But when vaccine-conferred immunity wanes, you can get a booster shot.
When natural (infection-conferred/convalescent) immunity wanes, … what then – COVID parties ?
Nobody ever really wants to answer this question, but it’s profoundly legitimate.
This earns a instant dismissal, and adding an anonymous quote on top of that is just the icing on the cake.
Some of my family has this attitude, and just yesterday I found out that one of my brothers is mucho sick from Covid right now.
I guess we can pretend that we’re still dealing with Delta and how it is affected by natural immunity, but you might have heard of this thing they’re calling Omicron.
I answered that question. Treat infection-induced immunity like one dose of J&J. Put it in your immunization record with a date. Get a regular booster of an appropriate vaccine after an appropriate period of time (which currently depends on what other sources of immunity you have in addition to that one, and will probably change over time.)
First, both vaccine and infection induced immunity from prior versions of the virus appear to impart significant protection against severe disease from omicron. That’s much of the reason WHY it appears “milder”. Not only is it more prone to infecting the nose than the lungs, but most of its victims have some prior immunity.
Second, three doses of mRNA vaccine or a prior infection plus one booster of vaccine appears to confer significant protection against catching it. The numbers are closer to 50% efficacy than the 95% efficacy we saw in the past, but it’s enough to be valuable.
But …
And a lot of these people are simply anti-COVID-vax, so offering to give them a booster at some specified post-infection (again: how do we establish Day Zero) interval is problematic.
I did some quick “research” on google, and I find that if you have a documented case, you don’t need to get the vaccine, but everything I saw said that there is no harm to getting the vaccine if you have already had it.
And that still doesn’t contradict the point that I made that it is better to get immunity through the vaccine than through infection for these diseases as well.
The problem is, is that measles and chickenpox are pretty obvious. You know when you get them, you usually go to the doctor, and it goes in your file. You now have lifelong immunity (in the vast majority of cases).
COVID’s not quite so clear and easy to document. Even if you go to the doc and get tested, you won’t know exactly when you got it, what dose, and unless it is sequences (which I don’t know what percent of cases are), then you don’t know what variant. It’s going to be hard to tell when you need to attend your next COVID party.
The vaccine is much more controlled and easier to document.
There is no eradication of it, of that you are correct. It is a permanent part of our ecosystem now. Hopefully it will mutate into less and less severe forms, until it presents as mostly asymptomatic in most cases, then it’s not really a concern anymore. Until then, keeping out own immunities up is the best way to control the impact it has.
If you get tested, you will know when you got it to within a week or so, and that’s really enough information. The date will also give a good guess as to which strain you got. But again, that’s not strictly needed. Both Delta and Omicron impart more relevant immunity right now than the original version, which the current vaccines are based on.
Most chickenpox is diagnosed at home. Same with mumps. A covid test is as reliable as the symptoms of those.
If you didn’t get tested, you didn’t get it, for public health purposes. That seems straightforward.
Yes, but that’s different than dismissing the immunity brought on by actually getting the disease.
It’s tough to create a title that defines all the thoughts behind it because there’s only so much space. This is why I added qualifiers to it to better express the thought behind it. I suppose I could have gone on for pages trying to further define it but that’s not the point of engaging conversation with others.
I’ll repeat what I said in the other thread. Vaccines aren’t cures for the disease. They train the immune system. The same thing happens when you get the disease. Neither stop you from getting the disease again. The purpose of any vaccine is to give people a better shot at surviving it up front. That doesn’t negate the immune response from getting the disease if you’re lucky enough to survive it.
Getting the disease is essentially a vaccination and should be treated as such. It’s effigy should be based on science just as any other vaccine is.
Assume you mean “efficacy”
If it is burning, it is “effigy”.
You’re welcome.
Now, are we talking official tests, or at home? I bought a bunch of at home right before they all disappeared off the shelves, and I take one before I visit my parents or other at risk people.
Given the number of people who are willing to cheat the system by forging vaccination cards, I don’t know that I would trust them to self report the results of their at home test.
And clinical tests are not so easy. I talk to people who want to get tested, so they make an appt for a few days out, and then get their results a few days after that. I don’t even see the point when the cycle time is longer than the recommended quarantine.
Yes, but no one is doing that.
The end result of having recovered from the disease conveys a somewhat similar immunity to the disease in the future, that’s not the question(though there still is plenty of question as to how similar that immunity is). The question is, is it in the interests of the individual or the public to try to attain immunity in this fashion. And the answer is an unequivocal no.
Hey Magiver, what are you afraid of?
???. The whole point of the thread is that getting covid does not count as a vaccination.
