My one anti-vax friend (who I make fun of constantly for not getting it) is constantly bombarded with people telling him that his previous infection doesn't give him any immunity. I already knew that was false - and I think he knew that too. It probably fed into his (motivated) reasoning to hold out this long if people are telling him so much information they know to be untrue.
Still, I don't see how public health would benefit from not recommending shots to everyone as there is no downside.
The only reason I got the vaccine is because of the chance idiotic unscientific governments won't bother me with tests I need to pay for when travelling.
I'm not a "anti-vaxxer" "conspiracy theorist" "racist" "sexist" "nazi" but the risk is just too low for me to care. If you think covid can affect you, take the vaccine and don't bother me.
I self isolated weeks before the government told me so because we didn't know what the risk involved was. By the time the government approved a 2 weeks lockdown which turned into 1 year and a half, it was already evident the risks were minimal. This is all a political play and I shudder when I think about what's coming next. Shall we do a climate change lockdown next? Or shall we try some more covid variants first?
I also don't think vaccines are likely to be dangerous (minus the platelets / blood clots issue - hopefully no long term issues pop up in 10 years).
Also, the downside is that everyone is paying for these shots, they're not free and they come out of the taxes the government steals from me every month - and they accomplish very little. Same as the flu shots.
We don’t know that there is no downside which is why these vaccines were approved via Emergency Use Authorization. At the very least I and several people I know were absolutely flattened by the vaccines for a day or two. One guy I know had very low blood sugar for weeks afterwards and needed medical intervention.
The vaccines are important in establishing herd immunity, but I don’t understand the desire to jab people who already have established immunity.
Feeling symptoms of COVID after receiving the vaccine is a normal and expected result that makes common sense: your immune system is doing its job. The only possible long term side effect here is partial or total immunity from COVID. On the other hand you don’t know the long term effects of COVID either, but I would bet dollars to donuts that they are worse than from the vaccine, based on what we know as of today.
> The only possible long term side effect here is partial or total immunity from COVID.
You don’t need to convince me to get vaccinated, but this is a profoundly unscientific statement. The mRNA vaccines are a brand new technology that would not have been approved without several years of human trials if there was not a pandemic justifying rushing through the normal process.
So far so good, but the immune system is a complex system and we can’t rule out some unexpected side effects for some people some of the time.
one of the other long term effects of covid transmission, is the opportunities given for variation and selection according to viral efficiency, in effect each infection is a crap shoot toward generation of recombinants, or molecular variants
> I don't see how public health would benefit from not recommending shots to everyone as there is no downside.
You'd get all the never infected people vaccinated sooner; so 'everyone' (except anti-vax not infected prior to effective 'herd immunity') would be immune sooner.
That's my thing. Plenty of people who know they almost certainly had Covid weren't tested, some were tested with tests that were experimental, etc.
And while trying to predict second-order behavior effects is tricky either way it is pretty clear that saying "don't get the vaccine if you already had Covid" would scare some people away.
> Plenty of people who know they almost certainly had Covid weren't tested
I had quite the opposite experience ; plenty of people told me they had (mild) flu symptoms - a lot of TMI, to be honest - and assumed they had had COVID already. It later turned out, with no exception, that they absolutely did not.
Scaring those people away would probably hurt a lot, at least in my anecdotal experience.
"Plenty of people who know they almost certainly had Covid weren't tested..."
Do you mean tested for antibodies with finger prick blood test, or PCR random number generator (see elon musk wild PCR results).
I was sick, had test that showed antibodies, and a confirmation letter from my Dr.
Since the EUA to rush out the vaccines does not include those who had it and recovered, it needs more testing and study before it is approved for those who have antibodies.
The jab is not risk-free.
That was true when the EUA was issued, but by now, we have vaccinated major segments of the population without seeing issues (e.g. hospitalizations are decreasing even as the rate of exposed population is much higher).
I was in a similar position as you: possible early COVID exposure (though no symptoms), several positive antibody tests, but absolutely zero side effects from either Pfizer shot. Annoyed not a few people though by my lack of any reaction to the shots, so that was kinda fun.
