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."
The protective effect of prior infection is not uncertain, nor is it changing. There have been dozens of papers now, all saying the same thing: natural infection is at least as protective (if not more so) than even 3 doses of the current vaccines. If you are hearing otherwise, you are being misinformed. Full stop.
Here's the latest paper in a long line of consistent evidence, last week in the NEJM:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2203965
> No discernable differences in protection against symptomatic BA.1 and BA.2 infection were seen with previous infection, vaccination, and hybrid immunity. Vaccination enhanced protection among persons who had had a previous infection. Hybrid immunity resulting from previous infection and recent booster vaccination conferred the strongest protection.
Norway is saying what it is, because we know that most people -- vaccinated or previously infected -- will eventually get re-infected. But even if you are re-infected, you will be well-protected against severe illness.
What I don’t understand is how vaccination and boosting using an mRNA vaccine that contains only spike protein from the original SARS2, and which is almost completely evaded by the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, can confer protection against severe illnesses caused by those variants.
What is the biochemical process that provides that protection?
EDIT: Is this protection just a happy mantra, or is it actually that there is no protection against the new variants, but the intensity of the disease from them is far less than from the original variant (and our treatment is getting better)?
It makes a kind of intuitive sense: if you make your own body produce some key portion of the virus, maybe your immune system gets tricked into thinking it's not such a big issue?
"Response" is many different things. The vaccine boosts response b/c you have antibodies, so it's much less likely that your body has to do a hail mary las ditch (cytok storm).
> why so many governments have stopped publishing the case rate breakdowns by vax status.
But there's enough data out there to have a clear picture: vaccines or previous infections won't protect you from being infected by the recent strains (BA.2.75, BA.5, etc) but will protect you from severe disease or dying. Maybe it can be improved by nasal vaccines (what happened to those?) but who knows...
> It makes a kind of intuitive sense: if you make your own body produce some key portion of the virus, maybe your immune system gets tricked into thinking it's not such a big issue?
This one is completely off the mark. For starters, not all vaccines have your "body produce part of the virus", yet all help to prevent severe cases and death.