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Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

bmj.com

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

#661

Post by peteradio »

orwin wrote: post #391
thedrbrian wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get them for free in the uk https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid...

Yeah, me too, not my point. Imagine half the uk population wanted to get tested before getting the vaccine, the cost for the NIH would be way higher than just vaccinating everybody. You can't tell people `if the antibody test is positive, you don't have to get vaccinated`, at least not until the vast majority is already vaccinated. And even then, it's mostly lost money. You could have told people "pay for your own te…

you put the orwin in orwellian

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

#662

Post by neuro_image2 »

opnitro wrote: post #638
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? What we know : We know that vaccines are of great value for high risk populations. We know that vaccines are contraindicated for a number of patients and have some pretty severe side effects for those with allergies. We know that the vaccines…

You provide 3 sources, yet don't cite a source for the claim that ~10k have died from the vaccine. Could we have a citation for that one?

He can't, because it's garbage.

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

#663

Post by CryptoPunk »

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…

>>Should those people just be allowed to assume the risk? Not while the costs are predominantly social.

Then eliminate socialized healthcare. Your imposition of socialized healthcare is now being used to rationalize imposition of forced injections. Government can have a healthcare system that is entirely opt-in, for both taxation, and coverage.

Or how about just deprioritize unvaccinated individuals with COVID when there is a shortage of ICU beds.

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

#664

Post by ekidd »

mythrwy wrote: post #618
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…

It's not only not a terrible policy position, natural immunity will turn out in the end to be the ONLY effective thing which gets us to to herd immunity. At this point I don't understand why this isn't obvious. You make a targeted vaccine, in this case it will be evaded. We see it right now. That will continue. Natural immunity will cast a wider net and be proven much more effective.

> natural immunity will turn out in the end to be the ONLY effective thing which gets us to to herd immunity.

There are many illnesses for which humanity never reached natural herd immunity. Smallpox was consistently deadly for millennia, for example. Malaria's still going strong. HIV is kept in check by treatments, not immunity.

The COVID delta strain has an R of at least 5. Using naive models, this would mean that we'd need at least 80% immunity. But even if we achieved 100% vaccination, it's not clear that current vaccines (or natural infection) can provide 80% immunity over the longer term.

So realistically, I suspect that COVID will simply become one of the risks of life. I fully expect that I will catch it multiple times in the decades to come. But I get an annual flu shot, and I'm willing to get an annual COVID booster if necessary.

And there's no guarantee that this will all blow over soon. The worst case historical coronavirus appears to have jumped to humans around 20,000 years ago, and it looks like it exerted heavy selective pressure over many generations. See https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/science/ancient-coronavir....

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

#665

Post by TulliusCicero »

ixacto wrote: post #536
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…

To reply as the devils advocate to this comment, what is the tolerance to social costs that society is willing to bear? Also why would one segment of society have to do something that it doesn't want e.g. not bear risk if they want to? Should we tell people to get their BMI under 25 too? Overweight and obesity are going to cost much more in increased healthcare costs than COVID will in the coming decades (pls prove m…

> Should we tell people to get their BMI under 25 too?

Overweight people can't transmit their overweightness to me through a virus or bacterium that they breathe into the air.

If they could, then yeah, we'd probably have some kind of legal mandate on it. Just like we have a bunch of restrictions on smoking now, because indeed, that's something that you push into the air.

The general rule is that your rights stop where others begin. Most issues of health are purely personal, but infectious diseases are not. Because they're infectious.

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

#666

Post by cdolan »

walterbell wrote: post #516
m-p-3 wrote: post #506

My mother-in-law works in Healthcare as N auxiliary nurse and caught COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. She was officially recorded as positive by the govt (through a periodic PCR test at work, and received a quarantine order). She received one dose since. But even though they're saying an infection is protecting as much as one vaccine dose, they aren't acknowledging it in the vaccine passport as "adequately…

EU recognizes natural immunity for travel to/in EU and national health pass checks.

Where is this information able to be confirmed?

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

#667

Post by mthoms »

mioasndo wrote: post #64
Someone1234 wrote: post #52

The 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…

> 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…

>vaccine efficacy is much lower than natural immunity

Citation? The linked article quotes medical experts who say the opposite.

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

#668

Post by jonnycomputer »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #622
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…

> 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? What we know : We know that vaccines are of great value for high risk populations. We know that vaccines are contraindicated for a number of patients and have some pretty severe side effects for those with allergies. We know that the vaccines…

>We also know that the Covid vaccines are not immunizing, and a large amount of virus can be passed on from vaccinated, to the unvaccinated.

I'm flagging this as dubious. Everything I've seen points to smaller viral load and shorter durations for breakthroughs.

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

#669

Post by hammock »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #665
ixacto wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reply as the devils advocate to this comment, what is the tolerance to social costs that society is willing to bear? Also why would one segment of society have to do something that it doesn't want e.g. not bear risk if they want to? Should we tell people to get their BMI under 25 too? Overweight and obesity are going to cost much more in increased healthcare costs than COVID will in the coming decades (pls prove m…

> Should we tell people to get their BMI under 25 too? Overweight people can't transmit their overweightness to me through a virus or bacterium that they breathe into the air. If they could, then yeah, we'd probably have some kind of legal mandate on it. Just like we have a bunch of restrictions on smoking now, because indeed, that's something that you push into the air. The general rule is that your rights stop wher…

>Overweight people can't transmit their overweightness to me through a virus or bacterium that they breathe into the air.

They can fill up hospital beds though, that might not be available for you when you need one!

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

#670

Post by jonnycomputer »

mythrwy wrote: post #618
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…

It's not only not a terrible policy position, natural immunity will turn out in the end to be the ONLY effective thing which gets us to to herd immunity. At this point I don't understand why this isn't obvious. You make a targeted vaccine, in this case it will be evaded. We see it right now. That will continue. Natural immunity will cast a wider net and be proven much more effective.

- The vaccine hasn't been evaded. The efficacy has been slightly reduced.

- Not all vaccines need be quite so targeted.

- Naturally acquired immunity can also be evaded.

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