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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?

#551

Post by [deleted] »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #467
jowday wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

[deleted]

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

#552

Post by nostrademons »

kristjansson wrote: post #525

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…

So? If lots of people independently choose to take the risk and they're not harming anyone else, why shouldn't they be allowed to?

The impact on the hospital system could be blunted simply by saying "This wing is for COVID patients, when it fills up further COVID patients will be turned away" and leaving the other wings for normal hospital patients. They have to do this for quarantine reasons anyway. Now that COVID is essentially preventable, it's a huge misallocation of resources to let all the hospital fill up with people who chose not to prevent it while leaving other ER patients to their fate.

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

#553

Post by [deleted] »

dnissley wrote: post #530
ryandrake wrote: post #493

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…

The reason that it's lying is that natural immunity does provide decent protection. You're so focused on incentives in the small that you forgot about incentives in the large -- this type of bs is exactly why people feel entitled to opt into believing "alternative facts".

[deleted]

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

#554

Post by syvolt »

Auracle wrote: post #260
danaris wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trying to work across party lines" went out the window when the Republicans decided that "prevent absolutely anything the Democrats want to do, no matter how objectively beneficial it would be or whether it was fully supported by Republicans in the past" was a viable and acceptable method of getting re-elected.

“If the public-health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I'll be the first in line to take it — absolutely," the California senator said during the first and only vice-presidential debate. "But if Donald Trump tells us we should take it, I'm not taking it." -Kamala Harris Let’s not act like both parties don’t do the exact same thing, eh?

What does this quote mean to you? It is saying that if immunologists and epidemiologists do not recommend a vaccine but Donald Trump does then she wouldn't take it. As far as I know Donald Trump is not a scientist, that seems reasonable?

I'm not politically minded so I'm confused as to how you're interpreting that.

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

#555

Post by m-p-3 »

jayd16 wrote: post #534
m-p-3 wrote: post #506

My mother-in-law works in Healthcare as N auxiliary nurse and caught COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. She was officially recorded as positive by the govt (through a periodic PCR test at work, and received a quarantine order). She received one dose since. But even though they're saying an infection is protecting as much as one vaccine dose, they aren't acknowledging it in the vaccine passport as "adequately…

>even though they're saying an infection is protecting as much as one vaccine dose That's not the same thing as saying it can replace one vaccine dose, though.

In the province where she lives, it is

https://www.quebec.ca/en/health/advice-and-prevention/vaccin...

> For people who have had COVID-19 confirmed by a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT), a single dose of the vaccine is required. The infection triggers the immune system's response the same way a 1st dose of the vaccine does. The dose of vaccine given to someone who has had COVID-19 has a booster effect the same way a 2nd dose of the vaccine does.

But the vaccine passport doesn't seem to reflect that, it's frustrating when the communication is ambiguous.

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

#556

Post by glial »

borplk wrote: post #498
dooopy wrote: post #457

It's not that complicated - No one has died getting their immunity from the vaccine, but lots die in the process of getting natural immunity from the actual virus. The vaccine is a much safer way to get your antibodies going.

> No one has died getting their immunity from the vaccine Wow. Really? No one? There are 13k+ COVID-19 vaccine related deaths on VAERS alone. Those are ONLY the ones that have been certified and given a permanent VAERS number (as opposed to a temporary VAERS number that is given out initially). The report submission process is time consuming, most of those are submitted by doctors and it's a crime to submit false inf…

As far as I can tell, that's misinformation.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-covid19-vaers-idUS...

> According to CDC guidance listed on its page reporting adverse events from COVID-19 vaccines, seen here , there have been 6,340 reports of death (0.0019%) recorded from December 14, 2020, to July 26, 2021 "among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine." It is important to note that the "FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it is unclear whether the vaccine was the cause.”

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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

#557

Post by generalizations »

ryandrake wrote: post #493
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.

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.

It's hard to believe you wrote that with a straight face.

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

#558

Post by WhisperingShiba »

ryandrake wrote: post #493
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.

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…

>it's results-driven communication

I can not believe you think this, earnestly.

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

#559

Post by ThinkBeat »

The often-repeated phrase is "The vaccine is safe".

We (as in the world) do not yet have data to say that "The vaccine" is safe.

Nor is there one vaccine, there are many.

That all work equally well and have the same side effects and outcomes is unlikely.

We are living in a gigantic experiment at the moment.

Should we not be treated that way?

15 % get vaccine A 15 % get vaccine B .. . 20% get no vaccine.

Then we watch and learn.

The specific number are not important since much smarter brains than mine would have to work it out.

If one vaccine turns out to be terrible for whatever reason we have mitigated the risk.

There is a couple of datapoints now that one vaccine -may- cause a reduction in fertility for men. I am not saying it does, but -if- it should turn out to be true having it impact a controlled portion of the population would be prudent.

We are also continuously learning more about Covid and how it impacts those who do get. As it evolves and mutates, we may find better way of targeting treatment and vaccinations.

I mean what are the odds that the first "alpha" vaccine gets it all right?

If people start getting boosters or re-vaccinated with a better vaccine in a year, the possible outcomes of mixing vaccines within a singel person will also be interesterting and unpredictable.

In my opinion we will have enough data in 10 - 20 years. Or maybe longer.

I am a pessimist and I spend too much time writing code to handle all edge cases (which I never manage to).

So far the roll out, of all the vaccines that are presently in circulation appears to have been a huge success.

How can that be?

Billions of people. Not well tested vaccines.

Each person with different immune systems, different medical histories, different medication, different genetic makeups, some fat, some skinny, some anorexic, diabetes, there are a staggering number of different permutations that you will hit in. population of 3 billion people.

I would have expected more people to die and more people to have severe reactions.

We seem to have been incredibly lucky or just insanely great at creating safe and effective vaccines. More people have adverse reactions to sleeping pills, suntan lotions, ibuprofen etc

I am fully vaccinated, to shots of Pfizer myself

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

#560

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ixacto wrote: post #536
kristjansson wrote: post #525

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…

It's not a binary.

Sure, you should be able to take the risk (if an adult and mentally competent, and maybe also fully informed). It's a free country (or so they claim).

But when your choices rack up huge medical bills that the rest of us have to pay, then your freedom to do what you want collides with our freedom to not have to pay for it. If you're free to spend my money, then I'm less free.

But that isn't absolute, either. We let people drive, and emit carbon dioxide, and play loud music, all of which impose negative externalities on others. We even let people be obese and smoke, which impose financial costs on the rest of us. (And yet, there's been a massive anti-smoking campaign over the last 10 or so years...)

Societal costs is a slippery slope, or something like it. As a society, we're trying to find a place to stand on it that isn't "no healthcare for you because you make stupid choices", and also isn't "here's the public's checkbook for you to make full use of to try to undo the consequences of your bad choices". There are no simple answers. (And it's not just Covid.)

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