12 ms·

I think it's crazy and dogmatic when authorities know that natural immunity is as good as induced immunity[1] via vaccines but never the less remain steadfast i

by mc32 5y ago

I think it's crazy and dogmatic when authorities know that natural immunity is as good as induced immunity[1] via vaccines but never the less remain steadfast in the face of evidence with their dogmatism that only vaccine immunity is acceptable. It's an argument we might expect from someone who is ignorant, for example, but not from people who should know better. If they were to remain consistent then they would also invalidate J&J vaccines given those are viral vector vaccines. Note: I am vaccinated and favor vaccination for those not exposed or unvaxxed, but I also believe that if you have had Covid19 you do not need MOAR immunity. You already have it. [1]https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...

devwastaken 5y ago
Unless you're a virologist, I don't want you opinion on the efficacy and reasons for vaccination. If I wanted to know if I can trust a bridge I'd ask people intimate with the details. Anyone else speaking in their place is muddying the waters.
- temp8964 5y ago
  Lol. University administrators are not virologists.
  - devwastaken 5y ago
    No, but if their policy is based on real expertise and evidence, and not joe bob "whos a doctor", then I trust that knowledge far more. Everyone of every background has tried to comment on the efficacy and reasoning of vaccines, they do this by being intellectually dishonest and citing papers they don't understand, ignoring that medical science is a science like any other - there's a lot of published material and specific expertise necessary to grok it. At most people will look at the graphs pictured and think they understand how that graph works. Case in point the israel study.
justwanttolearn 5y ago
If immunity is what people cared about, shouldn't we just do antibodies test instead of a blanket vaccine on all? Some people double vaxxed still present low antibodies. Everyone's biology is going to react differently.
mgarfias 5y ago
Had a discussion with a buddy and his doc wife Monday. She pointed out that the immune system might learn some weird protein on the variant X particle. Which leaves you open to variant Y which doesn’t have that protein. But the spike protein the current generation of vaxes target is common to all of the variants.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  I’ve read something different, which is that natural immunity likely comes with recognition of multiple markers, not just the spike protein, and therefore gives you the ability to respond to a wider range of variants. Now I’m not sure what to believe. But in the absence of definitive and absolute evidence, I lean in favor of individual freedoms and civil liberties rather than mandates.
  - mc32 5y ago
    The Science article's[1] subheading quotes: "Israelis who had an infection were more protected against the Delta coronavirus variant than those who had an already highly effective COVID-19 vaccine" [1]https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...
    - lamassu 5y ago
      https://ncrc.jhsph.edu/research/comparing-sars-cov-2-natural-immunity-to-vaccine-induced-immunity-reinfections-versus-breakthrough-infections/ https://ncrc.jhsph.edu/research/comparing-sars-cov-2-natural... "In addition, individuals who were previously infected who received one dose of the Pfizer vaccine were even more protected from breakthrough infection than the naturally infected group. There were no deaths in any of the groups examined. Given that previously infected individuals may have had multiple infections prior to the study period, the overall applicability of the study to all populations needs more clarification. Lastly, these findings should not be taken as an endorsement that getting infected is a better overall option for protection than the highly effective vaccines that are available as only those who survived initial infection were eligible for analysis."
poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
Or when countries like Denmark and Sweden halt moderna for under 30's citing inflammation reactions. As much as there is a crusade to dismiss the VAERS database it does pretty obviously suggest that there is quite a bit more risk here than in traditional vaccines.
- jollybean 5y ago
  The 'traditional' i.e. non-RNA Oxford vaccine has somewhat greater risk profile than Moderna.
- shlant 5y ago
  > As much as there is a crusade to dismiss the VAERS database there is not a "crusade to dismiss" VAERS data. There is a push to correctly remind people about the shortcomings of VAERS reports for which that has been the case (and made known[1]) for as long as it has existed. The "crusade" is to use VAERS to misinform people. [1]https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html
shlant 5y ago
