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

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

#831

Post by ketralnis » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

carom wrote: post #654

glangdale wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from DUI risk and passive smoking, most of these risks are specific to the person. I can't catch obesity from being in the same room as a obese person, and while public health costs go up from drinkers/smokers/heavy people, I haven't heard of ambulances being gridlocked outside a hospital due to a spike of lifestyle diseases.

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…

Okay, but they aren't and it's not

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

#832

Post by logicchains » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

shard wrote: post #745

jonny_eh wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid is contagious, obesity is not.

I would instead say COVID is physically contagious, while obesity is psychologically and socially contagious.

No it doesn't. Israel and Singapore both have over 80% eligible vaxed, and the proportion of infectees who are vaxed is similar to the proportion of vaxed in the general population, suggesting vaxed are no less likely to get it. Moreover infection rates are greater after mass vaccination than before.

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

#833

Post by logicchains » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #703

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…

You are assuming that getting vaccinated is a burden, and then comparing it to challenges that many people take years, or longer, to overcome. That makes absolutely no sense. Getting vaccinated takes just a few minutes, and has no long term consequences for virtually everyone, and does not require ongoing effort of any kind. In no way is getting vaccinated comparable to struggling with obesity, quitting cigarettes, o…

It does have consequences in some, e.g. teenagers are more likely to be hospitalised for a side effect of the vax than they are to be hospitalised for covid: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v...

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

#834

Post by logicchains » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:56 AM UTC

jumpkick wrote: post #749

spaginal wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven’t studied these genetic therapies long term to know if what you assert is the case. We already know there are health issues associated now with the mrna shots. We could see a rash of issues show up in the next couple of years.

“We already know there are health issues associated now with the mrna shots.” What issues? This is the first I’m hearing of this. Details and sources please.

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

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

#835

Post by wincy » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:56 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #741

fuzxi wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One takes a couple minutes and the other is something requiring an hour or more of dedicated time per day for potentially years (or a whole lifetime! Nope. You don't have to dedicate time to exercising to lose weight, you can just eat less.

You could even have mandates. Exclude them from eating at restaurants or fast food places and ensure they don't purchase too much or unhealthy food. Not only would it be for Their Own Good™ , but if it saved just one innocent life due to reducing the load on the healthcare system, it would have been worth it. /s of course - I'm not a lunatic.

For sure, and the government knows that meat is bad for you, and also sugar, and fat. You’re allowed to eat bland protein paste citizen, enjoy!

I lost 80 pounds eating mostly hot dogs and kimchi. I doubt the government would prescribe that though.

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

#836

Post by Barrin92 » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #714

MSM wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Should we tell people to get their BMI under 25 too? >What about drinking and smoking? There's a lot of investment in trying to fix these problems already, or at least offset the costs. For example, there are "sin taxes" for things like cigarettes and alcohol, which means smokers and drinkers are paying disproportionately more taxes than those that don't. You could argue that overweight folks are also paying disprop…

Covid is contagious, obesity is not.

Yes it is, it just spreads memetically rather than a virally.

"the researchers found that obesity spreads through social ties. When an individual gains weight, it dramatically increases the chances that their friends, siblings, and spouses will likewise gain weight. The closer two people are in a social network, the stronger the effect."

Children in families with obese parents are more likely to be obese, which ought to be obvious because they live on the same diets and same behavioural patterns. Overweight friends tend to have other overweight friends, and are naturally more tolerant of it. Pay close attention to social circles and try to figure out what the tolerance towards obesity is within groups of say, thin girls compared overweight ones and how that modulates their behavior.

This is not limited to obesity of course, drug use, smoking in particular behaviour that is addictive essentially spreads through social circles like a disease. Try to model the opioid epidemic (the word is chosen for a reason) like one and you would surely find the exact same patterns. These are not geographically or demographically random processes, they're transmitted within communities.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/07/obesity-is-co...

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

#837

Post by manwe150 » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

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…

I feel like the entire comment thread after yours has gotten lost in hypothetical discussions about some ethical question about interventions that haven’t been shown to work. Not quite the usual dialog I expected here.

What the CDC recently said is that vaccination also reduces your chance of reinfection significantly, at near zero risk. So universal vaccination is a strictly dominant strategy for personal health, with or without any other interventions (diet, exercise, etc). Why wouldn’t a non-political organization recommend universal vaccination therefore (above age 12)? It makes for simple, cheap, and effective messaging.

If they said not to take a care of your health in some other equally proven way, then it would likely seem to be politically motivated and damage their trustworthiness. That probably has happened too (such as saying to mask outside, until they got more data), but we aren’t blindly trusting them in this, or anything.

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

#838

Post by soupbowl » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

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…

Most obese parents have obese children.

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

#839

Post by rpmisms » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

mike00632 wrote: post #816

rpmisms wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against the vaccine, but I already had Covid, have been exposed and tested negative since having it, and haven't gotten the shot. I'm also a little bit of an adversarial person, and this move by Biden has made me seriously lean away from ever getting the jab. I'm probably one of the more well-to-do people he's trying to target here, and if my first instinct is "Fuck you", this doesn't bode well for getting an…

You sound like you're against the vaccine. What's wrong with just getting the vaccine (even if you had COVID)?

I will not be compelled into treatment by the Government. Simple as that. I control my body, and I don't give a damn whose patience is wearing thin.

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

#840

Post by shaklee3 » Wed, Sep 15, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #836

jonny_eh wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid is contagious, obesity is not.

Yes it is, it just spreads memetically rather than a virally. "the researchers found that obesity spreads through social ties. When an individual gains weight, it dramatically increases the chances that their friends, siblings, and spouses will likewise gain weight. The closer two people are in a social network, the stronger the effect." Children in families with obese parents are more likely to be obese, which ought…

That's an extremely poor comparison on something that spreads from years of social ties to one second from a cough.