That doesn’t address the premise of the thread which is the acceptance of immunity as a vaccination. I would think medical proof you have antibodies for covid is far better than a vaccination card.
I agree, the answer to that question is “no”. It’s stupid and antisocial to try to catch a nasty contagious disease. But i don’t think that’s the question. I think the question is “in situations where we require documented immunity, should we force people who recently recovered from a documented case of covid to ALSO get a recent vaccine?” And i think the answer to that is “no”.
As for what counts, if your doctor believes you when you show them your positive rapid test, and is willing to post to your vaccine record, i would count it. I would also count a PCR test, and even if it takes 2 weeks, that’s close enough for “when do i need my next booster”.
I’ll note that my medical documentation of chickenpox, mumps, and whooping cough were all based on verbal descriptions of symptoms, over the phone, that the doctor believed. It’s bad public health to encourage people with contagious diseases that can be managed at home to traipse to the doctor’s office to be formally tested.
I thought it was “the clap.” Carry on.
Right, but your claim was that people are “dismissing the immunity brought on by actually getting the disease.”, which is what no one is doing.
Now, the fact that for vaccine requirements, it does not currently count is not because people are “dismissing the immunity brought on by actually getting the disease”, it is because it is the worst, stupidest, and most potentially harmful way to both yourself and the public to gain immunity to the disease.
Then there is the difficulties in record keeping, not to mention keeping up on boosters. You say that you are not in favor of COVID parties, but how else is someone going to maintain their immunity if they won’t get the vaccine.
It actually is entirely about the premise of the thread. Trying to get and maintain immunity through infection is far less efficient and safe, for yourself and everyone else, than just getting the jab. Your proposal will only encourage people to try to catch COVID the old fashioned way, and will increase the demand on medical services, increase chances for mutation, and in general, make the situation worse overall.
But sure, if someone who is too afraid of needles to get a jab wants to have a blood draw and have their titters counted, then that can go in their medical record and count as a vaccine dose, but they still should get another dose plus a booster anyway.
Tell me, what outcome it is it that you are trying to accomplish with your proposal?
Your statement is partly straw in the fact that no one is forced to get a vaccine, but it is also incomplete in that, even if they have had COVID, they probably ought to get a second dose or booster anyway, to improve and maintain their immunity.
Then in 6 months or so, they will probably need to get another one, or expose themselves to COVID again.
The only thing that is being avoided is a little jab in the arm, and the lengths that are being gone to do so are ridiculous.
Okay, I don’t know that I would, as people lie, and there are some doctors out there that prescribe ivermectin for COVID. I’d rather have an actual lab test than just a doctor believing someone’s say-so.
Sure, your PCR test comes back positive, now you know that you only need one dose of vaccine, rather than two.
We didn’t have an epidemic of people lying about chicken pox et al as we have about people lying about COVID. Those diseases are also much more obvious with relatively distinct symptoms. COVID cannot be diagnosed over the phone by verbal description.
Doesn’t have to be the doctor’s office, there are lots of testing sites all over, even if they are all booked out for a week. But, in any case, you have identified one of the big flaws in the idea of substituting infection for vaccination in that getting the test is a pain in the ass. When I tried to schedule one, I had a longer wait and a further drive than when I scheduled the vaccine. (Which is why I raided the local CVS for all their test kits)
I just don’t get it. I got the vaccine, I knew that there were possible side effects, which I experienced. That’s why I scheduled the booster so that I had a day off afterwards to recover. It’s a whole lot harder to schedule when you will get an infection, and you need more than a day off to recover and not be infectious.
Let’s be very clear, the entire reason for the proposal in the OP is not so that people can use their infected status to substitute for a dose of the vaccine, it is an excuse to avoid getting vaccinated at all.
If people were responsible and honest enough to make this method of immunization practical, they would be responsible and honest enough to just get the vaccine.
There is no harm to getting the vaccine on top of having been infected, so what’s the point of trying to use that to avoid a dose?
Those who don’t get paid if they sit in bed for two days are the ones for whom vaccination is most important, because if they can’t afford missing two days of work, then they certainly can’t afford missing two weeks. And yes, it sucks to be poor, but avoiding vaccination doesn’t make it suck any less. Those folks could also use the $100 payment currently being offered to get a vaccine to help offset that time not working, and they can time the shot to be right before their day off.
Also, you can schedule the vaccine so that those two days you spend in bed are days you would have had off anyway. Plus, even if you are feeling somewhat unwell, you can still go to work, as even if you are not up to par, at least you are not contagious.
I had a fairly bad reaction to the second vaccine, but I still made it in to work the next day, even if I was dragging ass. For the booster, I scheduled it so that I had a day off afterwards.
Is that something offered to the general public? I hadn’t heard about that.