I am being shunned by my family because of my lack of interest in the vaccine. I've had COVID and recovered. I also don't get a flu shot each year. I really like not putting things into my body, especially when year after year I may or may not "catch" these things but if I do, I always recover. I act responsibly and do not go out when I am sick.
However, none of these facts or articles such as this will ever effectively challenge the "get the vaccine or you are a bad citizen and will kill everyone" emotional arguments that are out there.
I have continuously been near or around folks that have come down with Covid and have yet to encounter a second infection or positive test since my initial infection. I look forward to when greater fact-based realities start to take hold again.
* Outlets had previously been reporting that mild cases do not give enough immune response to be lasting
* Variants might not be caught by the natural immune response, but the vaccines are showing to be pretty effective with them.
* Many people also think it's selfish not to get the free flu vaccines each year, so it isn't surprising that after a pandemic where half a million Americans died due to the spread of this disease, "No I'm good" seems callous. Surprise, you live in a society - and I don't say that sentence ironically.
Yes, science and reality is important. That's why the fact that the vaccine is a sure shot vs. you winging it with your prior illness, despite the fact the vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, gives some people pause.
We still don't have enough data on whether this will suffer ADE. If parent is young, isn't in a highly infectious area and behaves cautiously, they may be making a less risky decision.
We absolutely have enough data to rule out meaningful ADE. Study after study (the phase 3 trials and all the ongoing surveillance) indicates a massive reduction in the rate of severe infection among vaccine recipients.
Sure, one can quibble about whether maybe some of the very small number of people who got a vaccine more than a couple weeks before a severe COVID case had a form of ADE, but that’s like saying that we haven’t ruled out that seatbelts might kill people. In both cases, the risk that a protective measure harms the recipient is massively outweighed by the degree to which the protective measure protects the recipient.
By that standard, you also can’t rule out disease-induced ADE, dengue style.
But the vaccine developers do know what they’re doing. IIRC, with SARS, a lot of research was done that suggested that antibodies against N might cause ADE but antibodies against S would not. If that carries over to COVID, then maybe one is better off with a vaccine than natural disease: the latter induces antibodies against N but the former does not.
Covid is very often asymptomatic but still spreads. There is no way you can know that you haven't had it again, haven't spread it to others, and won't continue to do so without a vaccine.
And while it may be asymptomatic for you, you can still spread it to others who it will be very symptomatic for - including others who have been diligent and have taken the vaccine. You can kill people without knowing it.
The longer people go unvaccinated, the more likely mutations are to catch on, which may defeat the vaccine.
You are placing your general dislike of "putting things into my body" above all of our safety and welfare, and you are interfering with our collective efforts to end this pandemic and move on for the sake of our health and economy.
I wanted to write this comment, but you said it better.
The OP's post is entirely about themself, evidenced in that it is written in a completely self-centered way. "I am experiencing social shaming and being shunned for a position I take where I show absolutely no concern for others. And yet they don't subscribe to my superior reasoning powers. My feelings are so hurt!"
If they get the vaccine they can still be infected with covid and transmit to others. Yes they will be less severe and probably less transmissive but it's a bit dangerous to think a vaccinated person is that much better than an unvaccinated person.
There's actually still a fair number of people who get their first COVID-19 infection and never develop any symptoms at all, although it's a lot less than the initial research indicated early on in the pandemic: https://jammi.utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/jammi-2020-0030
But a much bigger problem is presymptomatic transmission, which is why this disease was able to spread so steadily. Aside from that, there are people with symptoms that are so minor they never even consider themselves sick (although hopefully today people are more vigilant about this).
Things are being put into your body with or without your knowledge. You had no idea if you were infectious with COVID for up to 14 days possibly, so it doesn’t matter if you didn’t go out when you “felt sick.” You may feel like your being responsible, but that does not mean you feeling that way actually means you are being that way.
Over 500,000 people have died. Awesome. You recovered. A lot of other people didn’t. I wouldn’t be so confident you’ll always recover. And it’s possible that you’ll infect folks who can’t recover along the way, because of your “lack of interest.”
Nothing the parent poster said is an emotional argument - quite the opposite. It may be that you have an emotional response to those facts but that does not make it an emotional argument.
Yeah, but you did get it. I'm not particularly careful myself, but I obey our local laws, wear a mask when required, etc. and I haven't caught it but I'm still getting my vaccination on Monday.