From what I understand, the immune response from natural infection varies dependent on the individual and circumstance, so some may have tested positive with their immune system not eliciting as robust a response as someone who was vaccinated (or infected under different circumstances). So you could have person A who tests positive but with very low viral load and was asymptomatic (for example) and their immune response is much less robust than person B who was symptomatic. When they encounter the same variant in the future, person A may have much less protection (or none at all[1]) compared to person B. I'm not sure if we have nailed down what tests tell us the robustness of someones immunity accurately to be able to rely on them for something like health passes. Another factor I have come across is that it may be that natural immunity is more variant specific while the vaccine results in a immune response to a wider array of variants. This seems like it may be valid considering the situation in Brazil[2] and with our understanding of the flu, but I am not sure the mechanism for this. Lastly (as mentioned in another comment) it can create perverse incentives where people will do something like "covid parties" to gain natural immunity which would make things worse. The vaccine on the other hand has a dose which is of a known quantity and the response from that dose is well understood across many demographics. So it may come down to the fact that we understand the vaccine response better than natural responses. I'm not saying whether or not any of this is a good enough reason not to allow for natural immunity to be just as valid, but it's what I have come to understand (which may be incorrect) based on the data we have. [1] https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394
- mc32 5y ago
  Let's suppose the above is true (I think that's not settled, but let's say it is), then what do we do about people who took less effective (approved) vaccines? That will also allow for infection. What do we do about them?
  - shlant 5y ago
    it seems like the current logic is to mix vaccines to create the most robust vaccine immune response, but depending on availability that may be easier said than done.
murphyslab 5y ago
While in principle it sounds good, recognizing the substantial level of immunity of individuals with past COVID-19 infections, and would probably be fine in a sane world, I feel that this creates some risky incentives. Many anti-vax and conspiracy-oriented people unfortunately have the false belief that COVID-19 infection is a trivial matter or a hoax. Consequently, some may resort to pox parties [0] as a way to avoid vaccination. And yes, people have tried this: > And this was no ordinary party–it was a “COVID party”, where guests tried to intentionally get the virus to “build up natural immunity” without getting vaccinated. [1] If people were to intentionally try to gain immunity through exposure, at least 5% of them (and their subsequent infected contacts) will end up in the hospital, consuming healthcare resources. That seems a foolish risk to take, politically. The aforementioned people who tried it in Alberta ended up filling several beds in the hospital: > A party west of Edmonton has landed several people in the hospital with COVID-19, sources have confirmed to CityNews. [1] In reality, if you've already had COVID it is a trivial act to get vaccinated. That vaccination will help boost your immune response to the disease and may even help to limit your risk of breakthrough infection. I can't see a serious, legitimate reason to not get the vaccine in such cases. And to allow otherwise creates dangerous incentives. [0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party [1]: https://www.660citynews.com/2021/09/23/alberta-covid-party-hospital/ https://www.660citynews.com/2021/09/23/alberta-covid-party-h...
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  So let's just keep firing natural-immunity only people? Surely they won't lose all faith in government and corporate institutions when they're being fired for negligible benefit...
  - murphyslab 5y ago
    > they're being fired for negligible benefit You are only measuring "benefit" to the individual. They're mandated to do something with zero cost and minimal risk. And it comes with massive benefit to the group and to the public as a whole. They're being mandated because there is a huge cost to infection. The Canadian government pays an average of $23,000 for every person that gets hospitalized by COVID. [0] Roughly 5% of those infected require hospitalization. And we have already seen numerous people blocked from timely access to healthcare due to hospitals being filled with COVID patients. It's good public policy to require vaccination. Providing incentive to get infected is a really bad idea because it will result in healthcare resources being massively oversubscribed. Besides, infection-acquired immunity is not permanent. The virus mutates and it is likely that additional vaccination will eventually be required for subsequent variants. [0] : https://www.cihi.ca/en/covid-19-hospital-stays-cost-3-times-more-than-a-stay-for-heart-attack https://www.cihi.ca/en/covid-19-hospital-stays-cost-3-times-...
Retric 5y ago
That’s a false premise, vaccination still has value after an infection. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... “In today’s MMWR, a study of COVID-19 infections in Kentucky among people who were previously infected with SAR-CoV-2 shows that unvaccinated individuals are more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting the virus. These data further indicate that COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone and that vaccines, even after prior infection, help prevent reinfections.”
- mc32 5y ago
  Ok. mRNAs are evaluated to have an efficacy of ~95%; J&J (adenovirus) at 67%. Are then the J&J recipients mandated to get an mRNA too, so that they not get infected at higher rates than their mRNA recipients?
