Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US? • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by nanis » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

clipradiowallet wrote: post #124

Natural immunity isn't subsidized by taxpayers, and does not enrich any party through sales of a vaccine... on those grounds, of course they are encouraged to receive the vaccine.

Also, forcing on person A something person B makes which is paid by entity C with absolutely no liability on B & C and the authority does make for good lead into a post public "service" career.

Then, you submit to constant tracking. All of a sudden things one could never have imagined just a couple of years ago become subject to whether a some unaccountable authority gives you permission.

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

#182

Post by nobody9999 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #132

nobody9999 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Pretty sure you numbers are not factoring in children under the age they legally allowed to get the vaccine, because those numbers are way high if you exclude the ineligible "All Persons" is not a valid statistic >As such, we know much more about how well vaccinations protect people than we do about how well the immune systems of those who have recovered from COVID will protect from reinfection We actually do not, gi…

>Pretty sure you numbers are not factoring in children under the age they legally allowed to get the vaccine, because those numbers are way high if you exclude the ineligible

A fair point. There were approximately 45,000,000 children under the age of 12 in the US in 2019[0].

I'd guess that's probably still relatively accurate.

Removing those children from my calculation, there are still almost twice as many people unvaccinated as are estimated to have contracted the virus.

>We actually do not, given that the effects of the vaccine seems to diminish with time, we currently have no idea how much or for how long. We do not have long term data. This is why there is sooooo much confusion on if you need a booster and when, because the efficacy at 6mo, 1 year, 18mo etc is a big unknown right now

Another good point. I'd point out that while ongoing immunity is a big (and unanswered) question, bringing R0[1] down in high infection areas right now can significantly reduce the impact on our health care systems and economy.

What the situation will look like in 12-18 months is important, but given the high transmissibility and case rates in some areas of the US, increasing the ability of folks to avoid serious health consequences right now is, arguably, even more so.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/457786/number-of-childre...

[1] https://www.mastersindatascience.org/resources/r0-infectious...

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

#183

Post by soperj » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #155

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 p…

>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.

There is a difference. Covid is 10 times more lethal than the average flu. It's not always that they can't either, it's also that their body won't develop enough antibodies.

Main reason for lockdown is so that your hospitals can keep functioning, or in the case of New Zealand, so that you can go back to complete normal life except for travel outside the country.

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

#184

Post by vinay427 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #101

extheat wrote: post #43

Given the political discussions about “booster shots”, I find this quote pretty interesting: > Other studies suggest that a two dose regimen may be counterproductive. One found that in people with past infections, the first dose boosted T cells and antibodies but that the second dose seemed to indicate an “exhaustion,” and in some cases even a deletion, of T cells.34 “I’m not here to say that it’s harmful,” says Bert…

That sounds more like an argument for the Canadian model where we went several months between shots (on the assumption that a high percentage of the populace partially-protected was more useful than a small percentage fully protected). I'm assuming semiannual or quarterly shots will be where we land until Covid is no longer a major threat.

To be fair, that model wouldn't be as ideal with the greater proportion of the US population unwilling to get vaccinated, as well as the higher vaccine availability in the US. It seems like Canada would make a better case given the lower vaccine skepticism and vaccine supply.

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

#185

Post by klebe » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

jakemoshenko wrote: post #166

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #155

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 p…

Slight correction: vaccines are still not available to children under 12.

yeah small note to add here: the last pediatric vaccine (garadasil / HPV) went through a decade of clinical trials before approval

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

#186

Post by throwaway287391 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

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.

I got vaxxed as soon as I reasonably could and I never want to get COVID, but if that's true it really does seem insulting to require vaccination for people who can prove they already had COVID. It's like they did get vaccinated but picked a much more difficult/risky and much more effective way to do so -- if that were their intention (and they avoided spreading it once they got it), one could say it was a heroic choice...

At the same time though, I can imagine it would be really difficult/expensive to verify the proof of previous infection vs. verifying vaccination, and there could be the appearance of incentivizing anti-vaxxers to go infect themselves with COVID.

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

#187

Post by glogla » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #79

poorjohnmacafee wrote: post #10

> 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…

I work for "big pharma" - we were one of the companies that tried to make COVID vaccine. We failed - it worked but was not as good as Pfizer and others (though if those didn't work out, ours would still be worth it).

Nobody is disappointed that we didn't succeed. It would be great PR - "company X is saving the world" but it would not make us all that much money, considering how much world governments are paying for COVID vaccines.

I find the claims of big pharma manipulating to selling more vaccines dubious.

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

#188

Post by angelzen » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

ttul wrote: post #169

ttul wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not the case. Children should be vaccinated. The Israeli study was useful in establishing that infection results in immunity. That’s it. It does not establish that infection is lower risk than vaccination. Children are at low risk from COVIS

Pushed reply too soon. Children are at low risk, but not no risk. To the extent that kids are running around with infections, they’re transmitting virus to others and providing a reservoir for mutation. That is not productive. Let’s get the kids vaccinated. It’s the cheapest way out of this thing.

> providing a reservoir for mutation.

That is FUD and you should be ashamed of yourself. I have listened to scared people trying to blame people that are not vaccinated for the fact that vaccines are not that effective at preventing infection and that mild breakthrough infections are common. Most of it done with rather troubling political undertones. Such is life in US 2021. I don't like it, but I'll not engage directly. Hopefully the FUD will pass.

But obviously the largest percentage of unvaccinated people are children, which do not NEED the vaccine, at least according to the data we have so far. I will not tolerate scapegoating of kids. Please get a grip.

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

#189

Post by jowday » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

The answer is pretty simple - the moment authorities start saying "well, natural immunity is probably just as good as vaccination, we'll accept that as equal to vaccination for passport purposes", a huge segment of the population who's on the fence about getting the vaccine might just opt to wait until they're infected naturally, or, even worse, get infected purposefully (EG, chicken pox parties). Which leads to more deaths and outbreaks.

In a perfect world, everyone would understand that getting the vaccine is the appropriate choice of action and we could accept natural immunity from people who were infected before vaccines were available - but unfortunately we're forced into playing these weird games where authorities have to try to incentivize people who aren't behaving rationally - which in turn leads to further distrust from people on the fence.

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

#190

Post by bitcurious » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

advisedwang wrote: post #103

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.

I mean for someone with natural immunity to get the vaccine is not going to reduce their immunity, and might boost it (or might not). So with fairly little downside, it makes sense to vaccinate them surely?

The downside is that if you already have a strong immune response you will have a much harsher reaction to the vaccine, basically four days out of commission. A reaction that’s rather comparable to breakthrough COVID.