* 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.
* 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.