Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

sciencemag.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 371 posts

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#321

Post by CodeWriter23 »

SamBam wrote: post #226
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The PROBLEM is that people then say "oh well then to protect myself better against COVID19 what I should do is get infected Both approaches carry risk, yet your statement presents as if the risk of vaccination is 0. And also excludes the idea that opting not to be vaccinated is a legitimate choice for the millions and millions of “cases” that have already been infected.

The risks of the vaccine have been shown to be a minuscule fraction of the risks of being infected with covid.

If one has acquired immunity then the risk of taking the vaccine is entirely unnecessary.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#322

Post by sjg007 »

acituan wrote: post #234
sjg007 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Minnesota 645k people had covid and 7k died. In contrast 3M are vaccinated and basically nobody has died from the vaccine. In the US 363M vaccine doses have been given and about 7k may have died from vaccination side effects vs 628k who have died from covid from covid. So the vaccine is safe and effective.

No one in this forum says otherwise. But you miss human emotions 101: If someone tells you they are worried about something, you don’t throw facts at them as the first thing. You ask them to tell more about their emotions , hear them and make them feel heard. They might as well be missing factual data (as the case with vaccine hesitating folks) but their emotions are real, and unless they are treated as a person they…

You are more likely to get hurt or die in car accident on the way to get your vaccine then from the vaccine itself. After that car accident when you are in the hospital recovering you will probably get covid there.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#323

Post by throwaway743 »

throwaway743 wrote: post #27

Is there any information on how both or either current means of gaining some level of immunity measure up to lesser known "newer" variants such as b.1.621 (Colombian variant), lambda, iota, eta, etc?

It was a legit question. Not sure why I'm being downvoted.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#324

Post by actually_a_dog »

sleavey wrote: post #319
actually_a_dog wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to believe it would be immoral to lie to people to get them to take the vaccine. I don't believe anti-vaxxers want to die from COVID. Is it not also immoral to allow people who don't wish to die to die needlessly? It would seem to be a "lesser of two evils" sort of situation, and, in that case, the harm of lying is probably less than the harm of allowing people to die senselessly.

I don't want to be lied to in any form by my government. I believe they can always govern by telling the truth, and if they did so they would find themselves commanding more respect from the people. I suggest, if you are unfamiliar with his work, that you read up on Kant's categorical imperative, in particular his absolute prohibition against lying. He argues that lying, even noble lying, is bad because it dehumanise…

> I don't want to be lied to in any form by my government.

Completely understandable, and, I agree.

> I believe they can always govern by telling the truth, and if they did so they would find themselves commanding more respect from the people.

Regarding "can always govern by telling the truth," that's demonstrably untrue. For instance, there is such a thing as classified information for a reason (that reason ostensibly being national security). Yes, this does get abused at times, but that's not an argument that the government should not classify any information. Given your reference to Kant, I don't necessarily expect you to find this persuasive, but, I wager many reasonable people would.

> ...Kant's categorical imperative....

I am actually familiar, but I reject the logic of it. It's... well... too categorical. I can't accept a principle that forbids me to take an action that may save a life. For example, I would be prohibited from hiding someone in my home who's being pursued by people who want to kill them, if the pursuers asked me directly where that person was.

> If we stop treating each other as humans with rights, needs and desires, we will find ourselves in a very bad place - history has shown us that.

I agree with this, but I reject the idea that not following the categorical imperative at all times necessarily deprives anyone of any right.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#325

Post by angelzen »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #310
angelzen wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a possibility. The open scenario is: take the vaccine, don't get a breakthrough case (vaccines work as intended and quickly suppress it), but do get a vaccine-resistant infection later on. If there is more information on the long-term behavior of the immune system conditioned on vaccines and/or natural immunity and/or mutations, please share. My understanding is that nobody has a complete understanding a…

> Everybody is making educated guesses in the dark, We are absolutely not . Are there many things we don't know about the function of the immune system? Sure. Are we "in the dark"? This couldn't be more incorrect, and again, borders on deeply misleading misinformation. Frankly, this smells a lot like the kind of climate change denial we used to hear. i.e., because there was uncertainty, we therefore can trust nothing…

Did we know ahead of time if mRNA vaccine immunity is stronger / weaker than post covid-infection natural immunity? For each strain?

Did we know ahead of time when/where Delta will arise? Did we know ahead of time its infectiousness / virulence parameters?

Do we know when / where the next strain will arise? Do we know if it will be more/less infectious than Delta? Do we know if it will be more/less virulent than Delta? How about per age group?

Do we know whether vaccines protect against potential future vaccine resistant strains? Admittedly an oxymoron, but such is the ridiculousness of this conversation.

What we do know is that the virus is likely to mutate to avoid the narrow spectrum mRNA vaccines. We don't know when / where / how.

That's what I call educated guesses in the dark.

