Um, people volunteer to join vaccine studies. They often include controls. People with known characteristics. Are you suggesting that a bunch of people volunteer to catch covid?
That being said, there are currently a lot of studies looking at antibodies because it’s relatively easy to do that. But actual vaccine efficacy studies are done by counting how many people get sick. The antibody counts are a secondary indication, not a primary outcome of the studies. Yes, they are looking at antibodies in kids to see if kids seem to react the same to vaccines as adults. But we don’t actually know if an XYZ antibody level after infection means the same as after immunization. There are a lot of questions as to whether it means the same after an mRNA vaccine as after an adenovirus vaccine.
We might, at some future point, be able to do a blood test and say, “you have adequate immunity to covid”, just from a blood test. At that point, yes, it would make sense to include that info in someone’s immunization record, if they’ve had that test. But we can’t do that now. With what we know now, we need to track events and dates.
A vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting or spreading covid. It’s purpose is to create antibodies to help fight it. The same thing occurs when you get covid. Your body creates antibodies.
You seem to think getting antibodies from getting covid is in some way a prescribed method of creating them. It’s not and I’ve not promoted it.
I’m fully vaxed and boosted. I’ve spent a great deal of time promoting vaccines to the people I meet in public. I’ve been keeping track of daily deaths from covid since March of 2020 and I use those numbers to bolster the need for vaccines.
the thread is about acknowledging antibodies that exist from having covid just as you would from a vaccine.
No. I’m suggesting we look at people who already got covid.
there is a tremendous number of people who have had covid prior to the vaccines with no ill effects. Those are the people you study in comparison with those who have antibodies from vaccines.
I don’t think that’s a radical idea particularly in light of the fact that the CDC doesn’t have any benchmark of antibodies.
I think you missed that “just counting antibodies doesn’t tell the whole story”. We need to be able to compare antibody levels in those people to something real, like how many of them catch covid as compared to how many similar people who didn’t have a prior case.
Lots of people HAVE looked at the antibodies. It’s just that we don’t yet know how to interpret them, not having nice controlled studies. I expect we will eventually get there.
Still, if it’s a moving target (as seems likely) we will probably want to track people’s immunity via date and event, and not via blood tests. That’s how we do it for most other diseases. There are only a handful of diseases where anyone routinely looks at blood tests as a way to check for immunity.
No, it isn’t. You keep conflating two different things. All of us acknowledge that you get immunity from having COVID-19.
You are arguing that this should be a way for some people to get out of getting vaccinated. But, the fact is, no matter how immune they are from having COVID-19, getting vaccinated will make that immunity better. And, as a public health goal, we want everyone to be as immune as possible. There is no reason to let them not get vaccinated because they are “immune enough.” We want there to be people who are more immune because they’ve had COVID-19 before.
It also doesn’t matter what your personal intent is. If we allow this, there will be people who will go out and try to get COVID-19 (especially the “mild” omicron) rather than get vaccinated. You can have whatever intentions you like, but you have to deal with the fact that your proposed policy position will result in people choosing to get deliberately infected. Saying you don’t recommend it won’t stop it from happening.
So there are at least two clear downsides to your policy proposal. And you have not proposed a single upside. You’ve yet to say why we should (for example) be okay with people being 90% immune when they could get a shot an get 95% immune.
The only “upside” that I can see is that people who don’t want to get vaccinated could claim that they already had covid, and present a piece of paper that they got somewhere to “prove” it.
Then they don’t have to get vaccinated, because they don’t want to.
Not a great upside for the rest of society. It’s merely a way of letting the unvaccinated get their way.
Which will still require someone stick a needle into your flesh, will still require a visit to the doctor, and probably cost more than getting the vaccine.
The only reason that I could see anyone arguing that getting COVID should substitute for the vaccine would be bean counters that want to save money by not giving out vaccines to those already considered to be protected. Not only would this be unlikely to be economically feasible to do right, it also means that I could be denied getting a booster based on having gotten COVID previously.
