Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 1001 posts

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

#561

Post by switch007 »

gorwell wrote: post #451
SigmundA wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The point is that they STILL haven't considered natural immunity. Why not? That is a bizarre oversight, especially at this point.

He’s a gaslighter.

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

#562

Post by glial »

Tycho wrote: post #485
oplav wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how the rate compares to 2019?

Without looking extensively, it seems that it's usually between 1000 and 1500 per 100k per annum , so between 20 to 30 per week as a direct comparison. This seems steady over recent history. This compared to a rate for the vaccinated that went from 20 to 100 over spring and summer. The only thing that springs to mind is that maybe the treatment of with-covid/from-covid deaths became less significant through the year…

I took a look at the data, and it looks like deaths after 1 dose go up by ~3x vs unvaccinated, while deaths after 2 doses go down ~3x vs unvaccinated. Am I reading that right? Any idea why that might be?

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

#563

Post by kelnos »

peteradio wrote: post #524
ryandrake wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP's statement recognizes that incentives matter. If you remove the incentive to do the right thing, people will simply not do the right thing--If 2020 has taught us anything it has to be that! You can't just rely on everyone being a rational actor and let Nash Equilibrium keep society functioning. It becomes a gigantic Prisoners Dilemma with everyone choosing DEFECT. You complain that "not recognizing natural immuni…

You fail to recognize that 30% plus genuinely did have covid. Why focus on a handful of potential bad actors when largely you should give the benefit of the doubt.

We shouldn't give the benefit of the doubt. We should define what an acceptable post-infection antibody level is, have people get blood tests, and issue something similar to the CDC vaccination card that attests that the bearer has natural immunity. Those should be accepted as equivalent to a CDC vax card where one is needed.

I do agree that doing this would likely further slow down vaccination rates, even among unvaccinated people who have not yet gotten COVID. Many will just accept the risk of getting the virus, and then some will end up in the hospital, and some will die.

So while I'm uncomfortable with the lack of acceptance around post-infection immunity when appropriate, I do think it's understandable.

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

#564

Post by michaelmrose »

throwawayfear wrote: post #411
jowday wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree with you that vaccine passports definitely represent a sacrifice of individual liberty for safety - but what makes you say that that they're "completely unnecessary"? If we accept that a vaccinated person has a lowered, but not eliminated, chance of contracting and transmitting COVID, wouldn't it make sense to avoid contact with people that are at a much higher risk of infection? If you feel that the tradeo…

They would reduce transmission of the virus in the same way that locking everyone in temperature-controlled air-corrected 24/7-monitored government housing pods would reduce the transmission. Maybe those pods are better, because they could ship us food and let us out for exercise at times determined by an efficiency algorithm! The question is, is the cost worth it? There's no need for a "sacrifice of individual liber…

It's not an accidentally two tiered society it's an entirely conscious effort to exclude those who won't protect their fellows and it's unlikely to be limited to the present crisis. When this crisis is gone someday there will be another and we will want to be prepared to handle it better than we have this one.

Incidentally boys have an outsized share of the risk of complications but still less than the risk of covid. The correct thing to do is take the minimum effort to protect yourself and others and stop complaining.

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

#565

Post by ryan93 »

nostrademons wrote: post #544
soperj wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they did, and they are now. Society didn't crumble because of extreme monetary policy measures.

Arguably society is in the process of crumbling now. Jan 6th was part of that, as were the BLM protests, the anti-vax protests, the contentious school-board meetings, the constant tug-of-war between Federal/state/local/individual authorities, high inflation, supply shortages, people refusing to go back to work, etc.

Jan 6th affected like .001 percent of the population

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

#566

Post by kixiQu »

nostrademons wrote: post #552
kristjansson wrote: post #525

Because it's a terrible policy prescription. If natural immunity is acceptable, what proportion of the unvaccinated-uninfected population will just take the risk? Half? More? Millions of people will just (continue to) take the risk, get sick, go to hospital, and die (in decreasing proportions), incurring substantial personal and social costs along the way. Accepting only vaccination as evidence of protection reduces…

So? If lots of people independently choose to take the risk and they're not harming anyone else, why shouldn't they be allowed to? The impact on the hospital system could be blunted simply by saying "This wing is for COVID patients, when it fills up further COVID patients will be turned away" and leaving the other wings for normal hospital patients. They have to do this for quarantine reasons anyway. Now that COVID i…

Okay, now factor in that breakthrough infections are more common in the elderly, can still kill (though rarely), and are more likely to happen the more COVID is circulating in the community, which is then a function of the vaccination rate. My vaccinated grandmother is being put at risk by unvaccinated folks in her town. There's no "independent" risk.

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

#567

Post by [deleted] »

isolli wrote: post #252
jowday wrote: 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.

[deleted]

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

#568

Post by MarkLowenstein »

rajin444 wrote: post #8

It'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…

You are correct. This is the largest overreach I have ever seen: if you work for any company we can control by sniffing around government agencies to find a regulation we can leverage, we will make sure you can't even have a job unless you take a particular vaccine. When you overreach in this way, you would at least want to carve out every reasonable exception you could, to not unnecessarily hurt lives, right? For instance

- If you have a positive antibody test, you're exempt. - If you work from home, you're exempt. etc.

But they don't. I won't make your conclusions for you, but they are obvious.

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

#569

Post by mattnewton »

nostrademons wrote: post #552
kristjansson wrote: post #525

Because it's a terrible policy prescription. If natural immunity is acceptable, what proportion of the unvaccinated-uninfected population will just take the risk? Half? More? Millions of people will just (continue to) take the risk, get sick, go to hospital, and die (in decreasing proportions), incurring substantial personal and social costs along the way. Accepting only vaccination as evidence of protection reduces…

So? If lots of people independently choose to take the risk and they're not harming anyone else, why shouldn't they be allowed to? The impact on the hospital system could be blunted simply by saying "This wing is for COVID patients, when it fills up further COVID patients will be turned away" and leaving the other wings for normal hospital patients. They have to do this for quarantine reasons anyway. Now that COVID i…

> If lots of people independently choose to take the risk and they're not harming anyone else, why shouldn't they be allowed to?

There just isn't a way to ensure the "not harming anyone else" with a highly transmissible virus like this, even if we were to somehow convince hospitals to assume the legal and ethical risks of denying treatment to COVID patients when they have room to preserve hospital capacity, and even if that solution didn't expose healthcare workers to unnecessary risks, you would still be exposing other populations to risk who cannot get the vaccine or for whom the vaccine wasn't effective.

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

#570

Post by VintageCool »

elihu wrote: post #545
bedhead wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. We have been so unbelievably myopic with COVID it truly hurts my head. Even today, ask someone who's COVID-obsessed, "What exactly is your longer-term plan here?" and watch as their mind breaks down. Too many people have completely stopped thinking about what they're trying to achieve and how they're going to do it. Half the country is just stuck, focused on short-term and no attention paid to anything else and…

Long term plan in my mind was to get enough people vaccinated that community spread stops being a thing. We were almost there in late spring prior to delta variant showing up, but now the situation has changed and the percentage of the population that has to be immune to stop the virus has gotten a lot higher. So now the long term plan is for the holdouts to either change their minds and get vaccinated (and many of t…

I think the current wave is going to drift Northwards as the weather turns colder and people spend more time socializing inside.
Post reply on HN