It's also baffling to me that you say you act responsible and two paragraphs later admit to being around people who have had COVID!
To me, it's completely irresponsible to not get a vaccine if offered but I'm not going to hold it against you and I can at least understand where you are coming from.
Until now, virologists had little evidence on whether having covid gives you lasting immunity or not. It seems possible that you're not giving your family enough credit.
The reason that not going out when you're sick is an insufficient precaution for covid is that people spread the virus for several days before they get symptoms.
>> I act responsibly and do not go out when I am sick.
a. you caught covid, so does your approach work?
b. you are often ill and contagious before you have any symptoms so unless you never go out this isn't sufficient
c. you get vaccinated and a flu shot for the holistic group, i.e. society. When individuals talk about personal rights and the "me" I question if they get this.
>> I have continuously been near or around folks that have come down with Covid and have yet to encounter a second infection or positive test since my initial infection. I look forward to when greater fact-based realities start to take hold again.
OK, here's one: your casual anecdote is not a factual reality.
I get a flu shot to protect others and to protect myself. I was very clearly exposed to the H1N1 pandemic flu a few weeks after getting the vaccine, and, to the extent I got sick at all, I had minimal symptoms. I can’t know the extent to which my vaccine protected me or protected people around me, but, on expectation, it certainly provided a considerable amount of protection to me and others.
(For all that the H1N1 pandemic flu was minor compared to COVID, it still put a lot of people in the hospital. I’m quite glad I didn’t get a severe case.)
I'm not going to shame you for this but I think you have some misconceptions about the vaccines vs naturally acquired immunity that might impact your decision.
Naturally acquired immunity from the original strain of covid-19 is not effective against some of the other variants. The strain currently ravaging India has infected many individuals who had been sick before, sometimes extremely seriously.
The mRNA vaccines don't work the same way as old school vaccines. They're better technology and they're also much more effective than natural immunity. Basically by getting the vaccine you won't get seriously ill and you won't die. You're also less likely to get infected with the strains.
Nobody can force you to get a shot but you're helping protect yourself and other people by getting it. I hope you reconsider.
Repeat infections of covid have been confirmed and now that the CDC is tracking variants, we know that the dominant strains shift very rapidly. Meaning that you could be exposed to a mutated version for which your immunity is blunted or completely absent.
The vaccines are only 85-99% effective. So your family is still at risk for getting and spreading the infection. And if you're the spreader, it's possible that it would be a resistant strain.
My attitude mirrors that of your family. And it has more to do with doing ones part to combat this pandemic and return to normal. I got a vaccine less for my own person safety, but more for the good of society. I want people to be safe, feel safe, and I want front line workers -- who've given so much -- to finally get a break.
You're not willing to make this same, minor sacrifice for society that everyone else did. It makes sense that you'd be shunned by people who want this to be over with.
Man am I ever sick of this attitude. That high ground you’re looking down on other people from certainly has an extremely weak foundation based on what we know currently.
Consider a little respect and humility. You might be wrong. Many of the the loudest voices throughout this whole covid affair are currently muffled as they can’t eat and talk at the same time, lest they choke on their massive servings of humble pie for being so wrong about something they were so certain about.
>I act responsibly and do not go out when I am sick.
With the flu for instance, you are communicable before you show symptoms. Were you wearing a mask for the duration of the flu season prior to covid? That would be what responsible looks like if you're not interested in getting a shot.
>I have continuously been near or around folks that have come down with Covid and have yet to encounter a second infection or positive test since my initial infection.
I'm not sure you can say that with 100% certainty unless you've been getting weekly tests since your initial positive results. Early studies indicate that people who get re-infected are more likely to show no symptoms the second time around, but they can still infect others.
The critical is infecting at what rate and for the flue how communicable. You cannot define responsible without quantified chances.
The article you have given is written by people that haven't given a single probability number. But they declare that it is unsafe. Declaring un/safety without measuring risk is senseless.
If there was still a shortage of vaccines I'd totally agree with you, they should go to someone who doesn't already have immunity. But that's not the case, so I do think you have a responsibility.
From an administrative standpoint, it's much easier to confirm that everyone has had the vaccine. And, there's some evidence that the vaccine provides better immunity than the virus itself.
IMO, this is even more true for the flu vaccine! Flu vaccines are less effective on an individual level, so as a society we're more reliant on collective immunity to slow down the spread. Lots of people die from the flu, and a little shot each year can help keep them alive!
