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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?

#821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

In the same vein, they can also increase insurance costs for everyone

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

#822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a personal choice if you do not come in contact with anyone else as best as you can. Else, you run the risk of being infected, not knowing it, passing it onto other people who "have made a personal choice", involuntary manslaughtering them (unless you're religious, then you've biblically murdered them); or, alternatively, you run the risk of ending up in the ICU, and now somebody who did get the vaccine now…

Since vaccinated are spreading this around nearly as much as unvaccinated, the involuntary manslaughter argument is moot. Getting your own vaccine doesn't help other people not die...only you. Even high-vaccination regions are having waves of infection that dwarf previous ones. (Israel, Scotland, Hawaii) That said, allowing civil suits to punish people that gave you a virus that killed you, would be effective to keep…

Do you have a source for your claim that the vaccine doesn't help stop the spread of the virus?

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

#823

Personally I think it should be perfectly acceptable to provide a serology test that shows you had Covid in lieu of a vaccination. That is a statement about the past: "I am immune and here's proof. (either by vaccination or serology test)" What we do about the future to contain the pandemic is separate question. If you're not a immune you should get a vaccine now. That is the statement about the future: "I will get v…

Easier just to get the vaccine.

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

#824

The way I understand the science is that we can say with some certainty that… - we know vaccines work and they’re safe - we know natural immunity works - we have a good estimate on how well/long the vaccines work over time (probably 9-12 months with potential boosters) given a plethora of studies - we don’t know how long natural immunity lasts, but we can (safely) assume it’s going to be 6+ months? Maybe 12, maybe 18…

Or, hear me out, just get the vaccine.

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

#825
post #673
post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pandemic would be a blip if everyone was in shape. >CFR (case fatality ratio) in the large cohort in China was elevated for patients with comorbidities, with 10.5% of those with underlying cardiovascular disease, 7.3% of those with diabetes, 6.3% of those with chronic respiratory disease, and 5.6% of those with cancer dying of COVID-related illness. [1] That looks like a clean 17% reduction for cardiovascular di…

> >with 10.5% of those with underlying cardiovascular disease, 7.3% of those with diabetes, 6.3% of those with chronic respiratory disease, and 5.6% of those with cancer dying of COVID-related illness. [1] >That looks like a clean 17% reduction for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Sorry for not writing a complete reply but you can't add those numbers like that.

Fair enough, there is probably some overlap there.

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

#826
post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s needs to be a step further though. This wing is for COVID patients who couldn’t be vaccinated for legitimate health risks or for the vaccinated who still get COVID. Anyone who willingly skips the vaccination should not be eligible for COVID ER beds.

Wow, we sure took a hard turn from "Heath care is a human right." Scribbled below that on the barn wall is, "...as long as you do what you're told."

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

#827
post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people will die waiting unvaxxed for their antibody results than will die from vaccine side effects. Please use real numbers when you talk about vaccine side effects.

The real numbers are in the links I posted above, as well as this CDC presentation. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...

Oh, you're citing unverified data to support a claim against vaccine safety. Classic anti-vaxx move.

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

#828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are previously infected or not in a vulnerable group its not selfish or stupid to avoid this vaccine. You can manage it with monoclonal antibodies if you do get a severe outcome. Mass vaccinating the entire population for a respiratory virus that mutates so easily creates a whole host of other problems and a never ending pandemic of variants that may actually get more severe.

Most existing variants came about prior to vaccination and we can absolutely adapt vaccines to subsequent variants just like we do the flu. We absolutely can end mass deaths to covid. It's false that people without risk factors don't die of covid and monoclonal antibodies often don't work. You aren't safe if you aren't vaccinated or otherwise immune.

It's the variants that get selected that is the long term concern. Not how or from which cohort they emerge.

With leaky vaccines applied to an entire population the tendency is for more severe variants to prevail. How many times does the flu vax miss the target? Flu has is also leaky but we don't get more than 40% coverage so not likely to see more harmful strains selected. And then we whore ourselves out to big pharma hoping they stay ahead of it all.

See the devastating effects of this in the poultry industry: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-m...

And the backing study: Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens

"Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts."

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/info:doi/10.13...

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

#829
post #536

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…

The thing that makes COVID dangerous is it's contagion not so much it's direct effects.

If COVID were not highly transmissible, then the relatively low risk of death would make it spooky, but it's not likely we'd even see it on the news.

It spreads to others quickly, and many people get very sick even if they don't die, hospitals fill up and it makes it very difficult to operate a healthcare facility.

Consider the 'no policy' effect: if we did nothing in response to COVID, it would spread like a fire, and without 'flattening the curve' - which we mostly have done, it would badly degrade our ability to function. People not able to tend for the older population because they themselves are sick, hospital staff going down, people in hospitals with other ailments going down etc..

So because of that it's a community problem.

If you want to think about it from an 'individual choice' perspective, consider what it would mean if you didn't take proper precautions while doing an activity, and ended up killing someone even by accident, that's manslaughter.

Given a rational population with some reasonable, conscientious objectors, we should be at about 95% vaccination, which is plenty. There's room for the serious objectors, the problem is there's way too much arbitrary and misinformed skepticism.

So it's not like wearing a seatbelt or eating too much carbs, which is mostly a personal issue.

COVID is inherently a systematic problem.

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

#830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about drinking and smoking? Literally Whataboutism. Don’t take the irrelevant bait.

No it's not. It's saying that we tolerate huge social costs elsewhere, so why is this one too large to bear?

COVID is contagious, its a systematic problem, not an individual one.

The IFR is very very low, if it were not super contagious, it wouldn't make the evening news.

Most of COVIDS problems result from the domino effect, so the issue is as much about 'not becoming domino' as it is the effects of the disease itself.

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