Live data from Hacker News

Why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US?

bmj.com

931–940 of 1001 posts

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

#931
post #252
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?

#932
post #922

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WXYZ-TV posted the following question on facebook a few days ago and received 155k responses. "After the vaccines were available to everyone, did you lose an unvaccinated loved one to COVID-19? " https://www.facebook.com/80221381134/posts/10158207967261135... The responses are not what you would expect. Certainly not what the media narrative is.

Cannot access to the comments without an account. Regardless of what it is said, why should we trust those unverifiable comments, full of anecdotes instead of peer-review scientifics works?

Is there anywhere you could actually access any data that you can completely trust? I too have a relative who regrets taking a vaccine, as she's been having suspicious long term symptoms until now - she took the vaccine in Spring. Nothing in the 43k Pfizer study would indicate that such symptoms could appear, and maybe it is a coincidence that those symptoms started appearing after the vaccine. And of course it is anecdotal, but still it makes me vary at least about the Pfizer study. Symptoms seem to be related to blood flow issues in the legs, and getting this tingling sensation. Since it has happened to a relative I trust and who's otherwise pro vax, I'm slightly inclined to also believe other anecdotal stories, but obviously I can't use that as an evidence.

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

#933
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…

> 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?

It has been debated to death and one of the thing we can't negotiate with is time so at some points some actions have to been taken, some things conceded. We can keep on debating the benefits of smoking and individual freedom but we as a society (our institutions) have decided that smoking or not wearing shoes inside restaurants is not allowed.

At some points our society decided that it wants everyone (let's put aside the special immunodeficient, babies, etc. cases) to be vaccinated.

Now why should I be obliged to risk my health by going to restaurants, social events or work where I am taking the risk to get covid because other people are fine with the risk (or are not fine but refuse to get the vaccines on the ground that it's not a health matter but a compliance to law matter for them. I know one) ? It's like smoking, don't blow it in my direction. Vaccines/pass/etc. are a necessity for the vast majority to enjoy life as it was, to get some freedom back.

People willing to participate in society without following the rules that society put in place to participate safely should not be allowed to join in without restrictions. It's my opinion, not a logical conclusion to any reasoning about our laws and how we behave as as specie/culture.

It's fine if they don't get the vaccines but it's not fine to put others at risk.

We can debate the fairness aspect of this decision or the framework in which freedom and liberties are defined and understood but at some points reality force us to take a stance.

There'll never be a perfect solution that reconcile everyone's visions of freedom.

With all that being said I strongly believe that keeping on debating publicly these aspects of the situation 24/7 is harming our recovery or transition to a better situation. These `debates` are just maintaining the illusion that options are still on the table, that we have the luxury to debate them, that somehow the longer we beat the same old dead horse maybe covid problems will magically disappear, that debating and coming to the same set of possible conclusions is somehow useful.

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

#934
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd lean towards "probably not safe"; we only just found that teenage boys are at 6x more risk from heart problems from the vaccine than any risk from covid itself: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/09/teenage-boys-ris... https://archive.is/ixG5G

> Researchers found that the risk of heart complications for boys aged 12-15 following the vaccine was 162.2 per million, which was the highest out of all the groups they looked at. > Meanwhile, the risk of a healthy boy needing hospital treatment owing to Covid-19 in the next 120 days is 26.7 per million. This means the risk they face from heart complications is 6.1 times higher than that of hospitalisation. It woul…

> The only case of vaccine-associated "heart problems" that I've seen required an NSAID with no further treatment.

Do we want to see it? I've just found out about the this boy, who died in April:

https://twitter.com/rgvrunner01

How did I find out about it? It's trending on Twitter because the father was on Alex Jones.

I've looked at the VAERS reports of 16-year-old males that died in 2021. There are four cases (one suicide), none match this one. While it's likely that the boy died due to a pre-existing condition, his case should still show up on VAERS (even suicides are included).

The takeaway is that if you hear about something like this, it's not mainstream media. Nobody wants to "harm" the vaccination campaign. Unfortunately, suppressing such cases further erodes trust in media/authorities, which has the opposite of the intended effect. Also, VAERS data appears to be incomplete, rendering risk estimates unreliable.

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

#935
post #881
post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not lying. If you have had COVID, you should still get the shot. The science is not close on this, the vaccine provides additional immunity in addition to what you get from catching COVID.

The science is actually far from settled on this. There is no randomized controlled trial of vaccinating the previously infected. And while this pre-print [0] establishes that natural immunity is far stronger than vaccine-only immunity, the result is not conclusive for natural immunity + vaccine: “Individuals who were previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 seem to gain additional protection from a subsequent single-dose…

If you are talking about significance, you are taking that quote completely out of context. There's a reason we give people two doses, but this study only looked at one dose and still found an effect. It didn't reach the technical level of "significance," but that does not mean it is not there. If your saying it supports me, that's not enough evidence. Here's a different study that looked at both doses and found you were twice as likely to be reinfected if you didn't get the vaccine. [0]

So, what did we learn? The science seems confident that getting the full regimen of the vaccine is a good idea because it lowers you chance of getting reinfected and the likelihood of side effects are extremely small.

[0]

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

#936
post #893

Comment section here proving once again that high IQ nerds are, when it comes to the stuff that actually matters, overtly authoritarian. You might be all for giving children hormone blockers and championing the right to vote without ID, but it turns out the liberalism was just a LARP all along. I am fortunate to be in a position where my livelihood is not being threatened, and I will never get an unnecessary medical…

That's fine, just stay away from our towns and businesses where you can endanger people who care about each other. Your livelihood may not be threatened, mine isn't either - but you're probably threatening someone else's.

Youre in a thread talking about people with natural immunity who do not wish to get vaccinated. How is someone with natural immunity endangering you?

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

#937

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... That's not entirely accurate. Human behavior is effectively viral (per any of the Jonah Berger books among others). What we see becomes the norm, a behavioral norm. Smoking has decreased because it has become "less fashionable." And so on. So while you might not catch obes…

Even though a large percentage of us adults are obese I don't consider it normalized since it'd a target of ridicule, there's a massive industry around losing weight, and I'm assuming if you ask most fat people if they want to be thin they would say yes. For fitness I do want to be fair and point out general health and muscle building are parts of that health industry

What you're missing is...how did they get there? It wasn't overnight.

When you can be 20 to 30 lbs overweight...look around the room...and think "oh, I've nothing to worry about, I'm not as bad as most ppl here..." that has influence. When everyone sitting around your dinner table (i.e., family) is unhealthy...that has influence.

Yes, consciously they'd answer as you said. Of course. However, we're wired different subconsciously, and those signals and nudges are far more influential than most ppl realize.

And again I'll default to Jonah Berger. He's the scientist. I'm only the messenger.

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

#938
post #252
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.

I couldn't agree more. I get that it's tempting short-term, but lies aren't free and the interest on that debt is extremely expensive. If you're a public authority, the price of lies is an inevitable corrosion of your abilty to govern even if you're successful in the short term. Everything about our public health response has been fairly short-termist without any kind of consideration for the enormous long-term collateral damage that has been done to public institutions and people's faith in them.

History will particularly condemn the lying and the abuse of behavioural psychology I think, even if people think it's justified now because of the pandemic. May the record for future generations be be accurate, because that's the bleak legacy our leaders deserve.

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

#939
post #550

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…

> This isn't lying, it's results-driven communication. Also known by another name, alternative facts.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN