"Natural Immunity" "Vaccinated?"

[Mad_Machine76]

I was listening to a little of Michael Smerconish (yeah, yeah) on CNN yesterday, discussing whether or not we should consider people whom have had COVID as essentially the same as being vaccinated, and thus be spared from vaccination mandates, like an "olive branch" Biden could offer the unvaccinated. He stated that some European countries are already doing this. Has the science been settled on this? Like how effective previous COVID infections are at preventing future re-infections? I thought that the general scientific consensus at the moment is that the most effective way to prevent further COVID infection and potential re-infection is for somebody who has had COVID to ALSO get vaccinated (and just for people to get vaccinated in general)? Relying on just previous COVID infection seems like a cop out to me, and an inffective one at that. It just doesn't seem comparable to me but interested in hearing other people's opinions on this (or some more information).

[iemanja]

1. It is said to help booster immunity when combined with a vaccine

but does not substitute for being vaccinated.

[Mad_Machine76]

2. That's what I understood too.

[Mad_Machine76]

15. He's obsessed with "bipartisanship"

and thinks supporting ideas like this makes him look clever. Pretty much a perfect representation of most of the corporate media pundits

[RockRaven]

3. Being vaccinated post-infection offers superior reduction of re-infection than infection alone.

Fuck olive branches. Do the ethical and socially responsible thing, or be a pariah.

[Mad_Machine76]

14. Absolutely agreed

[crickets]

16. Yes! This, along with obvious point others have mentioned:

too many people would claim to have had Covid just to get out of the vaccination.

[Mr.Bill]

4. The main problem is

anyone could claim they had the virus.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

13. Exactly. That has been my pet peeve. I know it's supposed to be confidential

But it's not like we're talking medical records. All a positive or negative test says is your name and the date you got the test and whether you're positive or negative boom.

Yet we still just believe people without showing their test results. Like Mark Meadows talking about positive and negative tests that dipshit got. Why are we believing this?

I still don't believe Malaria had covid

[forthemiddle]

17. What about showing a recent antibody test?

The studies I have seen have not proven vaccine is better than past infection, but I may have missed one.
Obviously vaccinated is much preferred because there isn’t the risk of death. Duh!, but as I understand it many other countries are accepting past infection as acceptable.

[iemanja]

5. I submit that this is a reason that Smerconish

should not be given Cuomo's spot. This amounts to misinformation.

[OneBlueDotS-Carolina]

10. ditto n/t

[Midnight Writer]

6. I saw that "natural immunity" has about 20% efficacy and that it fades within a few months.

Compared to vaccines with 75% (Johnson and Johnson) that fades to 45% after 6 months but shoots to 90+ with booster.

Pfizer and Moderna are initially over 90% and also fade over time, but are replenished to well over 90% with booster.

Sorry, I can't source this. This is just what I have read recently, so don't bet your life on it.

[Mr.Bill]

18. I have read

similar figures.

[KentuckyWoman]

7. Previous infection protects against a specific variant

This is how natural immunity works. You'll have some protection against anything your body has seen before. This is why they took the vaccine down to the protein level. So that it would work better against the inevitable variants.

Maybe I am wrong but that is what I understand from the reading.

[Backseat Driver]

8. By vaccine/immunization we thought we had wiped out smallpox so well

we stopped it entirely everywhere and no longer needed "protection," only to have an unregistered sample recently found in some insecure freezer...Likely a good thing it was found by the "good" guys, no?, - yep, get what science has offered us and the world--best practice mandates it. Kudos to the scientists to use their expertise to find and make something that works so well, though not perfectly.

[zipplewrath]

9. First dose

Really, at best, it could be considered the "first dose". Natural immunity doesn't last nearly as long. I've heard that the recommendation is that you get vaccinated 3 months after infection. I'd bet at this point they'd encourage a "booster" about 6 months after that.

[cadoman]

11. the vaccines are safe and effective and everyone should have theirs, end of story

Why should we back down on this when the settled science shows that we are right? It's incumbent on the gqp to find flaws in the science if they believe such exist, and their arguments have been so laughably stupid and hateful as to require being labeled misinformation.

Australia and NZ are showing us the way. All we need to do is follow their example.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame (to 6x Higher)

.

NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: "It's back down to around 5.5 times higher."

The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality. The data also reveal a major contributing factor to the death rate difference: The higher the vote share for Trump, the lower the vaccination rate.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate

.

[Tomconroy]

19. I don't know much about natural immunity

But I did find out recently that proof of recent Covid infection will get you an EU vaccination passport just like proof of vaccination will.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56522408

[NickB79]

20. 20-30% of infected don't generate an antibody response

Meaning there's no way to tell who's had COVID and who's lying about having COVID to get out of a shot.

My dad currently has Covid. He swore he had it in spring, lost his sense of taste, but the test came back negative at the time. And he's non vaccinated.

[Dorian Gray]

21. I think

true cases, document with positive tests, should be a part of the discussion, yes. But I also think they should be encouraged to vaccinate on top of it.