Comment by beefok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by beefok | Hacker News Reader

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Personally I'd be worrying about the negative long-term effects of actually contracting COVID-19 [1] [2].

In any case, you're the one making a claim here: can you show the benefits of natural immunity? Can you show the risk vs reward of catching COVID-19, potentially spreading it to thousands, and getting natural immunity rather than just getting a vaccine? Bringing money into it just colors your argument poorly. It's not like getting the vaccine costs you any money personally.

Vaccines seem to provide better immunity than previously being infected [3]. In fact, a lot of research shows that getting a vaccine after being infected actually improves your protection against reinfection [4].

Would you argue in good faith this way about any other vaccine? Measles? Mumps? Anthrax? Ebola?

[1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/...

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

[4] https://www.news-medical.net/news/20211010/Research-finds-di...

A study in Israel shows the opposite of your link [3]:

https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...

Based on the information in your link, it's a absolutely tiny sample in a very small specific conservative community. I'm really skeptical that they controlled for the unvaccinated cohort that caught covid twice hanging out in anti-vaxxer communities where covid infection was high. The CDC should be embarrassed about using this as evidence.

That oft-cited paper out of Israel isn't yet published, and seems to have some issues on (informal) review: https://twitter.com/DGBassani/status/1431390188924768269

Or from the article you just linked:

> As for the Israel medical records study, Topol and others point out several limitations, such as the inherent weakness of a retrospective analysis compared with a prospective study that regularly tests all participants as it tracks new infections, symptomatic infections, hospitalizations, and deaths going forward in time. “It will be important to see these findings replicated or refuted,” says Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University.

She adds: “The biggest limitation in the study is that testing [for SARS-CoV-2 infection] is still a voluntary thing—it’s not part of the study design.” That means, she says, that comparisons could be confounded if, for example, previously infected people who developed mild symptoms were less likely to get tested than vaccinated people, perhaps because they think they are immune.

But for the people who've already had it why bother vaccinating them against their will?

They've already run the gambit of heart problems and such, why make them run it again?

"why make them run it again" - the vaccine doesn't have nearly the likelihood nor the severity of complications that COVID has. And it still reduces their likelihood of catching COVID again, and the likelihood of serious symptoms even if they did. And the protections last longer and more predictably than natural immunity does.

We could probably list a thousand things that you could do now to reduce your risks of something. The question is around a mandate, and if the risk reduction is marginal or diminishingly small, why would you mandate it? That's the whole point of this thread.

We mandate lots of those too, since statistics says it is a good idea

So I’d ask the reverse question: if the risk reduction is scientifically demonstrated and quite clear, what responsibility do public officials have towards enforcing the safety of others? When should we let them take that right, and when should we refuse them that power? I won’t claim to know this answer either!

Is there any science to back up anything you're saying?

Bonus points: Studies not funded by pharmaceutical companies.

I shared it elsewhere. Yes - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

There is also this here in the US, acknowledging "Kentucky’s local health departments, disease investigators, and regional epidemiologists; Kentucky Department for Public Health immunization and data team members; Suzanne Beavers, CDC" - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm

Agreed, but how do we help people understand that ‘not make them run that risk again’ is currently demonstrated to mean getting vaccinated, and that living a normal life is repeating the risk of health issues from re-catching COVID? Their heuristic mental model seem to be getting tricked, by the magnitudes of the numbers involved, into swapping those.

OP was not advocating for purposefully GETTING infected. They were advocating on behalf of those who had already GOT infected (past tense).

There are multiple studies that show previously infected are well protected, and Israel shows 13x better than Pfizer’s

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