4 ms·

I see nobody answered, so I'll take a brief shot at giving my understanding. It seems like natural immunity is good enough, if you indeed have built successful

I see nobody answered, so I'll take a brief shot at giving my understanding. It seems like natural immunity is good enough, if you indeed have built successful defenses. But eventually this hope was probably going to be tested (particularly in the absence of vaccines, or if you like to travel). Therefore, you are risking side-effects with or without vaccination, simply by being alive, as this is just the baseline of risk profile. But getting the vaccination gives your body a test for preparedness that has a very very low risk of side effects (demonstrated), instead of waiting until the next time you are in the same room as someone infectious and your immune system gets tested with the virus itself, which has a fairly low risk of side effects (demonstrated), but is much riskier. This is a tricky argument, as both the benefits and risks are small, so it can be especially hard to accurately weigh them. One could perhaps as transfer this understanding to to the flu shot: it is inconvenient to remember, it might have mild side effects, and it might not help. Or it could save your life. Thus it seems overall positive for most people (tiny risk, moderate benefit) and just easier to say everyone should get the shots, unless their doctor advises they have a rare underlying condition that makes it unadvisable.

pbak 5y ago
Thank you for your answer. I think I got it. I propose an anectode from personal experience, with an actual risk realized and my understanding in conclusion, to see if I got what you wrote clearly : It is advised not to drink at all before driving, nor to be a passenger of such a driver as you risk death. But, there are still seat-belts. While most national laws allows you to drive fine with one glass of wine (people generally drive just fine in such circumstances), they don't allow you not to have your seat-belt on. That's law, even if those belts might sometimes hurt you while acting (broken rib, chafing). I followed the first and second rule from years 18 -> 26 accident free. The first time I broke the first, I got into a bad accident, but with seat-belts on. We were extirpated from a frontal collision with a very solid static object at 80 mph. Myself and my passenger didn't literally even have a scratch on us. The car had become a contemporary art sculpture. The police on the scene couldn't believe their eyes. So, risk tiny enough for laws to allow it (your risking an accident no matter what while driving, even without alcohol) but once realized (driving with alcohol without a seat-belt), you have a higher probability of morbidity or lethality without the second protection measure, the seat-belt. Hence, in the case of natural immunity and mRNA treatments, two protection measures are better than one at giving you that slight edge against higher risks morbidity or lethality from catching a new Covid variant, which are greater than the risk of morbidity coming from second measure. Did I understand you correctly ?
- manwe150 5y ago
  I think it shares aspects of defense-in-depth with your example. I am not sure the other details are quite as similar, since testing your immunity response with vaccination also typically strengthens your response, while getting into once accident doesn't much change your future probability of an accident. To offer another example inspired by recent news, some companies were recently attacked by ransomware (a "virus") which cost them money and time. Many companies advocate for regularly simulating attacks on themselves periodically (a "vaccine" trial), though that test also carries a risk of real damage to their company. In theory, the company might have already been making backups to protect against that risk (a "natural immunity" assumption), but until that was tested, they didn't know. Hence taking a slight risk, by getting a vaccination shot, to test your body's protection measures, gives you a slight edge in the reduction of the potential for harm from later re-exposure.
  - pbak 5y ago
    Fully got it now, thanks. edit: As I wrote you the above, and explored the subject further, this just dropped into pre-print, which might be of interest, as it seemingly gives a number to the risk difference : https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/vaccines/vaccines-09-00693/article_deploy/vaccines-09-00693-v2.pdf https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/vaccines/vaccines-09-00693... Key conclusion from the abstract : "For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination".
    - detaro 5y ago
      "Seemingly". 3 authors that are not from the field (a psychologist studying/teaching various esoteric topics, a radiation physicist and an "independent data scientist" I can't find much about) weirdly mixing cherry-picked data to come to a conclusion that means that a 5-digit number of people have already died from covid vaccines. E.g. they calculate some estimation of how many people need to be vaccinated to prevent 1 death based on data for not-fully-vaccinated people, and then take events reported in side-effect databases (which by design collect as many reports as possible, without establishing a causal link between treatment and side-effect), cherry-picked for the country with the largest number of reports, as "deaths caused by vaccine" and extrapolate that. At least one member of the journals editorial board has already quit over the decision to publish this: https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1408762002512789509 https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/14087620025127895...

pbak 5y ago

Thank you for your answer. I think I got it. I propose an anectode from personal experience, with an actual risk realized and my understanding in conclusion, to see if I got what you wrote clearly : It is advised not to drink at all before driving, nor to be a passenger of such a driver as you risk death. But, there are still seat-belts. While most national laws allows you to drive fine with one glass of wine (people generally drive just fine in such circumstances), they don't allow you not to have your seat-belt on. That's law, even if those belts might sometimes hurt you while acting (broken rib, chafing). I followed the first and second rule from years 18 -> 26 accident free. The first time I broke the first, I got into a bad accident, but with seat-belts on. We were extirpated from a frontal collision with a very solid static object at 80 mph. Myself and my passenger didn't literally even have a scratch on us. The car had become a contemporary art sculpture. The police on the scene couldn't believe their eyes. So, risk tiny enough for laws to allow it (your risking an accident no matter what while driving, even without alcohol) but once realized (driving with alcohol without a seat-belt), you have a higher probability of morbidity or lethality without the second protection measure, the seat-belt. Hence, in the case of natural immunity and mRNA treatments, two protection measures are better than one at giving you that slight edge against higher risks morbidity or lethality from catching a new Covid variant, which are greater than the risk of morbidity coming from second measure. Did I understand you correctly ?

manwe150 5y ago
I think it shares aspects of defense-in-depth with your example. I am not sure the other details are quite as similar, since testing your immunity response with vaccination also typically strengthens your response, while getting into once accident doesn't much change your future probability of an accident. To offer another example inspired by recent news, some companies were recently attacked by ransomware (a "virus") which cost them money and time. Many companies advocate for regularly simulating attacks on themselves periodically (a "vaccine" trial), though that test also carries a risk of real damage to their company. In theory, the company might have already been making backups to protect against that risk (a "natural immunity" assumption), but until that was tested, they didn't know. Hence taking a slight risk, by getting a vaccination shot, to test your body's protection measures, gives you a slight edge in the reduction of the potential for harm from later re-exposure.
- pbak 5y ago
  Fully got it now, thanks. edit: As I wrote you the above, and explored the subject further, this just dropped into pre-print, which might be of interest, as it seemingly gives a number to the risk difference : https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/vaccines/vaccines-09-00693/article_deploy/vaccines-09-00693-v2.pdf https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/vaccines/vaccines-09-00693... Key conclusion from the abstract : "For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination".
  - detaro 5y ago
    "Seemingly". 3 authors that are not from the field (a psychologist studying/teaching various esoteric topics, a radiation physicist and an "independent data scientist" I can't find much about) weirdly mixing cherry-picked data to come to a conclusion that means that a 5-digit number of people have already died from covid vaccines. E.g. they calculate some estimation of how many people need to be vaccinated to prevent 1 death based on data for not-fully-vaccinated people, and then take events reported in side-effect databases (which by design collect as many reports as possible, without establishing a causal link between treatment and side-effect), cherry-picked for the country with the largest number of reports, as "deaths caused by vaccine" and extrapolate that. At least one member of the journals editorial board has already quit over the decision to publish this: https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1408762002512789509 https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/14087620025127895...