A recent study from Israel said that natural immunity is an order of magnitude better than vaccine-induced immunity against delta variant. I don't know who to believe, but if that's the case, then the narrative of "well they should get vaccinated anyway" is really freaking suspicious. We need deeper research on this, and the fact that they haven't researched this is truly scary.
Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
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Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#22OP keeps posting articles pushing the idea that COVID-19 infection alone is sufficient to protect individuals.
The current data suggests that's true, which is why it counts in other countries, and the US stance is seen as anomalous.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#23It seems much harder to quantify the level of immunity conferred by natural infection. It depends entirely on an individual immune system detects and combats a particular infection. Anecdotally, I know someone who has been infected twice. Refuses to get vaccinated now because "why bother? I have great immunity now." With no sense of irony, given that he's already been infected twice...
>Anecdotally, I know someone who has been infected twice
How does he know he was infected twice?
Saying that a PCR test returned positive values two times isn't a great answer - since by its nature PCR is only counting the existence (above the programmed threshold post amplification).
Serology is the only way to know for certain you were/are infected.
This highlights one of the bigger issues we have: PCR test are a very cheap and a useful way for getting estimates but their failure rate is high enough to make it pretty poor basis for doing large scale data analysis.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#24The argument seems fine to me. Let people with natural immunity have the same privileges as vaccinated people assuming they have a piece of paper from a federal entity to prove it. The only argument I can think of against it is: Certain vaccine skeptic people might be incentivized to catch the virus on purpose.
To what extent has the efficacy of natural immunity been characterized? There should be some minimum bar of understanding that must be met before something becomes a policy even in extreme cases such as these.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it "harder"? I assume you mean harder to quantify than vaccination immunity and I don't believe that's the case, but I'm curious why you believe that is the case. edit: surprising downvotes so I probably didn't communicate my point well. I can't imagine a reason why natural immunity would be harder to quantify than vaccine induced immunity. It would seem to me the methodology to quantify both would be very sim…
Nobody knows what dose was delivered to the “natural immunity” group, how many times, or when.
there are very similar issues with the vaccine - the same dosage of the vaccine will not behave the same in everyone
but this is a good point I hadn't considered, thanks
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#26OP keeps posting articles pushing the idea that COVID-19 infection alone is sufficient to protect individuals.
Can you be more specific, who does it protect? That doesn't seem to apply to this article.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#27OP keeps posting articles pushing the idea that COVID-19 infection alone is sufficient to protect individuals.
Natural immunity is durable and long-lasting, perhaps moreso than the mRNA vaccines. What's the issue?
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#28The argument seems fine to me. Let people with natural immunity have the same privileges as vaccinated people assuming they have a piece of paper from a federal entity to prove it. The only argument I can think of against it is: Certain vaccine skeptic people might be incentivized to catch the virus on purpose.
Even if you've already had covid, the vaccine is still a safe and effective way to even further reduce your odds of transmitting it in the future
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#29It seems much harder to quantify the level of immunity conferred by natural infection. It depends entirely on an individual immune system detects and combats a particular infection. Anecdotally, I know someone who has been infected twice. Refuses to get vaccinated now because "why bother? I have great immunity now." With no sense of irony, given that he's already been infected twice...
>It depends entirely on an individual immune system detects and combats a particular infection. Pardon my ignorance, but does this mean by contrast that vaccines are designed to induce a uniform response across immune systems? EDIT: A reply (deleted before I could respond) mentioned that immune systems will combat the infection by some "pattern" of it's own design, but a vaccine will encourage the immune system to re…
> Pardon my ignorance, but does this mean by contrast that vaccines are designed to induce a uniform response across immune systems?
Also not an expert and curious, would that not be a (the?) design goal of any vaccine?
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#30OP keeps posting articles pushing the idea that COVID-19 infection alone is sufficient to protect individuals.
Edit: goddamnit, I see this is being downvoted despite being 100% correct. Yes, infections generate strong immunity. Here is a study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
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It is pretty useful though. Studies have found it compares well with vaccines or better.
However like vaccines it also fades. And prior immunity + infection is way better than prior immunity, so being infected no reason not to get vaccinated.