PS. Please do us a favor and keep your ad-hominems for yourself. It may feel good in the moment, but it doesn't strengthen your arguments.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#326

Post by angelzen »

nybble41 wrote: post #312
angelzen wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wild. 'you don't have a right to participate in the public'. Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Article 13.1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma…

Don't forget: Article 29. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. ... In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, publi…

Got it. There are no human rights. Thanks for spelling it out for the rest of us.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#327

Post by sjg007 »

angelzen wrote: post #303
CarelessExpert wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a. Take the vaccine and be naked when the vaccine resistant variant eventually emerges. First, this is deeply deeply misleading, to the point of being misinformation. The idea that a version of COVID will pop out that renders the current vaccines completely useless is founded in nothing but alarmist speculation. Could it happen? Maybe. But we have a virus now that's known to be dangerous, for which we have a vaccin…

This is also a possibility. The open scenario is: take the vaccine, don't get a breakthrough case (vaccines work as intended and quickly suppress it), but do get a vaccine-resistant infection later on. If there is more information on the long-term behavior of the immune system conditioned on vaccines and/or natural immunity and/or mutations, please share. My understanding is that nobody has a complete understanding a…

Umm. Presumably you've had the chickenpox vaccine, the TDAP vaccine, and a bunch of others as a kid as a condition to go to school. These have been well studied for decades.

> but do get a vaccine-resistant infection later on.

This is a redherring.

This would be the equivalent to have never encountered covid and getting infected by that variant then. So you know maybe a new kid born in the next few months or something.

It'd also be equivalent to someone getting chemo that wipes out their immune system and now gets covid after they recover.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#328

Post by sjg007 »

angelzen wrote: post #325
CarelessExpert wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everybody is making educated guesses in the dark, We are absolutely not . Are there many things we don't know about the function of the immune system? Sure. Are we "in the dark"? This couldn't be more incorrect, and again, borders on deeply misleading misinformation. Frankly, this smells a lot like the kind of climate change denial we used to hear. i.e., because there was uncertainty, we therefore can trust nothing…

Did we know ahead of time if mRNA vaccine immunity is stronger / weaker than post covid-infection natural immunity? For each strain? Did we know ahead of time when/where Delta will arise? Did we know ahead of time its infectiousness / virulence parameters? Do we know when / where the next strain will arise? Do we know if it will be more/less infectious than Delta? Do we know if it will be more/less virulent than Delt…

The virus will mutate no matter what regardless of vaccine. It's not the vaccines that are driving mutations. The vaccine basically programs a set of immune system regex stream filters. Maybe some mutants get past it, well then the immune system will generates another response to it as it goes on to infect other cells in the body etc...

Some of the original variants are thought to have arisen out of immuno-compromised pre-vaccinated patients. Maybe they got IVIg, monoclonal antibodies, or convalescent plasma.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#329

Post by sleavey »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #324
sleavey wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be lied to in any form by my government. I believe they can always govern by telling the truth, and if they did so they would find themselves commanding more respect from the people. I suggest, if you are unfamiliar with his work, that you read up on Kant's categorical imperative, in particular his absolute prohibition against lying. He argues that lying, even noble lying, is bad because it dehumanise…

> I don't want to be lied to in any form by my government. Completely understandable, and, I agree. > I believe they can always govern by telling the truth, and if they did so they would find themselves commanding more respect from the people. Regarding "can always govern by telling the truth," that's demonstrably untrue. For instance, there is such a thing as classified information for a reason (that reason ostensib…

The Murderer at the Door hypothetical is commonly mentioned in response to Kant, but I don't think this serves as reason to reject the overall thesis. Kant also said that there is no right for someone to obtain information from another against their will. You don't need to tell someone who comes to your house looking for someone they plan to harm that they are there. You simply tell them they have no right to know who is in your house, and that they should bugger off! In the context of the current discussion, the government doesn't have the moral duty to reply to requests for classified information, they simply say they cannot provide classified information. If the public are unsatisfied with that answer, they need to vote them out.

Now I understand that, stretched to extremes, Kant's theory gets rather tricky to defend, such as a hypothetical situation of a Nazi coming to your house to ask if you are harbouring Jews he plans to kill. But Kant and others since have argued ways to deal with such situations too, though I must admit I haven't studied their arguments in detail and wouldn't do them justice to try to paraphrase. But I don't think we're really dealing with such a high stakes situation in the context of this discussion, so I think "lower order" arguments in favour of Kant (like mine) suffice. This is something I expect you'll disagree with given your response.

Coming back to the original context of governments lying to people to get them to have vaccines: I think it's possible to do huge damage to public trust in government and science if lies are told for the (always subjective) "greater good", even if the immediate outcome is positive. Governments should understand Kant.

P.S. thanks for your level headed response, it's refreshing and rare to see in threads that discuss COVID.

P.P.S. sometimes it needs to be said explicitly: I am open to changing my views on this if I hear a convincing argument.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#330

Post by AndrewBissell »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #320
nanis wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of the person who's been OK since the beginning, those numbers don't really matter. What matters is that they are fine now, they've been fine for a while, and now they are being coerced into taking an action which they don't think will benefit them and might hurt them worse than whatever their experience has been. Do not expect resistance to coercion to melt away when you dial up coercion. Add to…

Nobody's being coerced to do anything. They have the completely free choice to take the shot, or not. Either way, they must accept the consequences of their choice. This is not coercion; nobody's holding any guns to anyone's heads or holding people down and forcing the shot on them. What's being dialed up is the severity of consequences of not taking the shot.

Let's say that an American municipality instituted a rule that people who profess Muslim beliefs are to be excluded from gathering in public establishments. No one would be physically forced to abandon their faith, and they would have the completely free choice to remain Islamic and accept the consequences.

Would you not perceive any coercion here?

Post reply on HN