> I have continuously been near or around folks that have come down with Covid and have yet to encounter a second infection or positive test since my initial infection. I look forward to when greater fact-based realities start to take hold again.
People can get covid twice [1]. Especially older people who are at higher risk of death.
Did you ever consider that you might have been the vector that Covid traveled through to infect all those folks around you that came down with Covid? When you draw out the network graph of Covid transmission, how many people do you think your specific infection affected downstream?
I'm not going to say you have to get vaccinated against anything, but I do see it in a lot of ways like a game of tug-of-war with society vs disease. Sure, its not essential that _everyone_ be pulling on the rope but it sure makes it a lot easier if they are. And things get really bad if more and more people stop pulling on it, especially if the other side starts getting stronger.
They might be shunning you due to your non-fact based opinions and consequent risky behavior:
* I've had COVID and recovered
* also don't get a flu shot each year
* have continuously been near or around folks that have come down with Covid
And you think your family are the ones with the emotional arguments (!) Sorry this happened to you, but you're the one in the wrong here.
> have yet to encounter a second infection or positive test since my initial infection
Science generally saves us from trusting anecdotes, though. I know two people who were reinfected within five months, but I wouldn't conclude it's likely.
I caught it in mid-February with mild symptoms basically just loss of smell. I have very high antibodies and my physician actually recommended that I hold off on getting the vaccine.
Unfortunately, I have several co-workers who refuse to attend a picnic if I'm there. All of them are vaccinated which indicates to me that there is no logic and simply a demand that I adhere to the same religion they do.
Because honestly it's sure feels like a religion with these people.
For understanding people's responses to this, I think it's best to think of it as a war. The human race is under attack, millions of us have died, and we are hurting emotionally. During this time, we've had politicians actively say we should just give up and let the enemy kill 10x as many people, and enough people have followed these politicians' views to effect the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands in the US.
This may not be your view, but it is the view of many, that we are under attack, and people's lives are at stake. A ton of people have lost loved ones. Or they've had loved ones at deaths door and on oxygen and suffering for weeks.
So while you view those vaccinated folks who don't want to be around unvaccinated people as having a "religion," it may be just that they view you as a traitor to humanity. Back during the Iraq war, I didn't support us starting it, and for that position many people treated me far far worse than simply not wanting to be at a company picnic with them. The people who treated me poorly for my views often had family who were in the military, and didn't want to think that they were putting their lives at risk for nothing. It wasn't even that the US itself was at risk, it's that they wanted their family to be risking their lives for a cause everyone supported. So when people have been fighting against a local enemy that is hurting us all, I'm surprised the reaction is so mild as to not want to be at the same picnic.
His reasoning was that I was more likely to get moderate side effects from the vaccine due to high antibody levels. He also noted that I shrugged off the initial infection and that it was highly unlikely for me to get infected again and in the event I did I would almost certainly have very moderate symptoms.
He did this contingent on the fact that I don't live near any elderly relatives nor do I socialize with anyone that is high risk. I don't socialize much at all really unless I'm outdoors.
I almost forgot to mention that he had looked at literature which stated that high antibody levels at time of vaccine could reduce its efficacy.
Frankly a lot of this is moving target so I'm keeping my mind open.
Just get the J&J so you’re officially vaccinated and only have to deal with side effects 1 time. Tbh it’s just a good thing to do for your community at this time.
Although I fully agree that they should have a pass for people who already got it and have high antibody titers.
Ok, I agree your family might be overreacting, and that it isn't a "big deal" you're not getting the vaccine.
But you really should get the vaccine, at least if you're in a place with abundant supply. There's just no good argument against it. The odds of "putting things in your body" having any effect on you are far less than the odds of getting Covid again, even if those odds are low. And mine as well make your family happy.
FWIW, several non-vaccinated acquaintances of mine in different countries have gotten COVID for the 2nd time, though anecdotally somewhat less severe in the second round.
Is any data, yet, available about how reduced the contagiousness is for getting infected for the 2nd time naturally, vs. having the vaccine? For both catching and spreading it?
People talked about 'saving granny' to get you to comply with Covid restrictions but now there's literally granny's dying in India and we're giving the vaccine to perfectly healthy people in America and no one gives it a second thought!
Meanwhile, under 55 age group has a fatality chance of Covid that is less than dying in a car accident and will develop immunity after natural infection. And the under 55 age group makes up over 80% of the population.
I completely agree about fact based realities needing to take hold again!
