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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?

#151

Post by jpxw »

ffggvv wrote: post #137
lmilcin wrote: post #136

Because it is pretty simple to account for who got the vaccine and who did not. And running entire population through antibody test just to find, in most cases, that you still need to administer the vaccine is just wasteful.

i don’t see how it’d be wasteful to know how many people have natural immunity. seems quite useful actually even if we determine they should still get vaccine

I think you severely underestimate how hard it would be to organise every single person in the country having a blood test, and then sending out invites etc based on the results of those tests.

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#152

Post by lp0_on_fire »

bigcorp-slave wrote: post #134
Pxtl wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the proposal is that the vaccine card would be a de-facto immunity card, where a test showing a high antibody count would still be logged on your card as an alternative to the vaccine. But the devil's in the details anyways. How long would that be considered good for, since we'll probably be looking at regular annual boosters? Would extremist anti-vaxxers have a perverse incentive to get infected so as to re…

I’d support an immunity card with the same audit trail for antibody test. I think most people would - general common sense suggests that natural infection should be effective. How long it lasts, I guess we’ll need to study that. Honestly the problem here is not the science. It’s the big clump of people who have turned being against the science into a part of their identity. Every time I think we have hit the bottom a…

> Every time I think we have hit the bottom as a country in terms of the power of ignorance (and evil, on the part of the GOP establishment), we keep going.

> Any comment that points out that IT IS THE REPUBLICANS WHO HAVE MURDERED 650,000 AMERICANS AND ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL AS MANY MORE AS THEY CAN gets downvoted below zero.

That's because the comments like these are political hysteria designed to get others to vote for your team...

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#154

Post by wolfgang42 »

colpabar wrote: post #72
collegeburner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, places like NYC are creating a system of getting entry to many places only if you present government authorization. Then they can start adding more conditions to that authorization. Maybe a red state later adds not being a felon or a blue state adds not being on some red flag list. After all, you can still eat, so it's okay. They represent systems for excluding certain classes of people from society.

I'm extremely interested to see whether voting locations will start requiring proof of vaccination.

I'm serving as a poll worker in SF today. There's a section in our manual (page 65, there's a PDF online somewhere) about what to do if a voter is not wearing a facial covering, the TLDR of which is to politely offer them a mask or curbside voting, and then let them vote regardless. We are a long way off from requiring vaccination.

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#155

Post by KingMachiavelli »

Why? Probably because everyone and their uncle self-diagnosed a bad cold as COVID-19 and plenty more would lie about having natural immunity.

Still I don't understand the current approach to COVID in the US. Vaccines are safe and available yet we only just approved the use in children under 12. I have heard second hand many doctors are downplaying the importance of the vaccine for people under 18.

On the other hand places with good vaccination rates are reimposing lockdowns and mask mandates. Quite a few public events are getting canceled or rescheduled.

By any metric the COVID response of lockdowns, etc. was at best breakeven in terms of cost effectiveness. Since the risk of COVID is lower now both due to the vaccine and also just our knowledge of treatment, any lockdown/mandate response will have a lower cost effectiveness.

IMO it would make a lot more sense to just keep vaccines available for everyone older than 2 including boosters every 6 months (just in case) and end all other restrictions. Sure there is a small population that would get vaccinated but genuinely can not due to a medical issue but that scenario is no different than the seasonal flu and other viruses.

It would be better to just do a vaccine/verified immunity passport like program but that is practically impossible in the US. Too many people won't like/use the governments app including both the normal conspiracy nuts but also the privacy-minded HN crowd. It also does not help that there are half a dozen passport like apps from insurance companies and various government agencies.

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#156

Post by jpxw »

stronglikedan wrote: post #133
kcb wrote: post #102

Just get the vaccine.

Or don't. It's a personal choice.

The fact that it’s a personal choice doesn’t mean that both choices are equally correct.

IMHO, unless you’re a hermit, and excluding certain other extremely rare edge cases, the only moral choice is taking it.

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#157

Post by cblconfederate »

gitonup wrote: post #144
cblconfederate wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13 times actually https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... I think this will be more relevant to vaccinating kids: If this result holds for kids as well, and considering that Covid is not dangerous for kids, maybe kids are better off getting covid

I've seen this cited several times in this thread, but I've seen no one mention that (according their own FAQ): > medRxiv (pronounced "med-archive") is a free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences. Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied o…

Indeed the final version has not been published yet, but there are no major reasons to doubt its validity. Here's an evaluation of the preprint from Johns Hopkins: https://ncrc.jhsph.edu/research/comparing-sars-cov-2-natural...

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#158

Post by Waterluvian »

lmilcin wrote: post #136

Because it is pretty simple to account for who got the vaccine and who did not. And running entire population through antibody test just to find, in most cases, that you still need to administer the vaccine is just wasteful.

Just zero the entire block of memory instead of checking the state of each bit.

If only these blocks cooperated!

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#159

Post by jstanley »

shmatt wrote: post #149
lmilcin wrote: post #136

Because it is pretty simple to account for who got the vaccine and who did not. And running entire population through antibody test just to find, in most cases, that you still need to administer the vaccine is just wasteful.

and more so, its extremely hard to track peoples blood test. Adobe Acrobat can easily change anyones name on a piece of paper with a blood test result, there wouldn't be a way to confirm this person has antibodies In Israel a high antibody blood test gives you a "vaccine passport" for 6 months. ...to get that, you sign up for the blood test using your government ID # (SSN for the US), the government gets your results…

Why is any of that easier with vaccination status than with antibody status?

Re: Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

#160

Post by spoonjim »

darthvoldemort wrote: post #21

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.

The entire administration has set vaccination percentage as their OKR; they're not going to risk that number just because of the facts.
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