09–0.84)) on the first scenario overlaps with the CI for vaccination alone.
It would be notable if this showed that prior infection alone conferred better protection than vaccination alone, which is the author's claim. This study doesn't show that. It shows infection plus vaccination confers better immunity than vaccination alone. And, well, that's what basically any expert would have predicted as the most likely result.
The second linked study (the NEJM one) gets closer, but largely only looks at infection rates (it does have some commentary on severe covid-19 rates, but this isn't adjusted for any confounders). It's most useful as a study on how immunity against infection wanes since the last immunity-conferring event, although it allows for some cross comparisons, such as comparing infection rates for natural immunity alone vs 2 doses alone vs 3 doses alone vs hybrid immunity. Possibly the biggest caveat is that the rate of testing for the different cohorts wasn't adjusted for:
> Although differences in testing rates among cohorts and among subcohorts within specified cohorts were observed, their overall magnitude was relatively small. The rate of PCR testing was typically lower in the recovered, unvaccinated cohort than in the other cohorts, so the level of protection in this cohort as compared with that in the two-dose cohort may have been overestimated.
So, it makes it harder to directly compare across cohorts. But, even assuming the cross comparison does hold up if you did correct for testing rates, there are a couple of things to call out in this study. First, three doses had significantly better numbers than two doses. However, the three-dose cohort was new at the time of this study, so this cohort only has results for the very first time slice, and that time slice doesn't exist for the natural immunity scenario, so we can't directly compare them. Second, this study also seems to show, with respect to immunity, that infection followed by vaccination is better than infection alone.
Third, and most notably given this piece's commentary, is vaccination after natural immunity has waned. The study linked explicitly ends with this sentence in its discussion section:
> We found that protection against the delta variant waned over time in both vaccinated and previously infected persons and that an additional vaccine dose restored protection.
Let's look back at the wording in the original piece:
> a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons
It is telling that a study that ends by recommending a dose of vaccine to restore waning natural immunity is used to "question the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons" in this piece.
Now, there's a reasonable debate around how previous infection should be counted w.r.t. to immune status. E.g. one can make a reasonable case that documented prior infection plus a single dose should count as "fully vaccinated." Or, that hitting a minimum threshold on an antibody test should count as documentation of immunity. Etc. But, that's not what the piece is arguing - it misrepresents both of the studies linked in this one paragraph, and then puts forward a conclusion that is unsupported by either study. If anything, both studies provide evidence that is quite supportive of getting vaccinated at some point after infection, yet you'd never know that if you just read the paragraph from this piece.
Pieces like this one are frustrating because they have the veneer of legitimacy - written by someone in the field, linking studies, etc. It takes a lot of time to really dive in to understand whether or not the claims being made are supported. And even then, it often takes broader knowledge of the state of research in the field. It's easy to cherry pick research that supports a bias while simply leaving out competing research.
Ultimately, this piece does not come off as a good faith review of the scientific evidence.