5 ms·

As a person who was infected in February 2021, before I was eligible to get vaccinated, we now know that there was minimal to zero medical benefit to me getting

• elil17 5y ago
  > we now know that there was minimal to zero medical benefit to me getting this vaccine This is not true and this very study shows that. The vaccine reduces the chance that you catch COVID and spread it to others.
  • yucky 5y ago
    This doesn't appear to be the case with Omicron. It seems like everyone who has gotten it in the last couple of months has been vaccinated. At least half the people I know (almost all of which are vaccinated) have gotten it in this wave. I only knew 2 people that got it in the 1st wave before vaccines existed. I know it's more contagious now, but most people have had this same experience.
    • skyde 5y ago
      you should read what “relative risk” mean. if of 100 people 90 are vaccinated and your hospitalization number is 6 unvaccinated and 44 vaccinated this would still mean risk is higher for unvaccinated (6/10) compared to vaccinated (44/90). That’s also why your anecdote are useless and not science
      • hammock 5y ago
        I suggest you familiarize yourself with the latest science/data which show that relative risk of death is higher for vaccinated and unboosted than it is for unvaccinated. Scotland (14 per 100k vs 10 per 100k): https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/11318/22-01-26-covid19-winter_publication_report.pdf https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/11318/22-01-26-covid... Britain: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1049160/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-3-2022.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
        • skyde 5y ago
          thanks for sharing i will take a look. I only looked at the latest data for USA and Canada so far and they both looked much better for vaccinated people. Why do you think scotland and Britain are different?
  • peteradio 5y ago
    > The vaccine reduces the chance that you catch COVID and spread it to others. Where does this study show that?
  • wrycoder 5y ago
    He was infected before he was eligible to be vaccinated. He has natural immunity.
• yucky 5y ago
  The great thing about being right, is it doesn't matter how many people were wrong. If you know you're right, never give in to the masses. It's been enlightening to see how quick so many people are to dehumanize "the others" as soon as it becomes socially acceptable to do so. Psychology is fascinating.
  • saargrin 5y ago
    that logic could be justified just about anything
• tonis2 5y ago
  I'm with you, my trust in society and authority changed so much with this epidemic. I realized that state is a religion.
• lern_too_spel 5y ago
  If the government says natural immunity lets you not get vaccinated, the next pandemic, more people will try to get infected. It's the same reason there were no immunity passports prior to vaccines. The government's policy is correct to protect the most people and reduce economic impact.
  • JPKab 5y ago
    Most governments in the EU allow proof of prior infection as a substitute for vaccination for a green pass. Your assumption that people are so stupid that they would purposely get infected instead of getting vaccinated is speculative, and didn't happen in Europe. You may likely be a highly intelligent person, but that doesn't mean that everyone else is as stupid as you think they are. There is a certain arrogance to that level of paternalistic thinking.
    • lern_too_spel 5y ago
      I said that allowing people who obtained natural immunity to get certain privileges would make the next pandemic worse. People aren't as stupid as you think they are. They understand and respond to incentives.
  • skyde 5y ago
    really ? i think you give them too much credit lol
• falamboram 5y ago
  Getting vaccinated would have improved your immunity and would be safer to get now than risk getting omicron. Your prior infection alone will provide you very little protection from infection with omicron. You won't get an apology because you are wrong.
  • JPKab 5y ago
  • skyde 5y ago
    do you have science to back this claim ? It’s not like the vaccine was designed specifically against omicron, the vaccine development started a long time ago ( before omicron)
    • falamboram 5y ago
      Yes. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)01496-3 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)01496-3
• skyde 5y ago
  how would you feel if the government decided to give you a vaccine card if you get a positive antibody test instead of getting the vaccine? Would requiring to show this card be acceptable? I’m on your side (natural anti body is as good as vaccine) but most of my anti-vax friend have neither and putting the life of my family in danger.
  • JPKab 5y ago
    This is what they do in Europe. I'm not particularly thrilled with public health authorities using coercion. It would solve my needs, sure, but I just think it's counterproductive in the long term. The most effective way to guarantee that rednecks will absolutely never do a thing is to tell them they have to do it. This actually doesn't just apply to rural white Americans, but also many other people who are from "honor cultures". Nortenos fall into this category and they are a very high percentage of Latinos in the United States. These are cultures that for historical reasons have absolute hatred of centralized authority. Black Americans in the South and their descendants in many Northern cities also fall into this category. It is truly self-defeating. I can assure you that I know a medical doctor who is fully licensed and runs several clinics and he offered to take me into his office, inject the vaccine syringe into the sink and then write in his records that I was vaccinated and provide me a card. I did not take him up on this because I wanted to make sure that I would feel the pain of the law as an example to my kids. He himself is fully vaccinated but he is completely against the mandate for reasons of principle. How many more are like him? Are we going to do something to prevent doctors like him from doing this? What kind of enforcement will that take? If politicians that most hn readers dislike take over the federal government are they going to be able to use these enforcement mechanisms to outlaw abortion? Regarding putting the life of your family in danger, I don't think the science supports this, at least not with the current vaccine. It doesn't appear to have markedly diminished transmissibility for Delta and doesn't appear to have any form of reduction for omicron. However, for the original variant, I think it was completely fair to talk about unvaccinated people being the primary carriers, and therefore putting other people at risk. But it does call into question the fact that a vaccine that requires you to still be afraid of other people who haven't had that vaccine isn't really much of a vaccine is it??