I think we may be in a post-truth society and all that matters to people is what's the news media report instead of actual science and statistics.
The upside to people getting their reality from the media is that when the news media quits reporting on an issue it will be COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT, much like darfur, metoo, blm, starving children, dead innocent civilians in the middle east.
Poof it will just vanish in the wind as long as the politicians don't make it actionable.
So just hold out for a bit longer and the news media will stop reporting on Covid and switch to a new topic that people can be outraged over.
What about the fact that a VERY small sacrifice on your part of getting a vaccine plays a VERY small part in preventing an older or compromised person from getting VERY sick?
> we're giving the vaccine to perfectly healthy people in America and no one gives it a second thought!
You always give vaccines to healthy people.
>> And no one will care at all about your vaccine.
I'm quite confident you'll get a vaccine when you need proof to go on your week's vacation to some beach country, or any similar personal impact.
Who said after recovery you need vaccine? Probably you just need to share official documentation from your government and official health body with your family. Afaik, recovered and vaccinated are treated the same currently.
I asked about this. The response I got was that many people who got COVID had a mild case where the immune system did not kick in very strongly. That these are more likely to get a 2nd infection. The vaccine for them will give them coverage from a second infection.
They want everyone to get the vaccine so that people aren't missed who had a mild case.
Right or wrong, this is the reasoning being shared where I live.
> They want everyone to get the vaccine so that people aren't missed who had a mild case.
i feel like "mild case" (also) subtly refers to all of the folks who said "oh, yeah, i had a cold in december 2019, that was probably covid. i've had it. no big deal."
>"But the persistence of antibody production, whether elicited by vaccination or infection, does not ensure long-lasting immunity to COVID-19. The ability of some emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to blunt the protective effects of antibodies means that additional immunizations may be needed to restore levels, says Ellebedy. “My presumption is we will need a booster.”
The article talks about how the experts on this field "presume" we'll need boosters to get antibody levels high enough to combat the worse mutated variants, and of course, it could be a bit of an arms race between it mutating variants that are better against our antibodies, and us boosting our antibodies with vaccines to trigger responses and keep blood levels high.
The broadly-accepted imperative requirement is "vaccinated", as in "do not enter without a mask/etc unless you have been fully vaccinated". There is never a reference to "inoculated" (to wit vaccinated or had Covid and recovered).
Furthermore, there may not be "official documentation from your gov't and official health body". I was tested & 'treated', but my wife had exactly the same symptoms & recovery without bothering with doctors (seriously, it was really mild), so there is no documentation and no apparent process to procure such documentation.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Seems that, to most people, Covid & vaccines are magic: the disease is perceived little differently from evil spirits (sparing some and slaying others, with nothing corporeal to perceive & avoid), and the vaccine is a tangible talisman mysteriously able to ward off such spirits (by a mere prick from a costumed wizard wielding magic potions). This leaves most people, unable to really grasp the objective mechanism of vaccination (being a simulation of actual infection, to teach the body to fight it off), with the only objectively perceivable act they can grasp in the issue: vaccine injection. Hence many dismiss the near-spiritual notion of "I contracted it, survived, and am now immune - without intervention by wizards". Thus, to present it a bit over-the-top, recovered and vaccinated are not treated the same by those not professionally involved in medicine.
> The broadly-accepted imperative requirement is "vaccinated", as in "do not enter without a mask/etc unless you have been fully vaccinated". There is never a reference to "inoculated" (to wit vaccinated or had Covid and recovered).
As can be concluded from my post: Where I live vaccinated and recovered are treated the same, at least for now.
> Furthermore, there may not be "official documentation from your gov't and official health body".
Where I live there are laws what is permitted in super markets, restaurants, bars etc. And there are recommendations from the official health body that is responsible for the Covid topic. Often they overlap, sometimes they don't. But I think currently both agree on the vaccinated vs recovered point.
All that is said just to sync up on facts. I'm not trying to convince anybody of changing their interpretation or opinion.
If you are healthy, getting vaccinated against covid is not something you do for you, it's something you do for others. That's how vaccine works, when enough people are vaccinated, the epidemic stops. Some viruses evolves and for those a vaccine is required regularly (like flu, maybe covid). I can totally understand that you are not worried for yourself (I feel the same) but don't be surprised that people are unhappy that you don't care about them.
And you say you don't go out when you get sick, but I'm not sure how you would do that for covid, since covid can in many cases be asymptomatic.
