Sometimes I think I'm living in a parallel universe.
I know people who travel regularly and no one says anything to them. No quarantine, nothing. Most people on the streets here in Germany give zero fucks, groups of 5-10, no masks (even though there's a curfew between 10pm-5am due to an increase in cases).
And I traveled all the way from Moldova to Germany by car. No one, and I mean no one ever asked for a Covid test (which I had, of course, along with a positive antibodies test). Border guards, Hungarian border patrol, German Zoll, regular Romanian and German police, they cared about what's in the bags, didn't even mention Covid.
Hungarian border guards wanted to see a German work contract for whatever asinine reason, but I repeat, none of them ever asked for a Covid test or to at least keep the mask on (they need to see your face when checking the passport).
Whatever bureaucratic stumbling blocks there are, they have nothing to do with reality, it seems.
I'm pretty sure it's because you traveled by car -- which means the odds that you were exposing your fellow travelers was limited to the people that would get in a car with you.
I've traveled 2 times now by air from NYC -> London during Covid.
Last year, a 14 day quarantine on both sides, and on the NYC side, a phone call everyday to make sure I was quarantining.
This year on the London side, a 10 day quarantine, 1 negative test before flying, and 2 at home tests while quarantining, with a phone call everyday to confirm. I also got hassled at the airport because I didn't print out the day 2 and 8 receipt, just included the code on my passenger locator form under penalty of perjury.
So, the UK by air does care I suspect because of the increased exposure risk.
Because in most of the cases you are transiting and no one cares. If you would have said to any of those border guards that you are coming to stay in any of those countries, they would have cared and asked for more things. Saying this as I travelled recently from Germany through 4 countries. In the destination country they asked for test, proof of sickness or vaccine proof.
I traveled in the opposite direction (more or less: Vienna to Bucarest) more than 3 months ago and wasn't asked either, but on the Hungary-Romania border, they put me in a tiny room (1/3 shipping container or so) with ca. 10 people and gave me quarantine papers. They didn't check bags.
I'm pretty sure they'd check for a test or vaccination now on the way back, I'm not eager to find out and will stay here in the Covid exile for a little longer.
> Thus limiting those that are not vaccinated and making it difficult to move freely for them.
> ... that effectively will force many to be vaccinated.
Yup, that’s the point.
No man is an island. You already can’t walk around doing literally whatever you want just because it’s your body you’re doing it with. You depend on other people, and other people depend on you (or at least can’t avoid intermingling with you, especially if you decide to travel internationally). Those who don’t get vaccinated slow down our recovery from the pandemic, putting other people’s health and lives at risk. Society has to make these trade-offs, and this one seems very reasonable to me.
> The travel pass is a horrible idea, that effectively will force many to be vaccinated.
Good. It’s not like a concentration camp. There are other options if you don’t want to vaccinate.
You can just stay at home (I’ve been declined Schengen visa in the past for no reason), you can get PCR-tested. You also can get ill with Covid and then recover (hopefully).
I ask this as I understand your concern about politics forcing personal decisions, yet I am not finding a pragmatic workable solution to the current crisis.
> EU Travel Pass doesn't care about your antibodies.
Hmm, you are right :(
The rules are still evolving. They will need to care, since the people who recovered after a positive test are much fewer than people who recovered without being tested.
> The period of relevance of certificates depends on scientific evidence and will be determined by the verifiers following their national rules. As new scientific evidence is emerging, the periods for which certificates are relevant for waiver of applicable public health requirements could be adjusted ...The regulation also introduces some basic principles, for example, setting the maximum validity period of the certificate of recovery at 180 days. These principles could be adjusted by the Commission through delegated acts to align with new scientific evidence once it is available.
Going strictly by the text above, what would happen to the recovered people after 180 days? If they have immunity they cannot get another positive test, so no recovery certificate and no travel? Or if you already recovered more than 6 months ago, you cannot travel?
It will come down to some metric of immunity, which is apparently "TBD" but will almost immediately be a concern, as all stakeholders look more closely at the rules, logic and implications.
The EU and many western governments are not dictatorships, relying on human judgement to enforce policy. If proposed policies fail basic checks of reason and fairness, humans at border checkpoints can exercise judgement. If and when policy makers find their policy is not enforceable, they can improve the policy until it is supported by science, citizens and enforcers.