Otherwise, it’s just anti-vax propaganda trying to find a way to avoid getting a jab. If you have gotten COVID and are protected based on that, there will be no harm done if you also get a vaccine or booster. If you think that your sniffles last month means that you had COVID and are protected based on that, not getting the vaccine or booster can cause harm.
I really don’t understand the point of the argument other than to just be contrary for the sake of being contrary, or to promote an anti-vax platform. I’m not sure which is worse, both in terms of frustration of those that repeat the same explanations over and over that are ignored, or in terms of public health.
(Note, I’m only replying to you to expand on what you said, not to argue with you, my argument is with @Magiver, as he is the one that is pushing this inane and dangerous rhetoric.)
Well said! Why stop at natural immunity when no matter what variant you may have had, your protection can be improved with the vaccine? And assuring as many people as possible have gotten the vaccine will provide the community in general with the best protection available. I am not seeing a great argument to just stop worrying about COVID-19 by getting a natural infection.
The other reason is that almost no one feels too sick to work the day after getting a blood test. The vaccine really isn’t “free”, especially for younger people.
I speak as someone who got an antibody test for measles rather than the measles vaccine, because I had a bad reaction to my last measles vaccine as a kid. If my antibody test had been negative, I would have gotten the measles jab, of course. But it was positive, so I didn’t.
Now, my bad reaction didn’t prevent me from getting my kids jabbed for measles (and neither had an adverse reaction) and probably for most people, it is easier to just get another dose of vaccine if they have any question about it. But unpleasant reactions to the covid vaccine are pretty common. (Dangerous reactions are, thankfully, extremely rare.) IF we had a good test for immunity to covid, I would be in favor of letting people opt for that to check if they need another dose of vaccine. But at this point in time, we don’t.
Personally, my covid-vaccine reaction was modest, and I’ll happily line up next time another dose is recommended. But my daughter was pretty miserable, and still whines about how horrible she felt after her booster from time to time. If she could get an accurate test and possibly avoid her next dose, I’d support that.
Yes! With breakthrough infections and reinfections, this whole thread is pointless. We’re going to probably need boosters once a year for at least another year or two (or maybe forever) and if we have some kind of mandate, one infection in 2020 or 2021 won’t cut it.
Not to mention @Magiver’s insisting on ignoring the fact that there is contradicting data regarding immunity due to infection vs. vaccination. We have a good study out of Israel specifically regarding the Delta surge and their vaccinated people that shows that natural immunity is better. Studies from the US and other countries (Denmark?) Delta surges contradict that. Omicron has muddied the waters on this even more. And who care? We need boosters anyway!
A study just came out in Los Angeles county showing that unvaccinated people were infected at twice the rate and 3.6X the rate of vaccinated and boosted respectively. Their hospitalizations were 5X and FUCKING 23X the rate of vaccinated and boosted. Meanwhile the seroprevalence in the LA area as of Christmas was over 95% (natural vs. vaccinated immunity). How many naive immune systems were left in that area, maybe 100,000? There must have been a significant number of people with natural immunity. Yet you could still see the difference between unvaccinated vs. vaccinated. Regardless, we need boosters anyway!
The claims that Europe has allowed prior infection for their requirements is a moot point because their vaccination rates and, especially, booster rates are way better than the US and it shows overwhelmingly in their stats.
And the whole worrying about taking off work due to a vaccine doesn’t fly with me. With any new variants with the current transmissibility, people who have to work outside the home will get it and will get sick if they’re not recently infected + vaccinated or vaccinated+boosted. I know someone who teaches in person and wears an N95 properly. For some reason, she never got vaccinated. She got really sick over the summer and I just found out, she got really sick again. I’m thinking that natural immunity didn’t work out for her.
Can they afford to take a week or two off if they get it?
One difference between the vax and natural immunity is that you may feel like crap for a day after the vax, I did, but you are not transmitting it to others. On COVID, you may feel better, but you are potentially infecting everyone you come into contact with for the next fortnight.
But sure, once there is enough data for a titer test to be useful, sure, that can be used to put off a dose of vaccine if it comes back positive. But, currently, a titer test is only of a small value, as we don’t know what levels indicate effective protection.