  - m0zg 5y ago
    Pfizer was recently downgraded to 39% efficacy after a few months: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7. So unless you'd like IaaS to mean "immunity as a service" and pay Pfizer in perpetuity every 3 months or so, vaccines merely prepare you to tolerate the real thing a little better making this novel virus not so novel. You can't "stop covid" with them, and why the authorities continue to lie about this, I can't even fathom at this point. Not to put too fine a point on this, but make no mistake, vaccine or no vaccine, you _will_ get COVID. You'll just be 10x less likely to die from it, although that's being called into question as well by now. Be that as it may if you're on the older side and/or obese, you should get vaccinated if you haven't had COVID yet. I did. I've also lost 15 kilos so far, and I don't intend to take any "boosters".
- radford-neal 5y ago
  The CDC press release you link to is misinformation. Its title is "New CDC Study: Vaccination Offers Higher Protection than Previous COVID-19 Infection". But that is not what the study demonstrates. It demonstrates instead that getting vaccinated in addition to having had COVID-19 previously improves immunity. It does not demonstrate that people who are only vaccinated (not previously infected) have higher immunity than people who were prevously infected (and not vaccinated).
jollybean 5y ago
This is problematic for a few reasons: 1) There are varying levels of infection and immunity, and we really don't know how that bell curve works in the population at large. 2) We can't effectively test in order to objectively assess who is naturally protected. 3) From a public policy perspective, it's a total disaster: if we 'require' immunity, a unbelievably large portion of the population will opt to get COVID instead of the vaccine. This is the real kicker right here. If the population acted in any way reasonably, I think that some kind of antibody test, or even declaration from a doctor might work fine. But we are, as a general population, still in the illiterate dark ages. I spent a day at a family members house where he had his FB profile videos playing out loud - it was the most insane stuff I've ever heard, I thought it was satire, it was not. It was video after video of completely insane conspiracy theorists, most of them total nobodies but trying to gain an audience, extolling unbelievable things. My family member believes that he has access to special 'privileged information' (even though it's just random videos on Facebook) and he utterly will not believe anything that he hears on the news. The doctors on TV are all liars, the vaccine is a big scam. He's a 'Wolf' while the rest of us are 'Sheep'. Etc.. I would not have believed this new social phenomenon (it's new at least at this scale) until I witnessed it myself - fake information has turned a material portion of the population into zombies. 4) It's moot - the vaccine is safe and effective. So people can just take it and that's that. Conscientious objectors are fine, they just can't work in hospitals, at least for now.
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > We can't effectively test in order to objectively assess who is naturally protected. There are over 43 million Americans who have already survived a lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. You don't need to test them. Their status can be verified just as easily as a person who has a CDC vaccination card. Oh but it's "protection" you want to talk about? The reality is that you can't measure real-world protection in any given individual with natural immunity or vaccine-based immunity. The vast majority of people who have been vaccinated don't test their antibody titers (ever, and over time) and even if they did, there are no validated models for correlating antibody titers to real-world protection. Antibodies aren't the end-all and be-all of immunity. Immunity is complex, and there are a variety of factors (memory T and B cell responses, your overall immune health, the viral loads you're exposed to, etc.) that determine how your body will respond to a pathogen. Moving away from family anecdotes, here's an actual case: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4307460 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4307460 A pilot in her 40s who received her second dose of Moderna in early August had a breakthrough infection in October. Data suggests that Moderna is the most effective vaccine and a person in her 40s is not in the age group (65+) where we see vaccine efficacy waning most quickly. So a person who got the most effective vaccine, who is healthy enough to be a commercial airline pilot, who is not 65+, and who was fully vaccinated for less than 2 months, when her antibody titers would be expected to be very high, can still catch a breakthrough case.
raxxorrax 5y ago
I don't think I will get any boosters, the behavior of authorities is atrocious and irresponsible on this matter. We wouldn't even have had a problem when we had fewer people out for the evil anti-vaxxers. I think authority needs a clear bump on their ideas. They already got enough, but they seem to learn quite slowly. > I am vaccinated and favor vaccination Me too, but that doesn't matter. That should be nobodies business from now on.