I'm not sure how it works in your country, but here people that already had covid only get one vaccine shot, as the covid infection is counted as the first one.
If you have a condition or something that it could affect, sure don’t get the vaccine. I’m fine with that. But if you’re healthy and esp if you didn’t have covid yet, getting the shot is patriotic. Fools try to twist it otherwise.
It is absolutely okay to not get vaccinated! And if your family shuns you for that then you should question your family and the quality of their relationship to you. Especially because everybody who is afraid of Covid can get vaccinated ... so, then they are reasonbly protected. If they are afraid and not vaccinated then they can ask you to not seek physical proximity. I mean that's fine - but that's not shunning.
Also you do not have any resonsibility to do that for society. The society we live in is not even close to the level of solidarity and empathy to demand anything from an individual beyond respecting the law and paying taxes.
The main issue is that there is a very ill-defined wall between vaccines from science and a political agenda.
The average human (except maybe the elderly?) does not have the same problems with flu season and vaccination in the same way we view covid. Granted, covid is a big problem, but the mortality rate is about 10% [0]. The main difference here is that the flu season is mostly dictated by science, there are no public restrictions and people go about their lives mostly without consequence. Covid is a different beast for a bunch of reasons, and one major one is politics.
I have never up until this point in my life saw the amount of political pressure that everyone needs to be vaccinated. Probably going more off opinion that fact at this point, but I can't foresee any place in the world going back to normal once n% of people get vaccinated. At least the mayo clinic doesn't seem certain on what the long term effects of the current vaccines will be [1], specifically around "A COVID-19 vaccine might...Prevent you from getting COVID-19 or from becoming seriously ill or dying due to COVID-19." The CDC website seems to have more confident information, but I'm not convinced that we actually have the long-term data yet to back that up, but I'm open to being corrected with any studies that last more than 2 months, and use saline for control groups (and not another vaccine, which seems to be the popular method, which I'm also interested in opinions on). So _if_ the vaccines don't provided long term protection from being sick AND spreading the disease, don't expect vaccinated percentages to change the state of the current lockdowns.
I've been told I'm a bad citizen for just waiting for data that proves that shooting this vaccine in my body will actually support a good long term solution.
But you _did_ catch covid so being careful isn't always enough. I don't think it's emotional or unreasonable for your family to require the vaccine before you visit.
Also, I'm not suggesting that you will "kill everyone" by not getting the vaccine, but it really isn't just about you and that you personally will probably recover.
Do you think it's a reasonable thing for most people to take your stance and not get vaccinated? We are at the tail end of this thing _because_ we have a vaccination available.
> Do you think it's a reasonable thing for most people to take your stance and not get vaccinated?
As with any other disease, it is reasonable (and expected) for everyone who had covid to not get vaccinated, given that the immunity you get from having the disease is always better than what you'd get from a vaccine.
That this is even considered controversial by some people just goes to show you how far our science education has failed us.
> the immunity you get from having the disease is always better than what you'd get from a vaccine.
My understanding is that the opposite is true, at least based on what we know right now. Here is an article summarizing just that[1], which links to a few peer-reviewed studies (and a couple that are pending review) suggesting that the vaccines are better than natural immunity.
I don't have any background in this or agenda or anything, so don't shoot the messenger - just sharing what I understand to be the opinion of at least some of the medical community.
> "Vaccines are highly efficacious," Fauci concluded. "They are better than the traditional response you get from natural infection."
The link reports that vaccines have been observed to generate higher antibody-levels than natural infections. It was also observed that vaccines seem to protect against a set of variants. This is the good news that is worth reporting.
But there are observed occurences of the opposite; that vaccinated people test negative for antibodies. Similarly, people test negative for antibodies some time after recovering. Sometimes, recovered people never test positive for antibodies.
Diagnostic tools widely available are simply not good enough to test the immune response.
I would want something a bit more than studies by the vaccine maker about how good their vaccine is -- for example having those studies reproduced by a third party and comparing natural immunity to the vaccine -- before concluding that a vaccine can be better than natural immunity. It is almost always the case that natural immunity is superior to vaccines.
> It is almost always the case that natural immunity is superior to vaccines.
Do you have a source for that claim? GP offered peer-reviewed evidence to the contrary, which you don't believe, but so far you've offered no evidence at all.
I’m not an expert by any means, just trying to reason this out logically.
