To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[Mofro261]

Can someone please layout in oversimplified terms (from a science perspective) why someone who was infected last summer should still get the vaccine shot?


*i got the J&J shot at the first opportunity and want everyone to get it whose Dr recommends it (most everyone). I just would like a quick, oversimplified laymans explanation that i can offer when i hear friends and aquaintences hesitant because they already had covid. I think i understand but various reasons have been stated here, and I would like confirmation.

Heterogeneity in the immune response, small dose exposures, and tricks the live virus does to dampen an immune response, all mean lower levels of protection from infection than achievable using a defined vaccine.

With the vaccine there will still be the first one, some heterogeneity in how people respond. But if your mind can think metric or log scale, where higher is better, then natural infection on average scores 100, whereas vax twice or infection then vax come in at 1,000 to 10,000.
If 100 is needed for protection, vax provides much better buffer and can stop even infection in a large portion of people, breaking transmission cycles. Plus if a variant is 90% less protected, 10% of the 1000 still leaves you at that 100 and much less likely to get Covid a second time.

My kid had mild covid in Oct, lost sense of taste/smell for 72hrs or so. He got Pfizer1 a few weeks ago and had no vax side effects, he's 22.
My BIL got Covid in the fall but still has no sense of smell.

[altasnob]

I understand vaccination creates stronger and longer lasting immunity than natural COVID infection. But hypothetically, if everyone in the US was vaccinated EXCEPT those who contracted COVID, wouldn't the US be able to reach herd immunity? To me, if people who have previously had COVID refuse to get vaccinated, so be it. The much, much, bigger goal should be to get people who have never had COVID, have no immunity whatsoever, get vaccinated. That would accomplish our goal even if the "I already had COVID" group still refuses to get vaccinated. Of course, how do you really know if you had COVID. My Dad was in the hospital with COVID and of the seven COVID tests he had, only one was positive.

[californiagrown]

Heterogeneity in the immune response, small dose exposures, and tricks the live virus does to dampen an immune response, all mean lower levels of protection from infection than achievable using a defined vaccine.

With the vaccine there will still be the first one, some heterogeneity in how people respond. But if your mind can think metric or log scale, where higher is better, then natural infection on average scores 100, whereas vax twice or infection then vax come in at 1,000 to 10,000.
If 100 is needed for protection, vax provides much better buffer and can stop even infection in a large portion of people, breaking transmission cycles. Plus if a variant is 90% less protected, 10% of the 1000 still leaves you at that 100 and much less likely to get Covid a second time.

My kid had mild covid in Oct, lost sense of taste/smell for 72hrs or so. He got Pfizer1 a few weeks ago and had no vax side effects, he's 22.
My BIL got Covid in the fall but still has no sense of smell.

So in short, vaccines (in general?) create a more standardized, robust immune response initially which results in a more robust and longer lasting immune system protection against the virus and genetic mutations of the virus?

So if you caught covid and had very minor symptoms its likely you do not have as much immunity to the virus as someone who had a robust (possibly hospital) inducing reaction? Or is that still not the case because natural exposure is usually in very small quantities compared to a vaccine?

Lastly, do you think there is any correlation between the severity of immune response to the vaccine and the level of protection achieved? The J&J vaccine fucking flattened me for about 18 hours and then i was fine. Is it likely that my immunity is now stronger than someone who had a milder immune response to the vaccine?

Also, thanks for sharing the expertise.

[MultiVerse]

Bullet point version of the responses above:

Benefit >> Risk

How many people think they had Covid but don't know if they had Covid?

Immunity from Covid vaccines is better than the immunity you get from natural infection: As is the case for vaccines with some other pathogens, the available evidence indicates Covid-19 vaccines provide better immunity than natural infection.

The vaccine immune response is more predictable than the natural infection immune response. There's a huge 200x antibody range within natural infection immune responses. There's also evidence asymptomatic or mild infections might only provide a few months of protection.

More protection against variants. The Indian variant B.1.617 could be 15 times more virulent. Most of the variants have at least some immune evasion properties. B.1.351 has significant immune evasion properties.

The vaccines are incredibly protective against severe disease caused by the known variants. For example, previous infection provides less infection protection against B.1.1.7 than 1 dose (58% infection protection) and less still versus 2 doses (95% infection protection).

[Mofro261]

In natural infection, the magnitude of the immune response correlates pretty well with severity of symptoms- getting really sick and surviving generates more immunity than mild infection, which is more than asymptomatic (averages here). With a lot of asymptomatic 20-30%, or mild illness 60-80%, there's a lot of people that have had covid that may have marginal protection, especially now with more transmissible variants becoming dominant. The UK B.1.1.7 strain is over 60% of all US infections now, and home grown variants from CA and NY also are looking more transmissible.

[Buster Highmen]

What doesn't take place in much of Europe?