by mc32 5y ago

devwastaken 5y ago

Unless you're a virologist, I don't want you opinion on the efficacy and reasons for vaccination. If I wanted to know if I can trust a bridge I'd ask people intimate with the details. Anyone else speaking in their place is muddying the waters.

temp8964 5y ago
Lol. University administrators are not virologists.
- devwastaken 5y ago
  No, but if their policy is based on real expertise and evidence, and not joe bob "whos a doctor", then I trust that knowledge far more. Everyone of every background has tried to comment on the efficacy and reasoning of vaccines, they do this by being intellectually dishonest and citing papers they don't understand, ignoring that medical science is a science like any other - there's a lot of published material and specific expertise necessary to grok it. At most people will look at the graphs pictured and think they understand how that graph works. Case in point the israel study.

justwanttolearn 5y ago

If immunity is what people cared about, shouldn't we just do antibodies test instead of a blanket vaccine on all? Some people double vaxxed still present low antibodies. Everyone's biology is going to react differently.

mgarfias 5y ago

Had a discussion with a buddy and his doc wife Monday. She pointed out that the immune system might learn some weird protein on the variant X particle. Which leaves you open to variant Y which doesn’t have that protein. But the spike protein the current generation of vaxes target is common to all of the variants.

throwawaysea 5y ago
I’ve read something different, which is that natural immunity likely comes with recognition of multiple markers, not just the spike protein, and therefore gives you the ability to respond to a wider range of variants. Now I’m not sure what to believe. But in the absence of definitive and absolute evidence, I lean in favor of individual freedoms and civil liberties rather than mandates.
- mc32 5y ago
  The Science article's[1] subheading quotes: "Israelis who had an infection were more protected against the Delta coronavirus variant than those who had an already highly effective COVID-19 vaccine" [1]https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...
  - lamassu 5y ago
    https://ncrc.jhsph.edu/research/comparing-sars-cov-2-natural-immunity-to-vaccine-induced-immunity-reinfections-versus-breakthrough-infections/ https://ncrc.jhsph.edu/research/comparing-sars-cov-2-natural... "In addition, individuals who were previously infected who received one dose of the Pfizer vaccine were even more protected from breakthrough infection than the naturally infected group. There were no deaths in any of the groups examined. Given that previously infected individuals may have had multiple infections prior to the study period, the overall applicability of the study to all populations needs more clarification. Lastly, these findings should not be taken as an endorsement that getting infected is a better overall option for protection than the highly effective vaccines that are available as only those who survived initial infection were eligible for analysis."

poorjohnmacafee 5y ago

Or when countries like Denmark and Sweden halt moderna for under 30's citing inflammation reactions. As much as there is a crusade to dismiss the VAERS database it does pretty obviously suggest that there is quite a bit more risk here than in traditional vaccines.

jollybean 5y ago
The 'traditional' i.e. non-RNA Oxford vaccine has somewhat greater risk profile than Moderna.
shlant 5y ago
> As much as there is a crusade to dismiss the VAERS database there is not a "crusade to dismiss" VAERS data. There is a push to correctly remind people about the shortcomings of VAERS reports for which that has been the case (and made known[1]) for as long as it has existed. The "crusade" is to use VAERS to misinform people. [1]https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html