The travel industry expects these passes to bring their customers back. They will not sit quietly while their recovered/immune customers are blocked by incompetent bureaucracy from spending money across the EU, without a substantive scientific case.
This was completely expected, since this is the case with the other coronaviruses. People that contracted SARS-CoV-1 still have a strong immune response almost 20 years later.
Saying that coronavirus infections in general produce long-lasting immunity is too strong, I think. For non-SARS coronaviruses (e.g. HCoV-OC43), immunity seems to drop off within a year: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1083-1
What has been shown is that if you introduce the SARS-CoV-1 peptide ex vivo into cells drawn from the blood of survivors that there's a IFN-gamma response from T-cells.
That shows that there's clearly some memory in the immune system, but it isn't like they did challenge testing with live SARS-CoV-1 virus to survivors to see if they got sick or not.
And we now know that the presence of a T-cell immune reaction is not sufficient to prevent you from getting sick or hospitalized. The cross-reactive T-cell responses between previously circulating human coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 was found to simply not be protective at all against disease:
So the paper on T-cell responses in SARS-CoV-1 patients 17 years later is not remotely as meaningful as some people suggest. It doesn't prove anything about disease or reinfection.
At the same time the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 actually is likely to be durable for many years as has been seen with HCoV-229E:
What the researchers there found is solid evidence that our immunity to HCoVs doesn't wane but that the virus mutates in order to reinfect. That contradicts some other studies which seem to show reinfection of ordinary coronaviruses on short timescales, but the methdology of that study seems to be more sound. That's the one that I'd cite as evidence of durable multi-year disease-preventing immunity. Although the catch is that given this viruses ability to mutate in multiple locations around the spike protein while actually increasing affinity it seems very likely that it'll eventually mutate to achieve immune escape. It is looking like it'd be pretty surprising for this to be a one-and-done like measles.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone is modeling this as something that can be eradicated, even ignoring the zoonotic aspects. The assumption, which seems quite reasonable from my perspective, is that it will become background noise long term. Never eliminated but with greatly reduced virulence.
The parent is not saying exposure to Cov-1 provides long-term immunity to Cov-2. Why are you confusing this? It says exposureto Cov-2 provides long-term immunity to Cov-2, as you would expect.
There are several such studies, all trivially discoverable. Here is one published in Nature last year, where they specifically also studied cross reactivity of SARS-2003 immune response with SARS-2019:
The consensus I’m hearing from epidemiologists is the mRNA vaccines should offer better immunity than infection. So it would seem the 8 month for immunity after infection should be a lower bound for the vaccine effectiveness.
> The consensus I’m hearing from epidemiologists is the mRNA vaccines should offer better immunity than infection
Serious question: How can we possibly know this? I'm all for vaccinations (I'm going in for my second shot this weekend), but I just worry about commentary backed by intuition that doesn't carry sufficient disclaiming.
The consensus one year ago was that immunity doesn’t last longer than 6 months (hint: it does). I’ve learned to mostly disregard “expert opinion”, especially when they’re talking straight out of their asses as in this case (we haven’t had the vaccine long enough yet to have any kind of experimentally informed view on this topic).
As much as I'd like that to be true, I think it's impossible to separate that statement from the political pressure to motivate vaccination.
ie, if the opposite was true — vaccination did not provide the same strength of immunity as infection — no epidemiologist would ever state this publicly.
So I'll be happy if it's true, but this statement doesn't move my belief-meter one way or another.
Reinfection is not rare, Singapore has detected 26 cases of reinfection so far: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/parliament-2... Also note worthy: recent infections in Singapore includes "56 cases involving people who were infected despite being fully vaccinated"
Seems to be on-par with antibody persistence (6 months) offered after second dose of mRNA-1273 vaccine[1].
US CDC seems to suggest vaccine to those who had COVID immediately after recovery[2]. Where as news sources claim WHO suggests 6 months after recovery[3].
"Yes, you should be vaccinated regardless of whether you already had COVID-19. That’s because experts do not yet know how long you are protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19."
This is downright false. Someone should seriously sue the CDC. I don't understand how they can get away with this anti science, anti math, illogerate bullsh*t. We know far more about the long term protective effects from recovering than we do from the vaccine (1 in 1,000 long term reinfection rate so far—https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.06.21253051v...).
I would send a pull request but the CDC is not on Git. What a sorry excuse for an organization they are.
