Live data from Hacker News

Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

bmj.com

871–880 of 1001 posts

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

#871
I like to put numbers to things. People give up freedoms when there is a chance they or many other people die. Look at 9/11, not only did we give up multiple freedoms, but subsequently killed many Americans and other civilians in the Middle East as additional fallout.

9/11 killed: 2,977 people (only during the attack, many more likely received cancer or long-term illness and side-effects)

COVID19 has killed (in the US): 664,000 people

Even if you make the argument that 90% of COVID deaths are people who were well past their life expectancy, or obese, or had other health conditions, then that leaves 10% who were otherwise perfectly healthy people who died directly because of COVID, and that is about 66,000 people.

So, by this extremely conservative estimate, COVID has killed ~22x the amount of people 9/11 did.

With that number in mind, do I personally feel like mandating the vaccine ("government tyranny"), or putting innocent people at risk ("dozens of deaths in young women due from clotting, ~1,000 confirmed cases of myocarditis in young people") makes logical sense?

I actually think, yes, it does, 66,000 is a lot of people, it's too many, the death rate of this virus is just too high. If the virus was less transmissible, killed less people, or showed signs of quickly fading away, I would disagree, but it seems like the vaccine is actually a fairly logical tradeoff in reducing needless loss of human life.

How does this tie to the original post? The reason the vaccine is mandated, is because it simplifies public signaling and policy decisions, otherwise too many would assume "natural immunity" is okay and forego the vaccine, even if they did not themselves have COVID, leading to more needless deaths.

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

#872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So..you're not getting a vaccine because of that? That's the reason? That?

That just sounds like being against the vaccine with extra steps. Because otherwise you wouldn't let what the government was trying to get you to do to affect your decision.

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

#873
post #866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the food you eat to get fat is often much cheaper than the food to stay healthy. Produce is expensive per calorie, lean meat is expensive per calorie, cooking takes time and effort, and a gym membership is expensive. This is one of the reasons why obesity is so prevalent, it's much easier than staying healthy. It's not just 20% more of what healthy people eat.

> Produce is expensive per calorie, Thats kind of the point of eating fresh food, your filled with less calories. you eat less, your at a healthy weight. That not the stuff getting people fat. Look how many calories are in mcdonals burgers. People are getting fat becasue they're uneducated. They drink sodas, sweet teas, eat candy and excessive alcohol

The point is that it's much cheaper to fill your belly with a McDonald's burger than artisanal bread, fresh tomato, minced lean meat. Much, much cheaper. If you are aiming to eat 2000 calories per day, you will do eat much more cheaply with a pizza and a burger than with good food.

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

#874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

> genetic therapies

This is just as fallacious as saying the jab makes you magnetic.

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

#875
post #222
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…

Europe (or Germany at least) accepts natural immunity in lieu of vaccination. As far as I've heard, no one has been getting covid on purpose as a result.

In Belgium there is an organization threatening covid parties right now, because the government wants to introduce covid-safe-passports in Brussels due to the low vaccination rate [0].

[0] https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/184786/la-boum-calls-f...

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

#876
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…

Generally medical gridlock hasn’t been a problem, but this is a unique case in that ICU beds are filling up in some regions leading to _entirely preventable_ illness and death that is unrelated to covid. Once that stops happening, I will care significantly less. But if I have the risk of not having an ICU bed if I get into a car crash because people aren’t getting vaccinated, that’s an unacceptable social outcome to…

A very large component of the "anti-vaxxer" crowd are medical staff who are now quitting in large numbers thanks to the mandate. Your beds are now going to be lowered.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/13/new-york-hos...

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

#877
post #726
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…

>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.

In fact, that (caloric deficit) is the only way you lose weight.

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

#878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So my medical decisions will be made for me because its too hard to do a proper test In short, yes, this is called good public health policy. It's not merely a simple blood test and it's not something just any lab could do. Anti-body testing is finicky, expensive, time-consuming, and not as reliable as has_vaccine (boolean). So in other words, we are going to make your medical decision for you because not doing so…

In fact the specificity of an antibody test is much better correlated with "has_immunity" than a vaccine card. The situation is analogous to making someone wash their hands who has already washed their hands.

> The situation is analogous to making someone wash their hands who has already washed their hands

AKA it's super easy and simplifies things

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

#879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally medical gridlock hasn’t been a problem, but this is a unique case in that ICU beds are filling up in some regions leading to _entirely preventable_ illness and death that is unrelated to covid. Once that stops happening, I will care significantly less. But if I have the risk of not having an ICU bed if I get into a car crash because people aren’t getting vaccinated, that’s an unacceptable social outcome to…

A very large component of the "anti-vaxxer" crowd are medical staff who are now quitting in large numbers thanks to the mandate. Your beds are now going to be lowered . https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/13/new-york-hos...

That sucks, but at least it's happening now and not with a disease that's even worse.

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

#880

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…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN