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It might prove to be bad too. There have been adverse reactions to the vaccine. Is that likely to happen to me? Probably less likely than a person chosen at ran

It might prove to be bad too. There have been adverse reactions to the vaccine. Is that likely to happen to me? Probably less likely than a person chosen at random given prior exposure to the virus, but why risk it? My Covid experience was not life threatening, but it was no walk in the park either. I've had more than enough of that crap in my body, thank you very much. (Yes, I understand the difference between the virus and the vaccine, in fact that's why the real deal is thought to offer better immunity.) There really is no argument in favor of getting it at this time, just peoples cognitive bias.

jtchang 5y ago
You should risk it because the risk really is minimal and the greater benefit for society is enormous. I don't think people have cognitive bias. There are plenty of arguments in favor of getting it.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  Dude! The risk may be small, but it is not zero. For someone who already has natural immunity, that matters. If serious adverse events are 1 in 100,000 - and I believe they are higher the younger you are - then that's significantly better odds than playing the lottery to end up hurt. And for what? "The greater benefit for society" is actually negative if you've been confirmed to have natural immunity. If there's any point that you have to argue against this, I'd hope you make it instead of throwing out assertions.
  - ukj 5y ago
    Ask these exact questions to the person who originally hesitated to vaccinate and got COVID. The risk of hospitalisation/death wasn’t zero. And yet… they chose COVID through inaction. And for what? “I am not an anti-vaxxer but was holding out” spells “I am an anti-vaxxer but I lucked out”.
    - mandmandam 5y ago
      _Nobody_ chose COVID. And, in the early days, there was no vaccine. In the middle days, the vaccines that were made were used. Now, those who shun a free vaccine - and haven't already caught COVID - are choosing not to lower their risk of contracting COVID in that one way... But that doesn't really help your argument.
      - ukj 5y ago
        Guess you don’t understand default choice, huh? Choosing not to choose commits you to the status quo: risk of COVID hospitalisation/death.
  - guhcampos 5y ago
    > "The greater benefit for society" is actually negative if you've been confirmed to have natural immunity. No, it's not. The very linked article and many others agree that people exposed to both scenarios have more effective, longer lasting immunity than the ones affected by either scenario individually. And the adverse effect risk of a vaccine is not a lottery. At this point with billions of people vaccinated around the world, the risk profiles are pretty accurate, the side effects very well known and unless you are a kid under 18, all vaccines being widely distributed in western countries - which are the ones I cared to do any research on - are effectively zero risk.
    - higherup 5y ago
      >At this point with billions of people vaccinated around the world, the risk profiles are pretty accurate No. With out no strictly mandated reporting of AEFIs, billions of administrated doses cannot indicate a safety profile.. Even with around 1% events reported, the serious events are around 1 in 5000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28311640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28311640
  - higherup 5y ago
    >If serious adverse events are 1 in 100,000 They are not. They are like 1 in 5000 (still based on volutary reporting) https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/vaccine-report-overview.asp https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/vaccine-report-overview...
- beerandt 5y ago
  Then by that logic, you should risk a breakthrough infection to achieve natural immunity levels. Because breakthrough severity risk is "minimal" and the greater benefit for society is enormous. There are plenty of arguments for increasing your immunity by catching it.
cromwellian 5y ago
Wait. Your fearmongering about adverse reactions to the vaccine, but you acknowledge that you had an adverse reaction to COVID and indeed, the # of people with serious COVID complications dwarfs those with vaccine complications by orders of magnitude. Also, this study doesn't seem to segment what the strain the 'natural infection'. The current vaccines are not engineered from the delta strain, but the alpha strains, and therefore it is not surprising you get breakthrough infections. But they don't seem to distinguish in this study between a natural alpha or a natural delta infection. And there is an argument for getting it at this time: 1) If you get a booster, the chances of re-infection/breakthrough go down. In other words, you will not be an infectious disease vector that spreads to other people and increases the R0 value. 2) If you don't, and get re-infected, you will go on to infect other people. Maybe the symptoms won't be bad for you, but they may be deadly to someone else. Whenever these debates about vaccines or masks come up, people always talk about my body and my freedom, but they never seem to consider the fact that their decisions are actually impacting the wider community. This isn't like a libertarian property rights decision about your own fenced in property, when you are infected by COVID, you are invading other people's bodies from your territory, and it behooves you to try and stop spreading to other people.
- solarengineer 5y ago
  I do wonder what is disagreeable about what was said here. This is the reasoning for vaccines around the world.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Everyone's decisions affect everyone. Anyone who used a plane. Went to work. Went out to eat. Left their home. All put society are risk. Have you left your home in the last year? If so you have put others at risk.
  - ukj 5y ago
    The favourite trick of misinformation purveyors is stripping away context. Then they can hide behind equivocation. Risk is risk! Even manifest risk is risk!
  - 5y ago
rolph 5y ago
the best efficacy numbers come from a combination of viral exposure and vaccination, the greatest risk comes from infection with the virus. there is a feature of the spike protien that is partially stealthy; it is conformational change. the vaccine generates modified spike protien that is locked into conformation so that immune response is biased toward a spike protien with RBD extended to infect a cell. natural infection will generate such response however to a lower degree, further however opsinizing responses are generated, thus provoking memory immunity. the vaccine is biased toward producing antibodies that bind to the receptor binding domain of the spike, thus producing binding inhibition of RBD ACE2 recognition thus prophylaxis. there is a hypothetical sweet spot where vaccine induced antibody titre is at peak and will inhibit viral entry and spike RBD dynamics, meaning reduced chance of unmanaged infection and reduced severity of illness due to perturbation of the RAS system via ACE2 interference
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> the best efficacy numbers come from a combination of viral exposure and vaccination... Allow me to accept that at face value, unchallenged. Why does anyone else give a fuck about me getting the vaccine in order to have better efficacy than the great masses who only got the vaccine? Why it so goddamn important to them what I do? My real virus exposure already has better efficacy than the vaccine alone. Why must people push sooo fucking hard on this? It's probably just fear, but other peoples fear is not my responsibility. Sorry for the trigger.
  - rolph 5y ago
    it is not impossible to make informed intelligent decisions regarding your behavior, or the situations you choose to become involved in. there are behavioral alternatives that will minimise your risk and others risk, these alternatives are not for everyone, the psychological challenge of social isolation is not bourne well by many people, however it was the best we had until vaccine production was sufficient to provide population scale administration. please believe me, this is not fear mongering when i say that the >potential< risk posed if this virus generates omega strain variation [hypothetical doomsday strain] would be large and unmanagable. this can happen if, long road taken variations accumulate over time as a result of unchecked transmission and incubation. the short road is co-circulation of variants recombining genetic elements as a result of concurrent multivariant infection. ...and apology accepted, i see you are very passionate about your decision

