I remember thinking much the same two decades ago when it was risk of death from terrorists vs bees.
Such a confusing, yet common stance. The flu vaccine is free, risk is essentially nil, and it reduces your chance of death across the board[1]:
> At a median follow‐up duration of 19.5 months, influenza vaccine was associated with a lower risk of all‐cause mortality (RR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.60–0.93 [P=0.01]), cardiovascular mortality (RR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.80–0.84 [P<0.001]), and major adverse cardiovascular events (RR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.80–0.94 [P<0.001]) compared with control. The use of the influenza vaccine was not associated with a statistically significant reduction of myocardial infarction (RR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.49–1.09 [P=0.12]) compared with control.
It's the biggest no-brainer since seatbelts.
This tells me, when I'm 65, I should definitely be getting flu shots.
Much more and better explanation about flu shots here:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/flu/in-depth/...
No, that's not what it tells you. Really, I can't help you if an article that spells this stuff out in great detail results in a response that indicates that you have not understood it, they spent a lot more time on this than I will be able to do in this context.
Not anti vax, not that it should matter for this argument.
It’s impressive annual vaccination rates are as high as they are.
Like fuck I’m gonna keep getting boosters but still need to show papers and wear masks. I’m not a sucker.
Consider if your first impulse is to deny the possibility of that last point. You’re probably not an evolutionary virologist, so the truth is you have no idea which mutations are next. Perhaps you think T-cell immunity will save you, but omicron already escapes >50% of T-cell antibody types in 21% of vaccinated or infected people. Will we develop better cross-neutralizing antibodies from omicron or will antigen imprinting doom us to suffering wave after wave of new variants, due to maintaining variant-specific immunity only?
I bet that feeling of self-righteousness is satisfying, isn’t it? Perhaps that’s because blaming other humans subconsciously lets you continue the illusion that humans were ever in control of the pandemic in the first place or that a real risk ever existed for you. Anger is a lot more comfortable than existential anxiety.
But the truth is, it’s not “the man” who’s keeping you down at all — the pandemic limitations you feel right now are the libertarian equivalent to your fist being restrained from meeting your neighbor’s nose.
https://www.healthcare.gov/how-plans-set-your-premiums/
Cellular immunity is highly durable and effective.
The question is not how long the immunity lasts (based on original SARS patients, probably multiple decades to a lifetime), but whether affinity-matured T-cells can sufficiently cover the antigen-space of future ACE2-binding spike proteins.
Somatic hypermutation might still be too complex to model computationally to answer that question outright.
Do you know whether this question is answerable in another way?
What if I told you I don't wear a seatbelt?
The one part you left out is that there is a genetic component, so the first few ways were a form of selection against people who couldn't handle covid. It seems likely the the remaining population is much less susceptible to dying in future waves.
Flu would have looked like this the first time around, except when it arose, people didn't fly around the world or even really move a few miles from their home most of the time, which acted as a natural way to reduce outbreaks.