Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
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Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#2Rather than a contentious article about how vaccines are harmful, it’s about how immunity differs between actual infection and vaccination, and whether with background immunity if a booster or catching covid is better. Worth a read.
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#3What an utterly redundant point.
If you catch and do not die from the virus then yay for you I suppose, but you'll still spread it around while you have it, you still might die from the virus, and there is literally no downside to having a better immune response when you inevitably do catch COVID-19 as we're all going to eventually.
Like everything else, the goal of every single public health measure at the moment is to avoid having a huge portion of the population all need hospital services at the same time though.
This article is asking a stupid question, and the answer is predictably stupid.
EDIT: Pile on anti-vaxxer downvotes, the speed with which you're dumping these in makes it apparent you're not reading the article.
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#4> There is a whole different suite of antibodies (known as immunoglobulin As) in the nose and lungs, compared with those (immunoglobulin Gs) that we measure in the blood.
The former is more important as a barrier to infection. Natural infection, because it is in the nose rather than a jab in the arm, may be a better route to those antibodies, and nasal vaccines are being investigated too.
Thread on intramuscular (arm injection) vs intranasal (inhaled) vaccines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28165287
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#5One thing left out of the article is whether we should be vaccinating people to discourage spread simply to keep the risk of a much worse variant from randomly occurring low.
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#6What an utterly redundant point. If you catch and do not die from the virus then yay for you I suppose, but you'll still spread it around while you have it, you still might die from the virus, and there is literally no downside to having a better immune response when you inevitably do catch COVID-19 as we're all going to eventually. Like everything else, the goal of every single public health measure at the moment is…
The question asked by the article is sensible. The uncertainty explored is whether, having had an initial vaccination, future natural infection would produce a better defence against variants than booster shots that target the spike protein alone.
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#7One thing left out of the article is whether we should be vaccinating people to discourage spread simply to keep the risk of a much worse variant from randomly occurring low.
There is a risk of creating variants by mass vaccination. If everyone has a uniform defense generated by a vaccine, this creates selection pressures for a variant that is able to maneuver around the vaccine induced immunity.
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#8One thing left out of the article is whether we should be vaccinating people to discourage spread simply to keep the risk of a much worse variant from randomly occurring low.
They sort of mention that in the breadth section. The idea is that natural immunity may target more than just the spike proteins the vaccine focuses on so may actually target more variants. One can imagine a scenario where continued (not initial) vaccination actually contributes to a longer spread with weaker immunity so more chance for variants to develop. Not saying this is 100% the case, but interesting article I’d like to see more data on.
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#9One thing left out of the article is whether we should be vaccinating people to discourage spread simply to keep the risk of a much worse variant from randomly occurring low.
Cross-reference it to https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/leaky-vac...
I suspect we have the deadlier variants not despite, but because we are vaccinating and the vaccination is not effective in preventing spread.
Re: Is catching Covid now better than more vaccine?
#10What an utterly redundant point. If you catch and do not die from the virus then yay for you I suppose, but you'll still spread it around while you have it, you still might die from the virus, and there is literally no downside to having a better immune response when you inevitably do catch COVID-19 as we're all going to eventually. Like everything else, the goal of every single public health measure at the moment is…
The question asked by the article is sensible. The uncertainty explored is whether, having had an initial vaccination, future natural infection would produce a better defence against variants than booster shots that target the spike protein alone.
Which is irrelevant: the booster vaccines are to provide sustained protection against the variants we have now and reduce the risk of serious complications.
There is no situation in which it is a good idea to be infected with a virus rather then vaccinated against it, and comments on provided immunity from infection are irrelevant: you either become immune to what infected you or it kills you.