• runamok 5y ago
  First of all I am sorry for your loss. I don't disagree that your natural antibodies probably gave you more or less the equivalent benefit of the vaccine (depending on the strain). However, there are plenty of bad actors saying they had it when they didn't just to bypass any sort of mandate for work, travel, etc. Because of that it's hard to trust folks at their word. Finally your natural immunity will eventually wear off though I am not sure if there is consensus on when that happens. I acknowledge that there is some risk and hand waving "it's a one in a million chances" doesn't help when it's someone you love. There are also lots of people that have had bad experiences with the medical field, the government, etc. so don't trust the vaccine. I don't agree with them but I can't blame them for their conclusions. It for sure doesn't help to berate them or you.
  • JPKab 5y ago
    I deeply appreciate your thoughtful response here. I don't disagree with your points on bad actors either. It should be noted that my positive test in Feb 21 was digitally recorded, reported to the state of Colorado as well as my county health department, and I was then contacted by them. I also have the email from the lab company. My point is that, like the EU, taking people's "word for it" is not a good way to do things, as you said. I have no doubt my natural immunity will wane. Certainly my free antibodies will, and it's an open question as to how long t-cell memory remains. In fact, there are many countries investigating having people like me be able to go straight to getting booster shots. One thing that I think is important when it comes to trust, and my family's experience: My comments from May/June are a lot more hopeful, and optimistic. At the time, I was told my mother-in-law's death was reported to VAERS. I now know it wasn't. I don't think it was deliberate, but I've pulled the flat files for the system twice since August. There is no record of a woman her age in Nebraska with anything remotely like what happened to her. (Sudden cardiac arrest and death aren't hard to spot in that system, and I work with data as a professional all day. I even used Spacy to analyze the dataset to ensure I wasn't going crazy. I was in shock when I realized the hospital forgot to put her in the system.). I investigated this, and it turns out that there is no carrot, and no stick with VAERS. The hospital in Omaha where she died probably was overwhelmed with COVID patients, and they just forgot to put it in. It takes 30 minutes on a shitty website to enter the record in. The end result: I thought somebody was going to investigate what happened to her. I thought we would get some explanation. I WANTED them to tell us that there was an air bubble in the needle, and the vaccine itself wasn't the culprit. I wanted some kind of explanation. Unfortunately, nothing was ever done. No follow up. Nothing. It's been soul crushing for us. I pinned all my hopes for some kind of research on a friend of mine, Adam, who is a pretty prominent coder in the ML space. (I won't say his last name, but he was one of the early founders of a well-known name in the machine learning space). Adam suffered an event very similar to my mother-in-law's, but because of his younger age, survived. Also due to his young age, there was a much bigger interest in researching his incident. A team from the Mayo Clinic began working his case. He was kind enough to get them to start to look at my mother-in-law. We thought we were going to get answers. Unfortunately, in August, the team at the Mayo Clinic "ghosted" (his words, not mine) him. As part of the agreement to collect multiple samples of heart tissue from him, he had required he be included in any pre-prints produced by the team. They stopped replying to any of his communications in August. His exact words to me when we spoke on the phone in September: "They are sweeping this under the rug." It should be noted that the damage to his heart is permanent. He's in his mid-30s. He can't even hike anymore. Our further conversations have reached a the following conclusion: The funding for the Mayo team, for the MRNA vaccine, all come from the same source. This source is treating it like a friendly-fire incident. In the midst of the most massive public health campaign in history, there is no benefit to learning what happened to him or my MIL. Any answer will only undermine that goal. Like a lung cancer researcher funded by Big Tobacco, or a medical cannabis researcher funded by the Feds, questions that potentially lead to inconvenient answers are crushed before they can yield answers that might conflict with the goals of the funding organization.
• nojokes 5y ago
  > we now know that there was minimal to zero medical benefit to me getting this vaccine Actually the opposite is true. Data from other countries shows that during the delta wave you had 2-3 times less change to catch it. Both risks very relatively low but yours was still better. Now with omicron wave that has clear advantage to escape previous immune response, you still have similar advantage but convalescents without vaccination have much higher change to catch it than before. You are now dodging real bullets. > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28170099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28170099 You were absolutely correct there in your conclusion. I believe that people are very reactive to so called natural immunity because of misguided suggestion at the beginning of epidemic to reach the herd immunity by mass infection. We later wound out that many of those people were actually anti-vaxxers in disguise because they continue to suggest this even after we had vaccines available. But don't be mad - you now have much better immunity against omicron. I am sorry for your loss and it was shameful of your coworkers to treat you like this but you were right and you were actually much more protected than they were.