I don’t know too much about COVID, so I’ll use Flu as an example.
Let’s say your statement is true. You get antibodies for the specific strain of Flu that you caught and the response was greater than vaccine. Flu vaccines include multiple strains. So even if your premise was true, you should get the vaccine to protect against other strains right? Unless you are advocating for catching every strain of Flu?
The only argument that document takes about it actually being better is that with some vaccines you need two shots instead of one. That's not compelling as being "better" at all. "Better" would imply that, once the complete course of vaccination is complete, the immunity is somehow more complete, stronger, or longer lasting.
Quite often what is "obvious" isn't true. Take some time and do some reading on this topic and you'll find that vaccines can provide equal or better immunity than a natural infection.
Your comment was indeed false, and many many studies have been done to compare natural vs vaccine immunity. Vaccination with a highly effective vaccine, e.g. Moderna or Phizer/BNT yield higher antibody response, and are more protective against variants in study after study.
"As with any other disease, it is reasonable (and expected) for everyone who had covid to not get vaccinated, given that the immunity you get from having the disease is always better than what you'd get from a vaccine."
The vaccines are effective against the spike protein, which is what makes SARS-CoV-2 so virulent. In reality, there are many ways skin that cat, and there's no guarantee that the body chose the spike protein. From the article:
> most of these participants still had memory B cells that recognize SARS-CoV-2
No matter how you slice it, you are playing 'Rona Roulette if you don't get vaccinated.
The CDC also recommends getting vaccinated despite any prior infection, and there has been anecdotes of post-acute COVID-19 syndrome being alleviated with a vaccination.
If the body cleared the virus, then what it chose is effective whether that’s the spike or the nucleocapsid.
It is actually more likely to be robust than vaccine induced immunity.
The claims about superiority of vaccine induced immunity that I’ve seen all rely on antibody counts, and in the very short term that may very well be true - but the importance of T-cells is not sufficiently well characterized to say it with certainty.
... which hinges completely on the virus not evolving at all, which is outside of the realm of reality.
Evolving a new spike is extremely disadvantageous for the virus.
Widespread natural immunity is not enough to prevent a repeat of this this or next year, especially when we have evolutionary hotbeds in countries which could not (or would not) do anything to prevent the spread.
> Evolving a new spike is extremely disadvantageous for the virus.
... Right up until almost everyone has an immune response to the spike and not to any other feature, at which point a virus which changes the spike and potentially keeps its other features is a winner. We are creating an immune monoculture.
> ... which hinges completely on the virus not evolving at all, which is outside of the realm of reality.
This makes no sense.
If you only only target the spike, you assume the spike doesn't change sufficiently. If you target the entire virus, you assume the entire virus doesn't change sufficiently. As far as I know, mutations are generally assumed to be random. You're effectively matching against a shorter string (spike only), so you're less likely to recognize a mutated virus, than if you match against a longer string (the entire virus) which is what natural immunity targets.
Mutations in the spike (that still keep it effective - and we actually have quite a few of these already) are much more likely to evade the vaccine-induced immunity than they are likely to evade natural immunity.
Mutations only in the nucleocapsid are more likely to evade natural immunity than vaccine-induced immunity, but to a lesser degree - because natural immunity also targets the spike.
> If the body cleared the virus, then what it chose is effective whether that’s the spike or the nucleocapsid. It is actually more likely to be robust than vaccine induced immunity.
Where’s the research showing there is more effective immunity possible than the spike protein method of the vaccine?
This comment avoids the facts noted in the linked article, which seem to point to perpetual immunity of anyone who was infected by SARS-CoV-2 in the past.
There are multiple documented cases where a person caught COVID twice (where the two instances were genetically different, and therefore not a false positive caused by lingering dead virus).
The linked article only indicates that antibody production should continue for a long time, but that's only one factor in robust long-term immunity. The rate of antibody production and the set of proteins that the antibodies target are also very important.
It's good news to be sure, but it doesn't yet prove what you seem to want it to.
> There have been far more breakthrough cases of fully vaccinated people than there have been confirmed reinfections.
Yeah, but there are vastly more vaccinated people than people have been confirmed infected even once, so that doesn’t really tell you anything. (Currently, the number of vaccination doses being delivered per day globally is about 1/5 the total number of confirmed global COVID cases.)
We'd need to compare the number of confirmed reinfections divided by confirmed infections with the number of breakthrough cases divided by the number of fully vaccinated people.