jtchang 5y ago

You should risk it because the risk really is minimal and the greater benefit for society is enormous. I don't think people have cognitive bias. There are plenty of arguments in favor of getting it.

mandmandam 5y ago
Dude! The risk may be small, but it is not zero. For someone who already has natural immunity, that matters. If serious adverse events are 1 in 100,000 - and I believe they are higher the younger you are - then that's significantly better odds than playing the lottery to end up hurt. And for what? "The greater benefit for society" is actually negative if you've been confirmed to have natural immunity. If there's any point that you have to argue against this, I'd hope you make it instead of throwing out assertions.
- ukj 5y ago
  Ask these exact questions to the person who originally hesitated to vaccinate and got COVID. The risk of hospitalisation/death wasn’t zero. And yet… they chose COVID through inaction. And for what? “I am not an anti-vaxxer but was holding out” spells “I am an anti-vaxxer but I lucked out”.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    _Nobody_ chose COVID. And, in the early days, there was no vaccine. In the middle days, the vaccines that were made were used. Now, those who shun a free vaccine - and haven't already caught COVID - are choosing not to lower their risk of contracting COVID in that one way... But that doesn't really help your argument.
    - ukj 5y ago
      Guess you don’t understand default choice, huh? Choosing not to choose commits you to the status quo: risk of COVID hospitalisation/death.
- guhcampos 5y ago
  > "The greater benefit for society" is actually negative if you've been confirmed to have natural immunity. No, it's not. The very linked article and many others agree that people exposed to both scenarios have more effective, longer lasting immunity than the ones affected by either scenario individually. And the adverse effect risk of a vaccine is not a lottery. At this point with billions of people vaccinated around the world, the risk profiles are pretty accurate, the side effects very well known and unless you are a kid under 18, all vaccines being widely distributed in western countries - which are the ones I cared to do any research on - are effectively zero risk.
  - higherup 5y ago
    >At this point with billions of people vaccinated around the world, the risk profiles are pretty accurate No. With out no strictly mandated reporting of AEFIs, billions of administrated doses cannot indicate a safety profile.. Even with around 1% events reported, the serious events are around 1 in 5000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28311640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28311640
- higherup 5y ago
  >If serious adverse events are 1 in 100,000 They are not. They are like 1 in 5000 (still based on volutary reporting) https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/vaccine-report-overview.asp https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/vaccine-report-overview...
beerandt 5y ago
Then by that logic, you should risk a breakthrough infection to achieve natural immunity levels. Because breakthrough severity risk is "minimal" and the greater benefit for society is enormous. There are plenty of arguments for increasing your immunity by catching it.