The immetric?

[californiagrown]

In natural infection, the magnitude of the immune response correlates pretty well with severity of symptoms- getting really sick and surviving generates more immunity than mild infection, which is more than asymptomatic (averages here). With a lot of asymptomatic 20-30%, or mild illness 60-80%, there's a lot of people that have had covid that may have marginal protection, especially now with more transmissible variants becoming dominant. The UK B.1.1.7 strain is over 60% of all US infections now, and home grown variants from CA and NY also are looking more transmissible.

Awesome, thanks.

[Not DJSapp]

I understand vaccination creates stronger and longer lasting immunity than natural COVID infection. But hypothetically, if everyone in the US was vaccinated EXCEPT those who contracted COVID, wouldn't the US be able to reach herd immunity? To me, if people who have previously had COVID refuse to get vaccinated, so be it. The much, much, bigger goal should be to get people who have never had COVID, have no immunity whatsoever, get vaccinated. That would accomplish our goal even if the "I already had COVID" group still refuses to get vaccinated. Of course, how do you really know if you had COVID. My Dad was in the hospital with COVID and of the seven COVID tests he had, only one was positive.

There will always be a percentage that has real and legitimate medical reasons why they can't get vaccinated. Call it 10% of the population.

A weakened immune response from someone that had covid but not the vax means the virus will continue to exist and spread to a degree, even if those who contract covid a second time don't get really sick. To illustrate this, covid enters the body and begins replicating. The immune system will remember covid and to ramp up to kill it off. That lag time inbetween covid entering and the immune response with it is the issue, and the immune response time of covid survivors vs. vaccinated is orders of magnitude different. This is why you should get vaxed even if you had covid.

You're not wrong that we could reach herd immunity, but it would not be completely eradicated and there would still be flareups (see also: measles and polio which still flare up and are not eradicated globally). The longer it exists in the wild the longer it has a chance to mutate and break through the immunity the vaccines provide. As far as how to reach herd immunity the fastest, I'd absolutely say that those who had covid should give way to those that haven't where vaccine supply is limited. But vaccine appointments are now widely available in the US. Those that had covid should get the shot now. No more waiting.

[splat]

I don't get the flu shot as the average effectiveness is around 40% and I don't visit granny when i'm sick, but have my other recommended shots. the two deaths were elderly and got jabbed in Brasil, one became sick right away, the other, the link may be more questionable. I am not scared of the jab, but I haven't seen any evidence that vax immunity is superior to natural: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...575-4/fulltext This ends not when the majority get jabbed, but when people stop being such scared bitches: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33546144/

In the case of this flu, such bravado is indicative of another disease crippling America - mass cult stupidity.

[ötzi]

USA! USA!

[paulster2626]

Looks like Biden disagrees with Bill Gates on this one! Good move on the part of the Biden administration IMO. Credit where credit's due.

Taking ‘Extraordinary Measures,’ Biden Backs Suspending Patents on Vaccines
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/u...e-patents.html
Same piece that gets around NYT paywall I think: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bi...LYe?li=BBnb7Kz

Pressure Mounts to Lift Patent Protections on Coronavirus Vaccines - President Biden and drugmakers are facing demands from liberal activists and global leaders to suspend intellectual property rights on the vaccines as the pandemic surges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/u...e-patents.html

HA! What sayeth you Bill Gates apologists?

At the surface and without knowing much about how vaccines or labs or any of this shit really works in general, I would have to assume that Gates knows what he's talking about given his history of working with vaccination efforts and the contacts he has at his disposal.

There are probably correct arguments to be made on both sides. But people like you like to live in black and white, for some reason. Try not doing that, even just for today.

[riser4]

You wanna know what I think? I think you're some kind of deviated pervert. I think general Ripper found out about your perversion. And that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of perverts.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Posters like Rampaging Mullet and Montucky are symptoms of a real problem in this country. While not really stupid or bad people, they’ve been told that they’re smart and their opinion matters even though they lack the aptitude to understand complex issues like this. They get confused and double down on their baseless positions. It’s really not their fault that they let their emotions get the better of them.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[GoldMember]

At the surface and without knowing much about how vaccines or labs or any of this shit really works in general, I would have to assume that Gates knows what he's talking about given his history of working with vaccination efforts and the contacts he has at his disposal.

There are probably correct arguments to be made on both sides. But people like you like to live in black and white, for some reason. Try not doing that, even just for today.

Probably the biggest argument that Gates makes, and as referenced in another linked article in this thread somewhere is that IP isn't the constraint. It's supply chain, production capability, properly trained personnel, raw materials (supply chain), equipment, etc. IP is just one element of what's required and is more available than any of the other elements needed to ramp up other countries. As noted before, it's better if we continue to try and ramp up production to whatever extent we can in existing facilities and supply other countries.

