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Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
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Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> COVID-19 Antibody Tests cost more than the vaccine (roughly $40 Vs. $16/dose). That's not a valid reason at all. > We lack the quantity of Antibody Tests we'd need. We also lacked vaccine quantity, and many people still do. > We'd need to set up additional systems and processes to accommodate the testing and proof (which, again, is a cost). Meh, that's a very weak reason considering it's a small incremental cost to…
Your argument has holes. - If the vaccine is safe. - If the vaccine is cheaper (directly and logistically). - If tracking the vaccine is easier. Why add the natural immunity workflow? It doesn't make sense. You've just added a bunch of complexity for no stated payoff. Again, this entire argument hinges on the first question being answered "no" or "maybe not." You yourself admit that that is your actual reason: > Furt…
> If the vaccine is safe.
Something you don't know. If you want a sincere discussion you might want to at least admit the obvious.
> If the vaccine is cheaper (directly and logically).
First of all you don't know if it's cheaper. Second, people are free to pay for anything they want regardless of how cheap it is. I'm sure the vast majority of vaccine-sceptical people would readily pay for their own tests.
> If tracking the vaccine is easier.
Why do you keep with the 'if, if , if'? I did not make any assertions or assumptions that intersect with your ifs whatsoever. All of your 'ifs' are completely irrelevant, and I'm guessing by the fact that you start explaining every supposed hole with an 'if', that you understand that you can't even verify the validity of these supposed holes you found.
> Why add the natural immunity workflow? It doesn't make sense.
Because natural immunity is more effective and some people do not want to get the vaccine?
> You've just added a bunch of complexity for no stated payoff. Again, this entire argument hinges on the first question being answered "no" or "maybe not."
I've stated multiple payoffs multiple times already:
- We do not know the long-term side effects of mrna vaccines.
- MRNA vaccine efficacy is lower than natural immunity, and all data points to MRNA vaccines wearing off significantly after 6 months.
- Some people may not want to get the vaccine for other reasons, the actual reasons are completely irrelevant - in a free society people get to choose what biologically active substances they inject into their own bodies.
> You yourself admit that that is your actual reason:
So looks like you did notice one of the reasons I gave you? Interesting that you quoted it, yet completely ignored the substance and failed to challenge or respond to the actual point.
> If the vaccine does literally nothing for natural immune people,
Stop with the 'ifs'. If you don't know the validity of your own point, don't make the point.
> for the other stated benefits (logical, tracking, and cost).
These other stated benefits coming directly from your imagination right? Or are these the 'if' kind of benefits?
'IF the vaccines are a perfect solution, we should forcibly vaccinate everyone.' - cool story bud
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#83The answers aren't medical, they're pragmatic. - COVID-19 Antibody Tests cost more than the vaccine (roughly $40 Vs. $16/dose). - We lack the quantity of Antibody Tests we'd need. - We'd need to set up additional systems and processes to accommodate the testing and proof (which, again, is a cost). The implicit assumption that often go along with these natural immunity proponents is that the vaccine is unsafe. Since i…
This is precisely correct, especially wrt the cost/benefit. The antibody tests won't tell you when you were infected, with which variant, or how much viral dose, on top of their imperfect accuracy. And if you're going to bother going to a hospital to get your blood drawn, why not just... get the shot and remove all doubt?
Does the calculus change in the countries where vaccines are basically nonexistant? Yes, of course. But vaccines in the US are as nearly easy to get as Gatorade now, and have been for several months. We spent many billions making it that way - we don't need to turn around and start spending even more money on pox party incentives.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#84In US culture this seems like it would potentially set up some perverse incentives among anti-vaxxers, leading to things like the "measles parties" that fueled the the 2019 NYC measles outbreak: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200527181329.h...
We are well past that. It's not that hard to say: 1) If you have natural immunity already, great! Provide evidence of your positive test 2) If you don't have evidence that you've been SARS-COV-19 positive, go get a shot so you don't have a severe hospitalization. 3) No, we don't suggest getting infected on purpose over the shot. Go read #2 Instead, the US federal government is being purposefully ignorant of how effec…
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Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#85This article also has long form responses. I'd love to see a reasoned contrary response.