I've been tracking information on COVID related immunity as my parents are due second dose, I'm due first dose and we're all COVID +ve (India).
My parents got infected after ~ 30days of first dose Astrazenica, I got from them immediately. I had COVID brain fog, they didn't face much symptoms(vaccine doing it's job?). Luckily we all seem to be recovering well.
Now since we've got immunity and that evidence suggests that it should last at least 8 months we might delay the vaccine jabs as it's of extreme scarcity in the country and many vulnerable are waiting for it.
But I would wish for a immunity research with larger study group with the mutant strains supposedly capable of immune escape properties as we're facing here. Because I'm willing to take the risk based on current data, But I don't want to be wrong in suggesting that my elderly parents delay their second jab.
Readit News
> For travellers who have recovered from the virus: date of the positive test result, an issuer of the certificate, date of issuance, validity date
The bureaucratic stumbling block will be agreement on antibody and T-cell testing definitions across country borders.
I know people who travel regularly and no one says anything to them. No quarantine, nothing. Most people on the streets here in Germany give zero fucks, groups of 5-10, no masks (even though there's a curfew between 10pm-5am due to an increase in cases).
And I traveled all the way from Moldova to Germany by car. No one, and I mean no one ever asked for a Covid test (which I had, of course, along with a positive antibodies test). Border guards, Hungarian border patrol, German Zoll, regular Romanian and German police, they cared about what's in the bags, didn't even mention Covid.
Hungarian border guards wanted to see a German work contract for whatever asinine reason, but I repeat, none of them ever asked for a Covid test or to at least keep the mask on (they need to see your face when checking the passport).
Whatever bureaucratic stumbling blocks there are, they have nothing to do with reality, it seems.
I've traveled 2 times now by air from NYC -> London during Covid.
Last year, a 14 day quarantine on both sides, and on the NYC side, a phone call everyday to make sure I was quarantining.
This year on the London side, a 10 day quarantine, 1 negative test before flying, and 2 at home tests while quarantining, with a phone call everyday to confirm. I also got hassled at the airport because I didn't print out the day 2 and 8 receipt, just included the code on my passenger locator form under penalty of perjury.
So, the UK by air does care I suspect because of the increased exposure risk.
I traveled in the opposite direction (more or less: Vienna to Bucarest) more than 3 months ago and wasn't asked either, but on the Hungary-Romania border, they put me in a tiny room (1/3 shipping container or so) with ca. 10 people and gave me quarantine papers. They didn't check bags.
I'm pretty sure they'd check for a test or vaccination now on the way back, I'm not eager to find out and will stay here in the Covid exile for a little longer.
The travel pass is a horrible idea, that effectively will force many to be vaccinated.
That should not be the european way.
> ... that effectively will force many to be vaccinated.
Yup, that’s the point.
No man is an island. You already can’t walk around doing literally whatever you want just because it’s your body you’re doing it with. You depend on other people, and other people depend on you (or at least can’t avoid intermingling with you, especially if you decide to travel internationally). Those who don’t get vaccinated slow down our recovery from the pandemic, putting other people’s health and lives at risk. Society has to make these trade-offs, and this one seems very reasonable to me.
Good. It’s not like a concentration camp. There are other options if you don’t want to vaccinate.
You can just stay at home (I’ve been declined Schengen visa in the past for no reason), you can get PCR-tested. You also can get ill with Covid and then recover (hopefully).
I ask this as I understand your concern about politics forcing personal decisions, yet I am not finding a pragmatic workable solution to the current crisis.
Dead Comment
From the linked article:
>For travellers who have recovered from the virus: date of the positive test result, an issuer of the certificate, date of issuance, validity date
EU Travel Pass doesn't care about your antibodies.
Hmm, you are right :(
The rules are still evolving. They will need to care, since the people who recovered after a positive test are much fewer than people who recovered without being tested.
From https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...
> The period of relevance of certificates depends on scientific evidence and will be determined by the verifiers following their national rules. As new scientific evidence is emerging, the periods for which certificates are relevant for waiver of applicable public health requirements could be adjusted ...The regulation also introduces some basic principles, for example, setting the maximum validity period of the certificate of recovery at 180 days. These principles could be adjusted by the Commission through delegated acts to align with new scientific evidence once it is available.
