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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?

#241
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and more so, its extremely hard to track peoples blood test. Adobe Acrobat can easily change anyones name on a piece of paper with a blood test result, there wouldn't be a way to confirm this person has antibodies In Israel a high antibody blood test gives you a "vaccine passport" for 6 months. ...to get that, you sign up for the blood test using your government ID # (SSN for the US), the government gets your results…

Why is any of that easier with vaccination status than with antibody status?

It's not the book-keeping that's the issue, it's the physical determination of status.

For antibody status, you have to do an antibody test, which is strictly more complex/expensive than a COVID vaccine (it took 3 days when I got it done), so it's not viable at population scale.

It's similar to the reason that monoclonal antibody therapy is not a scalable treatment for COVID infection - better to minimize the chance of needing such treatment by just getting vaccinated.

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

#242
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why death is the only thing we're trying to avoid. Currently, children's ICUs in Oklahoma are full in part due to the number of Covid patients. I'd rather my child not end up in the hospital, much less be turned away from one in a time of need.

Then you should be concerned about the considerable risk they will end up there due to heart inflammation (in the case of male children). Edit: I'm not going to respond to every comment below that points out that it's extremely rare, other than to ask that you compare that chance to the chance of hospitalization due to covid, which according to the link above is less likely.

Source for “considerable risk” needed.

It’s still considered extremely rare post vaccination.

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

#243

Why? Probably because everyone and their uncle self-diagnosed a bad cold as COVID-19 and plenty more would lie about having natural immunity. Still I don't understand the current approach to COVID in the US. Vaccines are safe and available yet we only just approved the use in children under 12. I have heard second hand many doctors are downplaying the importance of the vaccine for people under 18. On the other hand p…

I've got a child under 12, and while everyone in my household over 12 is vaccinated, I'm not sure if the vaccine has any point for him. If you look at CDC stats, today there are only 412 reported covid19 deaths in the 0-17 age group, 138 in the 0-4 group, meaning 274 in the 4-17 group out of 670,000. Furthermore, kids rarely need treatment, so most infections go undiagnosed. While I have no objection to a vaccine, an…

My partner is a nurse, and something I think that gets lots a lot in discussing these stats is that many times 'surviving' doesn't mean 'back to normal like nothing happened".

Her stories of it radically complicating totally unrelated illnesses and the potential severe long term effects are more than enough reason to take precautions seriously despite what group or demographic you might be in.

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

#244
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight correction: vaccines are still not available to children under 12.

yeah small note to add here: the last pediatric vaccine (garadasil / HPV) went through a decade of clinical trials before approval

Think about this for a second. If you give 100,000 pre-teens an HPV vaccine, how long do you have to wait to discover if they are more or less likely to contract genital warts? Now compare that to how long you would have to wait to see if they contract COVID. This is not a valid comparison.

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

#245
post #198

Why? Probably because everyone and their uncle self-diagnosed a bad cold as COVID-19 and plenty more would lie about having natural immunity. Still I don't understand the current approach to COVID in the US. Vaccines are safe and available yet we only just approved the use in children under 12. I have heard second hand many doctors are downplaying the importance of the vaccine for people under 18. On the other hand p…

>I have heard second hand many doctors are downplaying the importance of the vaccine for people under 18 The vaccine is not important for people under 18. Only 412 people age 17 or younger in the US have died from covid. [0] Teenage boys are six times more likely to suffer from heart problems from the vaccine than be hospitalised from Covid-19. [1] [0] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex... […

This is comparing myocarditis to hospitalizations.

Where is the comparison between myocarditis induced by vaccination vs natural infection?

[0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v...

“Myocarditis (or pericarditis or myopericarditis) from primary COVID19 infection occurred at a rate as high as 450 per million in young males. Young males infected with the virus are up 6 times more likely to develop myocarditis as those who have received the vaccine.”

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

#246
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.

German culture is not as feircly selfish as American culture. They also have far lower vaccine hesitancy rates.

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

#247

DR. GUPTA: "I get calls all the time, people say, 'I've already had COVID, I'm protected.' And now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone. Should they also get the vaccine?" DR. FAUCI: "I don't have a really firm answer for you on that." https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1436417459314171904

I think the full response better convey's his position:

"You know, that's a really good point, Sanjay. I don't have a really firm answer for you on that. That's something that we're going to have to discuss regarding the durability of the response.

The one thing that paper from Israel didn't tell you is whether or not as high as the protection is with natural infection, what's the durability compared to the durability of a vaccine? So it is conceivable that you got infected, you're protected, but you may not be protected for an indefinite period of time.

So, I think that is something that we need to sit down and discuss seriously, because you very appropriately pointed out, it is an issue, and there could be an argument for saying what you said."

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

#248
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.

I mean ultimately we’re guessing at the rationale of the leadership of each of these countries - but I’d guess based on vaccination rates that Europe generally has less of an antivax problem than the US, so authorities there might be less concerned about vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy in the US is also very regionally concentrated - maybe less so in Germany?

“COVID parties” are also a worst case scenario - I think the vast majority of people would just opt to not get vaccinated and live their lives as usual - which would lead to more outbreaks, deaths, mutations, etc.

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

#249

Why? Probably because everyone and their uncle self-diagnosed a bad cold as COVID-19 and plenty more would lie about having natural immunity. Still I don't understand the current approach to COVID in the US. Vaccines are safe and available yet we only just approved the use in children under 12. I have heard second hand many doctors are downplaying the importance of the vaccine for people under 18. On the other hand p…

> Why? Probably because everyone and their uncle self-diagnosed a bad cold as COVID-19 and plenty more would lie about having natural immunity. Serology is a thing, as are records of positive test results. Also, in many cases, "proof of vaccination" includes a cell phone photo of the piece of paper they handed out when you got a vaccine, so as it stands, lying is pretty easy. > Vaccines are safe and available yet we…

The vaccine is 100% safe and if you believe otherwise you're probably listening to too many racists.

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PCR. About 9 months apart.

Out of curiosity, couldn't this patient have experienced a case of long-haul covid?

I’ve had COVID twice - in December and then just a few weeks ago.

Long haul COVID doesn’t spring back to life and give you a fever for 12 days straight. I had essentially the same symptoms both times: fever, extreme fatigue, a dry cough, complete loss of taste of most things, etc.

Long story short, even if you didn’t get tested one of the two times (I tested positive both times) it’s pretty freaking obvious what you have as long as you don’t have a mild case. My wife got it this time around, and we got her an infusion of monoclonal antibodies early as she’s pregnant. She only had a fever one night, and in trying to explain how she felt I asked her “it feels like you just want to stop existing, right?” She agreed. Before that night it just seemed like a cold for her.

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