shlant 5y ago

From what I understand, the immune response from natural infection varies dependent on the individual and circumstance, so some may have tested positive with their immune system not eliciting as robust a response as someone who was vaccinated (or infected under different circumstances). So you could have person A who tests positive but with very low viral load and was asymptomatic (for example) and their immune response is much less robust than person B who was symptomatic. When they encounter the same variant in the future, person A may have much less protection (or none at all[1]) compared to person B. I'm not sure if we have nailed down what tests tell us the robustness of someones immunity accurately to be able to rely on them for something like health passes. Another factor I have come across is that it may be that natural immunity is more variant specific while the vaccine results in a immune response to a wider array of variants. This seems like it may be valid considering the situation in Brazil[2] and with our understanding of the flu, but I am not sure the mechanism for this. Lastly (as mentioned in another comment) it can create perverse incentives where people will do something like "covid parties" to gain natural immunity which would make things worse. The vaccine on the other hand has a dose which is of a known quantity and the response from that dose is well understood across many demographics. So it may come down to the fact that we understand the vaccine response better than natural responses. I'm not saying whether or not any of this is a good enough reason not to allow for natural immunity to be just as valid, but it's what I have come to understand (which may be incorrect) based on the data we have. [1] https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394

mc32 5y ago
Let's suppose the above is true (I think that's not settled, but let's say it is), then what do we do about people who took less effective (approved) vaccines? That will also allow for infection. What do we do about them?
- shlant 5y ago
  it seems like the current logic is to mix vaccines to create the most robust vaccine immune response, but depending on availability that may be easier said than done.

murphyslab 5y ago

While in principle it sounds good, recognizing the substantial level of immunity of individuals with past COVID-19 infections, and would probably be fine in a sane world, I feel that this creates some risky incentives. Many anti-vax and conspiracy-oriented people unfortunately have the false belief that COVID-19 infection is a trivial matter or a hoax. Consequently, some may resort to pox parties [0] as a way to avoid vaccination. And yes, people have tried this: > And this was no ordinary party–it was a “COVID party”, where guests tried to intentionally get the virus to “build up natural immunity” without getting vaccinated. [1] If people were to intentionally try to gain immunity through exposure, at least 5% of them (and their subsequent infected contacts) will end up in the hospital, consuming healthcare resources. That seems a foolish risk to take, politically. The aforementioned people who tried it in Alberta ended up filling several beds in the hospital: > A party west of Edmonton has landed several people in the hospital with COVID-19, sources have confirmed to CityNews. [1] In reality, if you've already had COVID it is a trivial act to get vaccinated. That vaccination will help boost your immune response to the disease and may even help to limit your risk of breakthrough infection. I can't see a serious, legitimate reason to not get the vaccine in such cases. And to allow otherwise creates dangerous incentives. [0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party [1]: https://www.660citynews.com/2021/09/23/alberta-covid-party-hospital/ https://www.660citynews.com/2021/09/23/alberta-covid-party-h...

reducesuffering 5y ago
So let's just keep firing natural-immunity only people? Surely they won't lose all faith in government and corporate institutions when they're being fired for negligible benefit...
- murphyslab 5y ago
  > they're being fired for negligible benefit You are only measuring "benefit" to the individual. They're mandated to do something with zero cost and minimal risk. And it comes with massive benefit to the group and to the public as a whole. They're being mandated because there is a huge cost to infection. The Canadian government pays an average of $23,000 for every person that gets hospitalized by COVID. [0] Roughly 5% of those infected require hospitalization. And we have already seen numerous people blocked from timely access to healthcare due to hospitals being filled with COVID patients. It's good public policy to require vaccination. Providing incentive to get infected is a really bad idea because it will result in healthcare resources being massively oversubscribed. Besides, infection-acquired immunity is not permanent. The virus mutates and it is likely that additional vaccination will eventually be required for subsequent variants. [0] : https://www.cihi.ca/en/covid-19-hospital-stays-cost-3-times-more-than-a-stay-for-heart-attack https://www.cihi.ca/en/covid-19-hospital-stays-cost-3-times-...