The contrary argument is reasonably well-stated within the article, it seems to be mostly a matter of what you assess to be the greatest risks going forward as to which argument you think is more valid. After glancing at the endnotes, it seems that the bulk of the scientific references examining natural immunity date from before the delta variant established itself.
And many of them were concerned about prioritization during the rollout, when vaccine doses were scarce.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#86It's very concerning that the president is saying things like "your refusal has cost all of us" and "our patience is wearing this" when talking to people with natural immunity who have not received the vaccine. As president, he should be looking for every reason to not alienate his own citizens. It seems like he's doing the opposite. I'm not really sure why. My best guess is politics has become all about polarization…
>As president, he should be looking for every reason to not alienate his own citizens. Through the pandemic, there have been ~40,000,000 COVID cases[0] in the US, and ~120,000,000 people are completely unvaccinated[1]. As such, there are more (perhaps much more) than twice as many folks who have not had COVID who are unvaccinated than there are those who have had COVID. Given that huge disparity, it's not surprising…
Those are COVID cases not population level estimates. Try 40 million x (pick a number between 2 and 5).
I won't be bullied into getting an unnecessary procedure just because the burden of proof has not been met (re: spotty studies).
> Your statement seems to be along the lines of "Biden won't give me a pony! He's alienating me!"
That seems uncalled for.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#87I'm in favor of vaccine mandates but if there was a better way of quantifying immunity I'd be all in favor of letting people with natural immunity get a waiver. As everything with COVID, the lack of hard data and the poor communication of federal and state agencies has enabled politicians, con men and sectarians to exploit the confusion to their benefit.
There is, actually, antibody test. They are quite costly however. Im my country, getting infected count as the 1rst dose (yes, i know, natural immunity is better with "real" infections, but rememeber that Covid sometime start an auto-immune disease, it's hard to test for this, so its less costly to just vaccinate people (the jab cost 12E)). No scientific response. This is mostly pragmatic, and probably politic too. I…
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#88It's a waste of resources to figure out whether someone has natural immunity (its quite hard to do logistically). Much easier to just give them the vaccine, then your bases are covered. These are public health decisions -- they don't occur in a vacuum with unlimited resources.
So my medical decisions will be made for me because its too hard to do a proper test? How much fucking money has been spent due to this pandemic, amazing vaccine development, government backstops all over the place, but somehow a routine blood draw and test is seen as too absurd an idea?
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#89> US CDC estimates that SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 100 million Americans That's probably why it doesn't count? Would clearly cut into the profit lines of big pharma. If you're extra skeptical, you could also argue Western governments are finding opportunities to accustom their citizens to more top down government intrusions into their lives, e.g. shifting towards a citizen management model that's used today by…
Do we actually believe that "big pharma" (in the form of 3 companies that make US approved vaccines) have greater influence than all of the collective industries that would benefit from a looser mandate (so long as the public trusted it)? Pharma is more influential than the entire service sector , plus most manufacturing, and anything else that functionally requires people to be in the same room? If you believe they…
So you're just going to pretend that the entire media and political establishment (at least in US) as well as many industries (ex. big tech) are not strongly supportive of big pharma when it comes to the vaccines?
Are you going to pretend people are not being actively censored, banned, cancelled, fired for being vaccine-sceptical?
Do you not believe that the extensively-documented mass manipulation of public opinion is a thing?
If this is the fantasy land you want to base your reasoning in, then I accept that we have different starting points but your reasoning is compelling under your starting point.
Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?
#90> US CDC estimates that SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 100 million Americans That's probably why it doesn't count? Would clearly cut into the profit lines of big pharma. If you're extra skeptical, you could also argue Western governments are finding opportunities to accustom their citizens to more top down government intrusions into their lives, e.g. shifting towards a citizen management model that's used today by…
Do we actually believe that "big pharma" (in the form of 3 companies that make US approved vaccines) have greater influence than all of the collective industries that would benefit from a looser mandate (so long as the public trusted it)? Pharma is more influential than the entire service sector , plus most manufacturing, and anything else that functionally requires people to be in the same room? If you believe they…
Regulatory capture is understood and happens in other industries (e.g. the MIC). Feel is pretty naive if you don't think politicians are willing to incur massive opportunity costs to society at large in order to enrich themselves and the establishment that they essentially work for.