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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?

#431

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…

> I have heard second hand many doctors are downplaying the importance of the vaccine for people under 18.

Maybe because there's concerns.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v...

> "for boys 16-17 without medical comorbidities, the rate of CAE is currently 2.1 to 3.5 times higher than their 120-day Covid-19 hospitalization risk, and 1.5 to 2.5 times higher at times of high weekly Covid-19 hospitalization,"

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

#432

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…

I am 28. A programmer with a sedentary lifestyle. I was covid positive last October and kicked it fine (verified with a test). I was tested 2 weeks ago for antibodies, my results were a “76” (I assume percentage?). Why should I get vaccinated?

People get sick with COVID multiple times, and natural immunity is more hit-or-miss with regards to protection against variants. Reinfections are also frequently nastier than the first infection. It also costs absolutely nothing and at worst will act as an additional safety that makes you feel uncomfortable for a few days.

So why not get vaccinated?

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

#434

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…

I am 28. A programmer with a sedentary lifestyle. I was covid positive last October and kicked it fine (verified with a test). I was tested 2 weeks ago for antibodies, my results were a “76” (I assume percentage?). Why should I get vaccinated?

To turn your question on its head.

It is a free vaccine that could save your life, has been safely administered to billions of people and greatly reduces the odds of you getting infected, transmitting to others or ending up in hospital.

What is the downside? or are you just apathetic to getting it.

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

#435
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To provide additional protection (especially since given that timing it almost certainly wasn't the delta variant that you got). Maybe you are protected by your previous infection and maybe you aren't.

What's the connection to Delta here? They haven't updated the vaccines.

The vaccines focus on the spike protein, which is present and consistent between variants.

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

#436
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 412 people age 17 or younger in the US have died from covid. How many avoided death because they had good health care? One of my pet peeves about this pandemic is how death metrics keep being pushed around, as if it was not a big deal. If this pandemic had hit before we had modern health care facilities, it would have been comparable to the great pandemics in history. Besides, what happened to the children tha…

> How many avoided death because they had good health care? If you are going play that game, you also need to ask how many died between March - June 2020 because of panicked doctors intubating everyone left and right with no one around to advocate for the patients.

> you also need to ask how many died between March - June 2020 because of panicked doctors intubating everyone left and right with no one around to advocate for the patients.

Not sure what this is implying, or what kind of advocacy would have made a better call. Doctors intubated people (despite a shortage of ventilators and the difficulty of triage) because the patients were struggling to breathe, and given available data the medical profession though it would help those patients recover. They've since learned more about the outcomes from this particular disease and when a ventilator is appropriate. Your comment makes it sound as though any idiot off the street could tell who should be on a ventilator and who should not.

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

#437

DR. GUPTA: "I get calls all the time, people say, 'I've already had COVID, I'm protected.' And now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone. Should they also get the vaccine?" DR. FAUCI: "I don't have a really firm answer for you on that." https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1436417459314171904

I think the full response better convey's his position: "You know, that's a really good point, Sanjay. I don't have a really firm answer for you on that. That's something that we're going to have to discuss regarding the durability of the response. The one thing that paper from Israel didn't tell you is whether or not as high as the protection is with natural infection, what's the durability compared to the durabilit…

Yeah but it's more fun to ruffle people's feathers with a soundbite, apparently.

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

#438
post #252
post #189

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…

While not wrong in itself, your comment epitomizes everything that has been wrong with our public health response. Trying to manipulate populations into a desired behavior by lying to them is, as you point out, counterproductive in the long run.

It's not lying to them. It's saying "regardless of if it is medically effective, we as a society will not accept it."

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

#439
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have heard second hand many doctors are downplaying the importance of the vaccine for people under 18 The vaccine is not important for people under 18. Only 412 people age 17 or younger in the US have died from covid. [0] Teenage boys are six times more likely to suffer from heart problems from the vaccine than be hospitalised from Covid-19. [1] [0] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex... […

This is comparing myocarditis to hospitalizations. Where is the comparison between myocarditis induced by vaccination vs natural infection? [0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v... “Myocarditis (or pericarditis or myopericarditis) from primary COVID19 infection occurred at a rate as high as 450 per million in young males. Young males infected with the virus are up 6 times more likely to dev…

This is out of date and incorrect. The latest data shows that the risk of myocarditis in children after two doses vastly exceeds the risk of myocarditis posed by the virus:

https://twitter.com/ID_ethics/status/1437876328640876544

Better breakdowns by age and gender show a risk of myocarditis after two doses as high as 1 in 3000:

https://twitter.com/VPrasadMDMPH/status/1437067899089219589

This number has been steadily increasing, as time passes. Current consensus seems to be that one dose is the optimal tradeoff between risk and reward for young children.

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

#440
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do some people simply photoshop their names onto the cards and show them on their phones ? Is it really such a dumb system?

You probably don't even need to photoshop your name on the card. In most scenarios you could take a small and slightly blurry photo of anyone's card, bring it up on your phone to show someone, and they'll shrug and accept it as evidence that you're vaccinated.

They usually ask for your ID to match the info on the card

I asked and they may have a city agent scanning cards — then you simply stand in line behind someone and see whether or not they are scanning it versus just visually inspecting. If the latter — you are good to go

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