Retric 5y ago

That’s a false premise, vaccination still has value after an infection. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... “In today’s MMWR, a study of COVID-19 infections in Kentucky among people who were previously infected with SAR-CoV-2 shows that unvaccinated individuals are more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting the virus. These data further indicate that COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone and that vaccines, even after prior infection, help prevent reinfections.”

mc32 5y ago
Ok. mRNAs are evaluated to have an efficacy of ~95%; J&J (adenovirus) at 67%. Are then the J&J recipients mandated to get an mRNA too, so that they not get infected at higher rates than their mRNA recipients?
- m0zg 5y ago
  Pfizer was recently downgraded to 39% efficacy after a few months: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7. So unless you'd like IaaS to mean "immunity as a service" and pay Pfizer in perpetuity every 3 months or so, vaccines merely prepare you to tolerate the real thing a little better making this novel virus not so novel. You can't "stop covid" with them, and why the authorities continue to lie about this, I can't even fathom at this point. Not to put too fine a point on this, but make no mistake, vaccine or no vaccine, you _will_ get COVID. You'll just be 10x less likely to die from it, although that's being called into question as well by now. Be that as it may if you're on the older side and/or obese, you should get vaccinated if you haven't had COVID yet. I did. I've also lost 15 kilos so far, and I don't intend to take any "boosters".
radford-neal 5y ago
The CDC press release you link to is misinformation. Its title is "New CDC Study: Vaccination Offers Higher Protection than Previous COVID-19 Infection". But that is not what the study demonstrates. It demonstrates instead that getting vaccinated in addition to having had COVID-19 previously improves immunity. It does not demonstrate that people who are only vaccinated (not previously infected) have higher immunity than people who were prevously infected (and not vaccinated).

jollybean 5y ago

This is problematic for a few reasons: 1) There are varying levels of infection and immunity, and we really don't know how that bell curve works in the population at large. 2) We can't effectively test in order to objectively assess who is naturally protected. 3) From a public policy perspective, it's a total disaster: if we 'require' immunity, a unbelievably large portion of the population will opt to get COVID instead of the vaccine. This is the real kicker right here. If the population acted in any way reasonably, I think that some kind of antibody test, or even declaration from a doctor might work fine. But we are, as a general population, still in the illiterate dark ages. I spent a day at a family members house where he had his FB profile videos playing out loud - it was the most insane stuff I've ever heard, I thought it was satire, it was not. It was video after video of completely insane conspiracy theorists, most of them total nobodies but trying to gain an audience, extolling unbelievable things. My family member believes that he has access to special 'privileged information' (even though it's just random videos on Facebook) and he utterly will not believe anything that he hears on the news. The doctors on TV are all liars, the vaccine is a big scam. He's a 'Wolf' while the rest of us are 'Sheep'. Etc.. I would not have believed this new social phenomenon (it's new at least at this scale) until I witnessed it myself - fake information has turned a material portion of the population into zombies. 4) It's moot - the vaccine is safe and effective. So people can just take it and that's that. Conscientious objectors are fine, they just can't work in hospitals, at least for now.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> We can't effectively test in order to objectively assess who is naturally protected. There are over 43 million Americans who have already survived a lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. You don't need to test them. Their status can be verified just as easily as a person who has a CDC vaccination card. Oh but it's "protection" you want to talk about? The reality is that you can't measure real-world protection in any given individual with natural immunity or vaccine-based immunity. The vast majority of people who have been vaccinated don't test their antibody titers (ever, and over time) and even if they did, there are no validated models for correlating antibody titers to real-world protection. Antibodies aren't the end-all and be-all of immunity. Immunity is complex, and there are a variety of factors (memory T and B cell responses, your overall immune health, the viral loads you're exposed to, etc.) that determine how your body will respond to a pathogen. Moving away from family anecdotes, here's an actual case: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4307460 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4307460 A pilot in her 40s who received her second dose of Moderna in early August had a breakthrough infection in October. Data suggests that Moderna is the most effective vaccine and a person in her 40s is not in the age group (65+) where we see vaccine efficacy waning most quickly. So a person who got the most effective vaccine, who is healthy enough to be a commercial airline pilot, who is not 65+, and who was fully vaccinated for less than 2 months, when her antibody titers would be expected to be very high, can still catch a breakthrough case.

raxxorrax 5y ago

I don't think I will get any boosters, the behavior of authorities is atrocious and irresponsible on this matter. We wouldn't even have had a problem when we had fewer people out for the evil anti-vaxxers. I think authority needs a clear bump on their ideas. They already got enough, but they seem to learn quite slowly. > I am vaccinated and favor vaccination Me too, but that doesn't matter. That should be nobodies business from now on.