Going strictly by the text above, what would happen to the recovered people after 180 days? If they have immunity they cannot get another positive test, so no recovery certificate and no travel? Or if you already recovered more than 6 months ago, you cannot travel?
It will come down to some metric of immunity, which is apparently "TBD" but will almost immediately be a concern, as all stakeholders look more closely at the rules, logic and implications.
The EU and many western governments are not dictatorships, relying on human judgement to enforce policy. If proposed policies fail basic checks of reason and fairness, humans at border checkpoints can exercise judgement. If and when policy makers find their policy is not enforceable, they can improve the policy until it is supported by science, citizens and enforcers.
The travel industry expects these passes to bring their customers back. They will not sit quietly while their recovered/immune customers are blocked by incompetent bureaucracy from spending money across the EU, without a substantive scientific case.
Dead Comment
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...
That shows that there's clearly some memory in the immune system, but it isn't like they did challenge testing with live SARS-CoV-1 virus to survivors to see if they got sick or not.
And we now know that the presence of a T-cell immune reaction is not sufficient to prevent you from getting sick or hospitalized. The cross-reactive T-cell responses between previously circulating human coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 was found to simply not be protective at all against disease:
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/10/do...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286742...
So the paper on T-cell responses in SARS-CoV-1 patients 17 years later is not remotely as meaningful as some people suggest. It doesn't prove anything about disease or reinfection.
At the same time the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 actually is likely to be durable for many years as has been seen with HCoV-229E:
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...
What the researchers there found is solid evidence that our immunity to HCoVs doesn't wane but that the virus mutates in order to reinfect. That contradicts some other studies which seem to show reinfection of ordinary coronaviruses on short timescales, but the methdology of that study seems to be more sound. That's the one that I'd cite as evidence of durable multi-year disease-preventing immunity. Although the catch is that given this viruses ability to mutate in multiple locations around the spike protein while actually increasing affinity it seems very likely that it'll eventually mutate to achieve immune escape. It is looking like it'd be pretty surprising for this to be a one-and-done like measles.
Could you provide a source for this please?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z
Asking for a citation for something so trivially discoverable is a weird flex.
> The results provide hope that people receiving SARS-CoV-2 vaccines will develop similar lasting immune memories after vaccination.
Serious question: How can we possibly know this? I'm all for vaccinations (I'm going in for my second shot this weekend), but I just worry about commentary backed by intuition that doesn't carry sufficient disclaiming.
Protection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is similar to that of BNT162b2 vaccine protection: A three-month nationwide experience from Israel https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.20.21255670v...
Deleted Comment
ie, if the opposite was true — vaccination did not provide the same strength of immunity as infection — no epidemiologist would ever state this publicly.
So I'll be happy if it's true, but this statement doesn't move my belief-meter one way or another.
As in, our immune systems work more or less like we’ve thought for decades?
> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.06.21253051v...
US CDC seems to suggest vaccine to those who had COVID immediately after recovery[2]. Where as news sources claim WHO suggests 6 months after recovery[3].
[1]https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2103916
[2]https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html
[3]https://theprint.in/health/i-had-covid-when-should-i-get-vac...
"Yes, you should be vaccinated regardless of whether you already had COVID-19. That’s because experts do not yet know how long you are protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19."
This is downright false. Someone should seriously sue the CDC. I don't understand how they can get away with this anti science, anti math, illogerate bullsh*t. We know far more about the long term protective effects from recovering than we do from the vaccine (1 in 1,000 long term reinfection rate so far—https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.06.21253051v...).
I would send a pull request but the CDC is not on Git. What a sorry excuse for an organization they are.
My parents got infected after ~ 30days of first dose Astrazenica, I got from them immediately. I had COVID brain fog, they didn't face much symptoms(vaccine doing it's job?). Luckily we all seem to be recovering well.
Now since we've got immunity and that evidence suggests that it should last at least 8 months we might delay the vaccine jabs as it's of extreme scarcity in the country and many vulnerable are waiting for it.
But I would wish for a immunity research with larger study group with the mutant strains supposedly capable of immune escape properties as we're facing here. Because I'm willing to take the risk based on current data, But I don't want to be wrong in suggesting that my elderly parents delay their second jab.
Awhile ago scientists were worried it was due to reinfection.
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(21)00183-5/full...
[1] https://twitter.com/WesPegden/status/1336801382955933697