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Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

sciencemag.org

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Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#111

Post by CodeWriter23 »

zzleeper wrote: post #69
h2odragon wrote: post #62

Why is "natural infections and recovery produce a better immune response than a vaccine" so controversial? Has it been this controversial for any other disease?

I think it's because people draw the wrong conclusions. Sure, if your body was stuck fighting COVID19 for two weeks and you then survived (i.e. excluding those pesky 700k Americans who didn't make it), then you are better prepared than if your body was stuck "fighting" COVID19 vaccine for half a day (of sleepiness or at most mild fever). The PROBLEM is that people then say "oh well then to protect myself better again…

> The PROBLEM is that people then say "oh well then to protect myself better against COVID19 what I should do is get infected

Both approaches carry risk, yet your statement presents as if the risk of vaccination is 0. And also excludes the idea that opting not to be vaccinated is a legitimate choice for the millions and millions of “cases” that have already been infected.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#112

Post by CyanLite2 »

jlmorton wrote: post #92
ProjectBarks wrote: post #85

This feels like an irresponsible title on behalf of the author. People don’t get the vaccine strictly on the strength of the vaccine. It’s considering the risk of getting COVID, understanding the long term side effects, and minimizing risk for those around you. It’s also about avoiding mutations of the virus as the higher availability of the virus only provides more opportunities for it to mutate into something more…

What is the harm? "I'm very worried about getting Covid, but I'm also worried about the vaccine, so I'll get Covid to protect me against Covid?" This is an important public health topic to model how the pandemic proceeds as more and more are naturally infected.

Some folks are looking for any excuse to not get the vaccine.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#113

Post by yodsanklai »

ProjectBarks wrote: post #85

This feels like an irresponsible title on behalf of the author. People don’t get the vaccine strictly on the strength of the vaccine. It’s considering the risk of getting COVID, understanding the long term side effects, and minimizing risk for those around you. It’s also about avoiding mutations of the virus as the higher availability of the virus only provides more opportunities for it to mutate into something more…

> This feels like an irresponsible title on behalf of the author

The title describes the content of the article. I think people should be treated as adults (esp. on HN). We should be able to discuss Covid-19 science and data without always fearing misinterpretation from anti-vaxxers.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#114

Post by londons_explore »

h2odragon wrote: post #62

Why is "natural infections and recovery produce a better immune response than a vaccine" so controversial? Has it been this controversial for any other disease?

There are some diseases it is not true for. Mostly ones that attack parts of the immune system (eg. Measles). Probably wouldn't be true for HIV either.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#115

Post by siilats »

What the study says is out of 20k people that had the vaccine or previous infection only 200 got reinfected and nobody died. Yes in the 200 there were more vaccinated but imaging how many people died from the first round of infections. How the people who were sick are much more cautious and wear masks than vaccinated. None of this is adjusted for (ie they don’t ask a sample of the groups a question how often do you wear mask, all they needed to do was ask from 300 people from both groups and you could adjust for risky behaviors and I bet the effect would be much smaller). In any case both vaccine and previous infection provides plenty of protection.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#116

Post by Buttons840 »

jlmorton wrote: post #92
ProjectBarks wrote: post #85

This feels like an irresponsible title on behalf of the author. People don’t get the vaccine strictly on the strength of the vaccine. It’s considering the risk of getting COVID, understanding the long term side effects, and minimizing risk for those around you. It’s also about avoiding mutations of the virus as the higher availability of the virus only provides more opportunities for it to mutate into something more…

What is the harm? "I'm very worried about getting Covid, but I'm also worried about the vaccine, so I'll get Covid to protect me against Covid?" This is an important public health topic to model how the pandemic proceeds as more and more are naturally infected.

The heart of the issue, and the one we seem most unable to talk about productively is "I'm worried about the vaccine".

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#117

Post by aww_dang »

sleavey wrote: post #78
AndrewBissell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the realistic marginal increase in protection from the vaccine for someone who has recovered and is in a very low risk age/comorbidities cohort? Is reducing their absolute risk of a really bad Covid outcome by 0.00001% really worth the risks attendant in the vaccine? Also, at least one study has hinted that the second dose may reduce humoral immunity.

Meta-reply: at time of writing your comment is grey enough to be on -2, yet nothing you say is trolling or unhelpful. In fact, your comment contains merely two questions and a supposition. I've seen this on HN particularly for COVID related topics and I don't think it's at all helpful. I reckon very few on here are outright anti-vaxxers in the traditional sense of the term (e.g. given to those implying a link between…

"Damn the downvotes, full speed ahead"

I appreciate posters who are willing to go ahead in these scenarios instead of self-censoring. When these individuals give up on this site, what will we be left with?

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#118

Post by nradov »

CyanLite4 wrote: post #41

The Lancet just published a study yesterday on natural infection still causing symptoms one year later (“long Covid”) for 49% of unvaccinated people. I’ll stick to the vaccine.

I assume you're referring to this study.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

They studied hospitalized patients, who by definition had severe symptoms. We would expect more severe symptoms to take longer to resolve. I don't know the exact numbers in China but in the US 95% of cases were never hospitalized.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

The study also counted anxiety and depression as "long COVID" symptoms which doesn't make much sense; they haven't proposed a biological mechanism of action for SARS-CoV-2 to directly cause such psychiatric symptoms.

I would still encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can because the data shows it cuts the risk of death to virtually zero.

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#119

Post by polote »

CyanLite2 wrote: post #112
jlmorton wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the harm? "I'm very worried about getting Covid, but I'm also worried about the vaccine, so I'll get Covid to protect me against Covid?" This is an important public health topic to model how the pandemic proceeds as more and more are naturally infected.

Some folks are looking for any excuse to not get the vaccine.

And so what ? We should lie so that they take it ?

Re: Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine

#120

Post by VBprogrammer »

nanis wrote: post #49
kiba wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wearing a mask is a mild annoyance. With vaccine, you might suffer side effects, but even that is short term. It's basically no-brainer, since getting infected with the virus is more likely to kill you than getting the vaccine. The only reason people are not getting the vaccine is for various reasons they don't trust that the vaccine is going to help them. Everything else is justification.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-58330796

2.5 billion people have had at least one vaccine.
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