cromwellian 5y ago

Wait. Your fearmongering about adverse reactions to the vaccine, but you acknowledge that you had an adverse reaction to COVID and indeed, the # of people with serious COVID complications dwarfs those with vaccine complications by orders of magnitude. Also, this study doesn't seem to segment what the strain the 'natural infection'. The current vaccines are not engineered from the delta strain, but the alpha strains, and therefore it is not surprising you get breakthrough infections. But they don't seem to distinguish in this study between a natural alpha or a natural delta infection. And there is an argument for getting it at this time: 1) If you get a booster, the chances of re-infection/breakthrough go down. In other words, you will not be an infectious disease vector that spreads to other people and increases the R0 value. 2) If you don't, and get re-infected, you will go on to infect other people. Maybe the symptoms won't be bad for you, but they may be deadly to someone else. Whenever these debates about vaccines or masks come up, people always talk about my body and my freedom, but they never seem to consider the fact that their decisions are actually impacting the wider community. This isn't like a libertarian property rights decision about your own fenced in property, when you are infected by COVID, you are invading other people's bodies from your territory, and it behooves you to try and stop spreading to other people.

solarengineer 5y ago
I do wonder what is disagreeable about what was said here. This is the reasoning for vaccines around the world.
ipaddr 5y ago
Everyone's decisions affect everyone. Anyone who used a plane. Went to work. Went out to eat. Left their home. All put society are risk. Have you left your home in the last year? If so you have put others at risk.
- ukj 5y ago
  The favourite trick of misinformation purveyors is stripping away context. Then they can hide behind equivocation. Risk is risk! Even manifest risk is risk!
- 5y ago

rolph 5y ago

the best efficacy numbers come from a combination of viral exposure and vaccination, the greatest risk comes from infection with the virus. there is a feature of the spike protien that is partially stealthy; it is conformational change. the vaccine generates modified spike protien that is locked into conformation so that immune response is biased toward a spike protien with RBD extended to infect a cell. natural infection will generate such response however to a lower degree, further however opsinizing responses are generated, thus provoking memory immunity. the vaccine is biased toward producing antibodies that bind to the receptor binding domain of the spike, thus producing binding inhibition of RBD ACE2 recognition thus prophylaxis. there is a hypothetical sweet spot where vaccine induced antibody titre is at peak and will inhibit viral entry and spike RBD dynamics, meaning reduced chance of unmanaged infection and reduced severity of illness due to perturbation of the RAS system via ACE2 interference

phkahler 5y ago
>> the best efficacy numbers come from a combination of viral exposure and vaccination... Allow me to accept that at face value, unchallenged. Why does anyone else give a fuck about me getting the vaccine in order to have better efficacy than the great masses who only got the vaccine? Why it so goddamn important to them what I do? My real virus exposure already has better efficacy than the vaccine alone. Why must people push sooo fucking hard on this? It's probably just fear, but other peoples fear is not my responsibility. Sorry for the trigger.
- rolph 5y ago
  it is not impossible to make informed intelligent decisions regarding your behavior, or the situations you choose to become involved in. there are behavioral alternatives that will minimise your risk and others risk, these alternatives are not for everyone, the psychological challenge of social isolation is not bourne well by many people, however it was the best we had until vaccine production was sufficient to provide population scale administration. please believe me, this is not fear mongering when i say that the >potential< risk posed if this virus generates omega strain variation [hypothetical doomsday strain] would be large and unmanagable. this can happen if, long road taken variations accumulate over time as a result of unchecked transmission and incubation. the short road is co-circulation of variants recombining genetic elements as a result of concurrent multivariant infection. ...and apology accepted, i see you are very passionate about your decision