We Saw This Coming... Increased Risk of New Variant Infection in the Vaccinated Only Preprint of a study shows increased risk of infection in the vaccinated. We Tried To Warn You.
Zephir - I am a bit surprised by your comment here.
I have been saying (above) that obviously the more mutations in the spike, the less well will vaccines protect. That is why whereas protection against infection from original COVID is very high, it is lower for alpha, and much lower for delta.
Now, I am not some wonder-thinker, creative and ahead of the curve. All the mainstream scientists expect this. They do not know how much a variant with more mutations will have a greater risk of infection, which is why at the momnet everyone is silent (though pessimistic) about omicron. We just do not have the info.
You are maybe thinking this means preprint that vaccinated population has a higher risk of infection than unavccinated? It is not what the preprint says.
We find evidence for an increased risk of infection by the Beta (B.1.351), Gamma (P.1), or Delta (B.1.617.2) variants compared to the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant after vaccination. No clear differences were found between vaccines. However, the effect was larger in the first 14-59 days after complete vaccination compared to 60 days and longer. In contrast to vaccine-induced immunity, no increased risk for reinfection with Beta, Gamma or Delta variants relative to Alpha variant was found in individuals with infection-induced immunity.
It does not say that vaccinated individuals have more risk of delta infection than unvaccinated. Far from it. Rather it says that the protection against original COVID infection from the vaccine is higher than against delta infection. Which everyone has been telling you for a long time.
It is interesting (and not surprising) that COVID disease induced immunity is less variant specific than vaccine immunity. You know this is expected, not because vaccines reduce immune response, but because they make a highly specific immune response. There is no evidence from any data so far that being vaccinated reduces the bodies ability to make a broader immune response after (subsequent) infection. This is an idee fixe in the minds of antivaxxers without evidence.
The 1st gen vaccines are not a final solution to COVID. They would have to be very very good for that to be true. They are better than we expected, but not good enough to deal with delta in one go - even if we could vaccinate the entire world which we cannot (or perhaps politically will not).
The linked preprint says it clearly (but the discussion in it is suppressed by the antivaxxer link):
We found no association between previous infection and a new infection with Beta, Gamma or Delta
versus Alpha, suggesting that there is a no difference in immunity between Alpha and Beta, Gamma
or Delta after previous infection, in contrast to vaccine-induced immunity. It is not yet clear whether
previous infection or vaccination induces better protection against infection. However, primary
infection comes with a risk of hospitalization or death, especially in older persons or individuals with
underlying conditions. Even if infection-induced immunity protects better against reinfection with
novel variants, vaccination is preferred over infection to protect individuals against severe disease as
the cumulative risk from two infections should be taken into account.