Even then, however, you will probably need to get another dose once your levels have gone down, so you will need to keep testing every few months to be sure that you are protected. If your levels are under what we determine is protected, then you are either going to need the vaccine or to attend a COVID party and then quarantine for the next couple weeks. This is as opposed to just getting the vaccine every 6 months to a year, and making sure that you are, no quarantine required, even if you have a rough day or two after.
This is what I suggest. Not now, of course, since we don’t have the information to do it. But if we ever do learn that X titer of Y antibody is adequately protective, then anyone who needs to maintain immunity to covid but has an aversion to the vaccine should be able to test and find out if they need a new dose, yet. Or, if you don’t have an aversion to the vaccine, you can skip that test and just get a booster.
Yeah, well, we’ll probably need to keep vaccinating, too. I think an “adequate level of immunity” should be enough that it puts you on par with a typical person who’s just gotten boosted, and you should therefore be able to wait as long as if you got a booster. And I don’t know if we’ll ever have a titer test that gives that info. But IF we do, I think it should be an option.
If you really want to fight the battle for vaccination, consider changing your terminology. “Natural” immunity has too many positive connotations to people who weren’t brought up on a steady diet of Thomas Hobbes. (Or, alternately, had too much Rousseau in their diet.)
Vaccinated immunity vs. disease-induced immunity is much better rhetorical ground in this discussion.
But what they all seem to agree on is that disease-induced immunity plus vaccinated immunity (got you covered, @SunUp) is more effective than disease-induced immunity alone. I’m waiting for a good argument against vaccination and I suspect I’ll still be waiting a year from now or longer.
This recent article from Nature News shines a light on how complex the question of what “immunity” is and whether it is possible to measure it (outside of post-hoc categorization).
There’s a lot of information packed into the article, but no conclusions. Long term defenses against viral infection in the human body are a complex set of mechanisms. The bottom line? Best summed up by the final line of the article:
“What’s the magic sauce?” Pulendran asks. “Therein lies a deep, deep mystery, a fundamental challenge, which if it is solved will have a transformative effect on vaccinology.”
The CDC has been studying natural antibodies. In their recent report of January 28, 2022 they acknowledged the significance of natural antibodies:
What is added by this report?
During May–November 2021, case and hospitalization rates were highest among persons who were unvaccinated without a previous diagnosis. Before Delta became the predominant variant in June, case rates were higher among persons who survived a previous infection than persons who were vaccinated alone. By early October, persons who survived a previous infection had lower case rates than persons who were vaccinated alone.
from the same cite:
As was observed in the present study after July, recent international studies have also demonstrated increased protection in persons with previous infection, with or without vaccination, relative to vaccination alone
So the CDC is acknowledging the significance of antibodies found in people who have contracted the disease.
There is no reason why this should not be used to gauge a person’s immunization status.
Again, I’m fully vaccinated, I’ve actively promoted vaccinations, and I’m not promoting “covid parties”. I’m simply saying that antibodies from getting covid should be counted toward vaccination status. It’s as quantifiable as getting antibodies from vaccines.
You keep saying that, as if we are measuring antibodies from vaccines as an endpoint. We aren’t. The vaccine studies all looked at how many people got sick. EXCEPT that for studies of kids, they looked to see if the immune response was as strong among kids as it has been asking adults, from the same source.
We don’t actually know that “this set of antibodies provides immunity”. What we know is that “immunity from vaccine X looks like this”. Those aren’t the same thing.
Yes, IF we ever know that this result from a blood test represents immunity comparable to these other known things, THEN we should reflect that in policy.
Right now, what we know is that prior infection plus vaccination, or vaccination with a booster, seems to produce acceptable levels of immunity.
Maybe if we do not use the term “vaccination” in this context, we may be closer to alignment. Unless you got a needle in your arm you are not vaccinated.
This makes more sense than calling someone who caught a natural infection and has some antibodies, but has not had a shot for COVID-19, “vaccinated”. And that is really the issue at hand - who has what level of immunity and where did they get it from?
