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Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

Would getting infected _after_ being vaccinated, which doesn't seem totally unheard of, confer an additional boost to one's immunity?

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and vice versa?

I'd specifically prefer to be infected after if I had to choose, on the assumption it'd be milder.

I've been wondering the same. Heck, perhaps get a third shot just to be safe and then get covid for good measure. But then we don't have enough production capacity for the vaccines worldwide as it is, and I'm not sure about my current chances with 2x mRNA so... it'd be interesting but I don't think I'd actually do it given the chance.

Absolutely it would. Which is why it's a good idea to get vaccinated even if you have been infected or think you may have been.

The article backs this position up as well, though the headline belies that:

"The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and then received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated."

It's a good idea why, exactly? Because previously-infected people tend to experience worse vaccine side-effects for little to no additional benefit?

> Because previously-infected people tend to experience worse vaccine side-effects for little to no additional benefit?

This is not the case. Research it yourself:

"Evidence is emerging that people get better protection by being fully vaccinated compared with having had COVID-19. One study showed that unvaccinated people who already had COVID-19 are more than 2 times as likely than fully vaccinated people to get COVID-19 again." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/08/09/covid-...

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/people-whove-had-covi...

don't your links directly contradict the article that was posted? The article states infection from COVID seems to produce better immunity than the vaccines.

If I'm understanding correctly, no. These things can both be true:

- Being previously infected with COVID-19 confers greater immunity than the COVID-19 vaccines

- Being previously infected with COVID-19 and being vaccinated confers >2x the immunity than being previously infected alone

The posted article seems to agree as well, but it's unfortunate many folks seem to just be taking the headline at face value:

Folks who are downvoting, please engage with my comments instead.

FYI, it doesn't pay to make these kinds of comments here. People will downvote both your comment asking why they downvoted, and your original comment. You're just exposing yourself to almost twice as many downvotes, while few people will bother to explain themselves.

I have personal experience with this.

I appreciate your reply, thanks.

Still, I would like to help bring the level of discourse on the site up and hopefully some folks are influenced by my comment to abide by the guidelines and engage.

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