Its also worth noting the confirmed reinfection count is on a much longer time scale than breakthrough infections. So we currently have more data about the long term natural immunity than we do for vaccinated immunity.
I don't see the relevance of whether the re-infection cases are symptomatic. If anything, this makes it slightly more important to be careful, because asymptomatic transmission is what makes this virus worse than others of similar lethality. I don't think that's a significant factor, though.
You must have read a different article than I did. It just talked about the production of antibodies. They help fight off infection but don't necessarily make you immune. The article also specifically mentions vulnerability to variants.
My understanding is the antibodies created from the vaccine are not the same antibodies that maybe created from having one of the main strains of the virus and thus would not offer the same level of protection.
It's strange how the same people who scream "TRUST THE SCIENCE" the loudest seem to ignore your body naturally producing antibodies to Covid after you've been infected and recovered.
You simply don't need a vaccine to help your body produce antibodies if you already have them. Not just for covid 19 but for anything.
Don't let anyone shame you or pressure you into getting a vaccine that you're not comfortable getting.
>It's strange how the same people who scream "TRUST THE SCIENCE" the loudest seem to ignore your body naturally producing antibodies to Covid after you've been infected and recovered.
It's not strange at all. Human beings have probably been doing this since not too long after languages developed:
Do 'X' because 'Y', since 'Y' is in agreement with my opinion and personal interests of you doing 'X'.
'Y' may be science, religion, math, emotion, whatever. The point is that many people will push information they want pushed with and later contradict themselves if need be as long as they can consistently push the information they want. The arguments and rationale are usually secondary, not the primary driver.
Politicians do this a lot. It's lying in the form of intellectual dishonesty or sheer ignorance. Many highly religious people push firm accordance with their religion or their interpretation of their religion, while allowing their own desires to shape those ground rules: they pick and choose which rules to follow literally and which to interpret, and so on.
There are a lot of people out peddling things in the name of science but they don't understand science: evidence, process, uncertainty, etc. When it comes to COVID we've learned a lot but there's still a lot of uncertainty around a lot of aspects in various studies and we need to understand that with humility and act accordingly.
The most prolific by far variant factories are apparently immunocompromised individuals, including those vaccinated - which harbor infection for months and a weak immune system - which lets the virus optimize against weak humans, in the same way the traditional vaccines lets the immune system optimize against a weak virus.
Yeah I mean, we're (presumably) both doing some armchair virology, but I buy that if you're immunocompromised that you can't fight off the virus, and thus the virus succeeds in turning you into a virus factory until you die.
That said, I don't think that's an argument against non-immunocompromised people getting vaccinated. It's like me saying "don't touch the toaster if it were just on, you'll get burned" and you responding "yeah but ovens really burn you." OK well, be careful around both I guess.
It is a great argument that non-immunocompromised people should get vaccinated. If non-immunocompromised people are vaccinated, the probability that immunocompromised people get infected gets smaller, thus causing less variants.
Sure but in the interim, high risk people die. Your argument is essentially "I would rather not get a vaccine, even in the face of some high risk people dying". My argument is "I would rather everyone (within reason) get a vaccine, even in the face of some people not liking it".
That is clearly not logically consistent. I also know that the following will be very bothersome to hear for many people and I hope to . Nothing would indicate that unvaccinated would lead to mutations, especially over vaccinated whose vaccination does not actually perform as well as natural immunity developed from the body naturally building immunity.
What is actually bing discussed in the non-corporate medical community and research is starting to validate the very well understood theory that relatively poorly performing vaccines are actually going to lead to mutations if they haven't already. It is the same concept that has led to "antibiotic resistant bacteria" when antibiotics are either overused or not used as long as they should be, leaving the most resistant bacteria to reproduce.
I realize it must be difficult to accept such a contradiction to what people are told by the corporate media and corporate medical industrial complex. It also requires accepting and acknowledging that may have been injected with an untested/risky novel experimental medial compound for no good reason, but that it will likely also lead to even worse variants that will require ever more vaccines that are ever less tested and will increase risks of adverse reactions with every single event.
No matter what, we have clearly cast the die and things have clearly been fundamentally shifted in ways that are clearly carry unknown outcomes. THAT should really worry people, even if we all survive this particular event, scathing by relatively unharmed. What happens when the next virus comes around that may actually be as dangerous as we were scared about and some or maybe all of the next rushed vaccines trigger antibody-dependent enhancement or some other mortal effect that kills millions with no way to prevent it.
