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From an economic perspective, if the cost of the vaccine is less than the cost of the test, you just use the vaccine. "Natural immunity" makes sense as an objec
by scythe 5y ago
From an economic perspective, if the cost of the vaccine is less than the cost of the test, you just use the vaccine. "Natural immunity" makes sense as an objection if the individual had a recorded earlier infection, but administering 300M pre-infection tests and 200M vaccines is likely to be less efficient than just administering 300M vaccines. The more sophisticated of a test you demand, the stronger this argument becomes.
- km3r 5y agoI think Canada accepts positive covid tests as proof of prior infection, and many people already have those tests done and just sitting in their email.
- mthoms 5y agoNot true to my knowledge. Sorry. - A Canadian.
- scythe 5y agoI mean, that's fine, but it's not what the parent was asking for. It seemed that they were implying we needed to catch every pre-infection, and the lack of development of highly sensitive tests for pre-infection was evidence of some negligence. I was arguing against developing "T-cell tests" for prior COVID infection. My comment was not intended to be an argument against any testing for pre-infection; I think the rationale for that is pretty solid, but I think that the regulatory establishment needs to be prepared to inform people that they might not be able to prove their previous infection and in that case they should get vaccinated.
- jeromegv 5y agoCanada doesn't have a national health care system, this is managed by each provinces. Quebec is the only province that will let you get only 1 dose of the vaccine, instead of 2, if you were previously infected. With that 1 dose, that's enough to have access to the vaccine passport. But there are absolutely no places in Canada that accepts prior infection as being fully vaccinated.
- gizmondo 5y agoYou should at least account for additional sick days, tens of millions of them.
- BHSPitMonkey 5y agoCan you be sure the temporary side effects (caused by the engagement of the immune system) wouldn't be diminished for people with existing immunity? It might not be as much of a concern.
- gizmondo 5y agoI can't be sure, could go either way. Remember for instance that the second dose causes on average worse side effects.
- jjeaff 5y agoI believe one of the major studies that found that natural immunity was better than the Pfizer shot alone also found that natural immunity plus the shot was better still.
- freeflight 5y agoYou would just be administering a cure, without having an actual diagnosis, which is by definition more wasteful. Particularly when natural immunity comes for "free" and apparently works better, at that point insisting on vaccines for everybody is just completely nonsensical. Rather shift resources to testing to get costs for that down, which is more work, but also doesn't come with the risk of later discovering "Oops, this vaccine that made people filthy rich turned out to have some nasty long-term side-effects!". Which is also a very real possibility, considering they've been developed and approved in record time with the population at large acting as subjects for the first non-clinical trials.
- dredmorbius 5y agoA vaccine is an innoculation and prophylactic, not a cure. The prophylactic costs less than the diagnostic. It has negligible risk of harm. It's a determinable and unambiguous event, unlike trying to verify a possible infection and sustained immune response. The obvious rational policy decision for public health is to mandate the vaccine for everyone. Those not previously infected gain immunity. Those previously infected ... either get a not-strictly-necessary injection, or far more likely, a useful booster. And the administration, diagnostic, and monitoring costs are far lower.