One worthy note relative to the IP debate is that Moderna, some months ago already indicated that their vaccine can be open-sourced with them waiving their IP protection. No one's taken them up on that yet as the other aspects of actually getting into mass production of vaccines is foreboding.

So, yeah, I understand exactly what Gates is stating, notwithstanding the whole debate about forced release of IP by the government, in contrast to protections afforded by the Constitution and the fact that other international companies and patents exist. That whole thing is a quagmire but is still less of an impediment than the other choke points. Montuckey isn't looking at the much bigger picture and is making what's akin to a trend analysis based on a single data point.

[subtle plague]

The immetric?

We take four quarts of Zirbn to exorcise all immetric thoughts from our minds.

[PNWbrit]

There will always be a percentage that has real and legitimate medical reasons why they can't get vaccinated. Call it 10% of the population.

That seems awfully high unless you're allowing people to base this decision themselves solely off of anecdotes, Facebook comments and Tucker.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

That seems awfully high unless you're allowing people to base this decision themselves solely off of anecdotes, Facebook comments and Tucker.

10% seems low, think of all the people with “service” dogs


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Not DJSapp]

That seems awfully high unless you're allowing people to base this decision themselves solely off of anecdotes, Facebook comments and Tucker.

It was a number for the sake of argument. There are definitely folks out there that are allergic to specific ingredients in any given vaccine, questions if people who are severely immuno-compromised should even take it, pregnancy (though that's getting figured out now), newborns, infants, elderly with other health issues, etc. There will always be a chunk of the pop that is exposed and for legitimate reasons (not fake service animal folks), whatever that number is. The point is getting to 100% is impossible so we need to shut down any potential of spreading as fast as possible. This means the fastest possible immune response.

[Yonder_River]

Probably the biggest argument that Gates makes, and as referenced in another linked article in this thread somewhere is that IP isn't the constraint. It's supply chain, production capability, properly trained personnel, raw materials (supply chain), equipment, etc. IP is just one element of what's required and is more available than any of the other elements needed to ramp up other countries. As noted before, it's better if we continue to try and ramp up production to whatever extent we can in existing facilities and supply other countries.

One worthy note relative to the IP debate is that Moderna, some months ago already indicated that their vaccine can be open-sourced with them waiving their IP protection. No one's taken them up on that yet as the other aspects of actually getting into mass production of vaccines is foreboding.

So, yeah, I understand exactly what Gates is stating, notwithstanding the whole debate about forced release of IP by the government, in contrast to protections afforded by the Constitution and the fact that other international companies and patents exist. That whole thing is a quagmire but is still less of an impediment than the other choke points. Montuckey isn't looking at the much bigger picture and is making what's akin to a trend analysis based on a single data point.

Interestingly, India itself has not disavowed its IP given to it's own vaccine developer, but expects the rest of the world to do so with theirs.

[old_newguy]

Posters like Rampaging Mullet and Montucky are symptoms of a real problem in this country. While not really stupid or bad people, they’ve been told that they’re smart and their opinion matters even though they lack the aptitude to understand complex issues like this. They get confused and double down on their baseless positions. It’s really not their fault that they let their emotions get the better of them.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

I don’t know, some of these people think Gates is an “evil” “psychopath” and proceed to spread dubious information around to that effect.

At some point you become a bad actor in this discussion.

People can’t even parse the conversation.

Gates was asked: Will it help if the IP protection on the vaccines is lifted.

Gates: No, because it is a capacity and training issue, not an IP issue. I know because I sit on a weekly call with CEOs of vaccine companies and am actively working on this issue.

[The AD]

I imagine when that movie came out pretty much everyone recognized that General Ripper was insane. There's probably a good percentage of people who would watch it now and think he makes a lot of sense.

[Ted Striker]

I imagine when that movie came out pretty much everyone recognized that General Ripper was insane. There's probably a good percentage of people who would watch it now and think he makes a lot of sense.

When Idiocracy was released it wasn't a documentary... yet.

[riser4]

We must not allow a mineshaft gap!

[LongShortLong]

The Bill Gates argument is more nuanced too. A problem in general that extends to the internet is literacy. U.S. literacy is measured with a simple test. Passing this test is considered a high level of literacy:

Bob says that, “snowboarding is good.”

Matt says, “snowboarding is bad,”

Test takers are given three choices: “Is snowboarding good? Is snowboarding bad? Is there a disagreement?”

Apparently, most people will choose good or bad. They don’t recognize contradictory or nuanced statements in a logical structure. I think the inability to follow an argument explains in part why misinformation spreads so easily.

Sexist, ableist, colonialist, and probably homophobic too (no pandering so must be). Protest the patriarchy. Refuse the test.

[KQ]

When Idiocracy was released it wasn't a documentary... yet.

That whole "my essence" thing is so Trump