We ARE playing with fire here. No matter how we look at it. Someone, possibly many, will be get burned at some point probably far sooner than one would think.
I am away from my home in the state of Nebraska now because my mother-in-law was one of the small number of people to experience a highly adverse event from her second Pfizer shot.
She went into cardiac arrest 3 hours after getting her shot. It's been over a week now and they will be taking her off life support shortly because she is now brain dead. It should be noted that this is a rare event and I do recommend to my loved ones especially my father and her to get vaccinated.
That being said no media organizations are going to report what happened to my mother-in-law. They know if they do so it will create vaccine hesitancy in many people. I understand and empathize with this but it does raise ethical questions.
The corporate media are perfectly happy to stay silent on this because they no longer view their role as informing the public, but rather as getting the public to do what they think is right.
They are happy to report on statistically improbable events as long as they are part of their overall political narrative. For every person that reflexively responds to me that what happened to my mother-in-law is a rare event, the same people won't hesitate to talk about the George Floyd murder as if it's a typical occurrence in police interactions with black men. The data shows this to be not true at all but they don't care because their narrative is all they care about.
My point is that this vaccine technology is definitely new and it's probably going to be revolutionary and saving tremendous numbers of lives especially in Africa with malaria. However because it's so new there are going to be bad things happening from it as well and folks who deny this are making problems worse.
What happened to my mother-in-law is now being used as fuel by various people my family who are Alex Jones followers. The reaction from the medical establishment and the complete lack of coverage in the media has further added ammunition to this idiot in my family. Suppressing information always creates a backlash every time.
With respect to the media:
> That being said no media organizations are going to report what happened to my mother-in-law. They know if they do so it will create vaccine hesitancy in many people. I understand and empathize with this but it does raise ethical questions.
There are plenty of news organizations who would publicize this story. There have been major outlets reporting on all manner of vaccine complications as they have been rolled out.[1][2][3]
I would encourage you to reach out to the CDC directly if you feel the medical team is not taking it seriously.
The medical team did confirm with us yesterday that they have reported it to VAERS.
The irony with all of this is rich. The entire point of the vaccine was to prevent her from acquiring an infection that would potentially put her on a ventilator in an ICU forcing us to say goodbye to her as she suffocated.
We are now going to be turning off the ventilator, removing the tube, and saying goodbye to her as she suffocates. At least she is brain dead which she would not be if she was dying of covid-19. That's the only blessing we can think of.
The thing that I find so wrong about this type of argument is that the vaccine is not proven to prevent spreading the virus. It is only proven to stop the onset of COVID-19 after one contracts the virus.
So the line of reasoning that argues one should get vaccinated to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is not valid.
Edit: Wow - the downvotes... There is some evidence that transmission is reduced, but it is not proven:
"the risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection in fully vaccinated people cannot be completely eliminated"
I suspect people have a question in their minds for months ("Will the upcoming vaccines prevent a vaccinated person from carrying and spreading the virus?"), and whatever is the first credible reply to that question, they cement it in their understanding ("you may still spread covid if you're vaccinated").
Now we have far more real world data and it appears that even if a vaccinated person is carrying an asymptomatic infection that they shed very little virus. This is not a certainty, but things are leaning that way.
But people can't replace the old "fact" they knew with the new "fact".
Not proven, but looking increasingly likely. From your own link to the CDC, "A growing body of evidence indicates that people fully vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) are less likely to have asymptomatic infection or to transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others."
I'm not sure why people keep saying this. The original studies did not study if the vaccine prevents spread, that is true. I'm not certain myself, but I believe that studies done based on COVID spread in countries where vaccination rates are high (at least Israel) point to the direction that it prevents spread as well. Are these not valid data points?
I thought I read that it was proven to significantly reduce the likelihood of infection as well as completely eliminate the risk of hospitalization if you do get infected. Admittedly, the media coverage was abysmal (everyone was just quoting “90% effective” without clarifying “effective at what?”).
If you are referring to a pro-choice stance, I don't think that's really comparable to a situation where your choice can severely affect not only yourself but all people around you.
However, none of these facts or articles such as this will ever effectively challenge the "get the vaccine or you are a bad citizen and will kill everyone" emotional arguments that are out there.
I have continuously been near or around folks that have come down with Covid and have yet to encounter a second infection or positive test since my initial infection. I look forward to when greater fact-based realities start to take hold again.