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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?

#461

Post by rednerrus »

jowday wrote: 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…

It seems like the best solution, if you're a healthy adult, is to get vaccinated then expose yourself to a variant better tolerated by the vaccines.

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

#462

Post by tfehring »

billycorben2 wrote: post #412
steelframe wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was tested 2 weeks ago for antibodies after receiving the vaccine. My results were "0." And yet I experienced all the typical side effects from the vaccine, indicating that I probably had an immune response to it. Nobody knows what any particular antibody count means with respect to risk to your health from a future COVID infection. Instead, we need to be looking at the hard statistics about who's getting admitted…

Genuine question: Do we have data on hospitalization and mortality rates of unvaccinated but previously exposed?

The data I've seen is not great, in part because reinfection is pretty rare. This study [0] indicating rates of 31.0% and 3.4% respectively is the best I've seen, but I'd hazard a guess that there's some sampling bias - i.e., healthier people are less likely to get symptomatic reinfection and therefore to get tested, so unhealthy people are overrepresented in the data - so those rates are probably overestimates.

[0] https://ehrn.org/articles/covid-19-testing-and-possible-rein...

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

#463

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #155

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…

> Probably because everyone and their uncle self-diagnosed a bad cold as COVID-19 and plenty more would lie about having natural immunity.

I think this is the main point.

We are dealing with a large anti-vax disinformation campaign that America's enemies are fanning [0] because they want to destabilize the country.

Many of the anti-vax people people are now pushing natural immunity.

Yes there is something to be said about natural immunity in conditions in which, say, vaccine supply was critically low and needed to be triaged.

But when there is approximately zero marginal cost to getting vaccinated, and very high likelihood of fraud among the nature immunity promotors, it doesn't make sense as policy.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-removes-russian-...

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

#464

Post by chitowneats »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #312
Izkata wrote: 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

Woah, that's super intense. Wow. I think i will still vaccinate my 12 year old boy because he wants to get the shot and these numbers are still low, but yeah, now i want more info. Thank you.

Regardless of where we end up with respect to vaccination of children for COVID-19, I hope we can all agree that the child's opinion is irrelevant, given that they are not equipped to make an informed decision.

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

#465

Post by rednerrus »

rootusrootus wrote: post #365
bedhead wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. We have been so unbelievably myopic with COVID it truly hurts my head. Even today, ask someone who's COVID-obsessed, "What exactly is your longer-term plan here?" and watch as their mind breaks down. Too many people have completely stopped thinking about what they're trying to achieve and how they're going to do it. Half the country is just stuck, focused on short-term and no attention paid to anything else and…

> Half the country is just stuck, focused on short-term and no attention paid to anything else and it's freakin disastrous. Which half?

Where the horseshoe touches.

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

#466

Post by mactitan »

lame-robot-hoax wrote: post #279
mactitan wrote: post #205

From this article: “When the vaccine was rolled out the goal should have been to focus on people at risk, and that should still be the focus,” says Memoli. Such risk stratification may have complicated logistics, but it would also require more nuanced messaging. “A lot of public health people have this notion that if the public is told that there’s even the slightest bit of uncertainty about a vaccine, then they won’…

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/new-antibody-depen...

Thx, that’s promising. I find it interesting that the fda has to play games: technically the vaccine is still under emergency use authorization & not approved (last paragraph)

https://www.fda.gov/media/150386/download

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

#467

Post by SavantIdiot »

jowday wrote: post #292
isolli wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wish I could say that if authorities hadn't lied about, say, masks or this stuff with natural immunity, things would gone a lot better and people would have behaved much more rationally about COVID, but I don't think that's true. I've got family in a small town in the south - the countermeasures they took against COVID basically amounted to Wal-Mart closing for a weekend in March. Most of the people there had made…

> if authorities hadn't lied about, say, masks or this stuff

When did authorities lie? The position on masks changed over time as data was acquired. Unless you mean when the FDA/CDC was worried about a run on masks, which they were right about.

But I think ascribing a malicious intent to that learning process is disingenuous.

The only people that have made literally malicious claims have been people on the far-right, which unfortunately are some authorities so I guess you're right about Trump and his bootlicks who intentionally lied for personal gain. And continue to do so.

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

#468

Post by oplav »

Tycho wrote: post #459

Yesterday in England, they published statistics that showed (among other things) the rate of non-covid deaths among vaccinated people greatly increased from March to August. By a factor that dwarfs the improvement in covid-related deaths. For some reason they didn't feel it was necessary to comment on or explain this surprising pattern. I can think of a number of explanations, but it makes me wonder if they are reall…

Do you know how the rate compares to 2019?

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

#469

Post by ryandrake »

nielsbot wrote: post #390
nsxwolf wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe we'd see more people choose to be vaccinated if we'd: * Stop lying * Stop threatening * Stop mocking people when they die

You think not mocking people when they die will increase vaccination rates? I honestly don't really know, but I'm skeptical. Adding social pressure to vaccinate is useful I think tho. We will see what happens with these new mandates.

People have already largely made up their minds, and nothing is going to change them. This is fully a political-religious divide now, and you can't reason people out of a decision they didn't reason themselves into. The ones who pretend they are on the fence and their minds can be changed by some goal being hit or some facts changing, always seem to move the goal posts instead of actually changing their minds.

In areas where the vaccines are free and widely/immediately available, for someone who has not gotten it already, I can't think of anything that would convince them to get it other than tightened restrictions (employers requiring, etc.) and enforcement. I'd love to hear otherwise from someone who is legitimately on the fence, because I don't think those people really exist.

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

#470

Post by [deleted] »

weaksauce wrote: post #315
throwaway894345 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

there was a fitness instructor in colorado that didn't get the vaccine because he had tested and had antibodies in his blood. then he got covid again(or maybe the first time?) and it just absolutely decimated his body. he lost 70 lbs and is walking around with an oxygen bottle. the only real way to make sure you have proper antibodies and B and T cell responses is to have either gotten a symptomatic case of covid tha…

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