It's certainly arguable that there is downside for some people. Some vaccine side effects are worse for some people who have already been infected. [1]
How do you know your anti-vax friend was actually infected? I think a very real risk is that people decide they don't need the vaccine based on false-positive tests or otherwise mis-diagnosed illness.
This study appears to be based on following up with a single hospital's own database of people who tested positive. But I imagine you would get different results if you just found a bunch of people and asked them to self-report their prior infection status before enrolling them in the study.
He was tested twice and came back positive both times - many people in his workplace had it. He 100% had it.
Agree on the self-reporting, but I guess my larger point is he already doesn't want to get the vax and people telling him that his natural immunity is not sufficient makes him even more distrustful since he does know enough about science/statistics to see that natural immunity is about equal with a vaccine as far as we can tell.
This is a dubious claim, and is a frequent anti-vaxx/vaccine-hesitancy talking point.
VAERS data needs to be interpreted with special care. It's not equivalent to a safety study with a proper experimental design. It has a whole lot of legal and administrative context to account for.
And until the studies happen there is no danger? The studies create the danger? Or may we behave like rational individuals and realize that "zero danger" is a political talking point which is fully debunked by the VAERS data?
VAERS is user-generated content. I can go in there and file a report that I grew a third arm after vaccination and it'll go in.
Dying or having an adverse event after vaccination also isn't the same as dying from vaccination; even the genuine VAERS reports don't permit teasing this wrinkle out on their own.
> I can go in there and file a report that I grew a third arm after vaccination and it'll go in.
And you'd be committing a felony. I see this idea tossed around all the time that tons of the reports coming in are fake, but so far have seen scant evidence that that's the case.
> Dying or having an adverse event after vaccination also isn't the same as dying from vaccination; even the genuine VAERS reports don't permit teasing this wrinkle out on their own.
Okay, but then why are so many more people reporting dying after Covid-19 vaccination than have reported dying after flu shots which have been administered to millions of people for decades?
> In a July 2005 web post, Dr. James R. Laidler wrote: "The chief problem with the VAERS data is that reports can be entered by anyone and are not routinely verified. To demonstrate this, a few years ago I entered a report that an influenza vaccine had turned me into The Hulk. The report was accepted and entered into the database.
> "Because the reported adverse event was so… unusual," Laidler wrote, "a representative of VAERS contacted me. After a discussion of the VAERS database and its limitations, they asked for my permission to delete the record, which I granted. If I had not agreed, the record would be there still, showing that any claim can become part of the database, no matter how outrageous or improbable."
> Moss explained one way VAERS can amplify fears about the COVID-19 vaccine in particular. Most vaccinations are given to a small segment of the population: young, healthy children, who are generally less likely to have health problems afterward. But the COVID-19 vaccine is given to a much larger group — all Americans 16 and older are eligible now. And the earliest recipients included a large number of elderly patients and adults with preexisting health problems.
Do you look at anything other than factchecks? Taken right from the VAERS website (in bold font, no less): "Knowingly filing a false VAERS report is a violation of Federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1001) punishable by fine and imprisonment." A single case of a doctor submitting a goofy report in 2005 (and even having the CDC follow up with him!) doesn't establish a widespread pattern. Has even a single such incident been reported with the Covid VAERS submissions? I have to imagine the media would be keen to trumpet it, given their evident interest in putting out the word that there's "nothing to see here" in the VAERS numbers.
> Moss explained one way VAERS can amplify fears about the COVID-19 vaccine in particular. Most vaccinations are given to a small segment of the population: young, healthy children, who are generally less likely to have health problems afterward. But the COVID-19 vaccine is given to a much larger group — all Americans 16 and older are eligible now. And the earliest recipients included a large number of elderly patients and adults with preexisting health problems.
This is trivially accounted for by comparing Covid and influenza vaccines. If I limit to ages 18-59 I get ~73,000 total adverse events for influenza vaccines across their entire history, and 173,000 adverse events for Covid vaccines since they started to be administered at the beginning of the year.
It really is not "trivially accounted for" in this manner. The flu is an annual thing that most people are coping well with mentally. Can't quite say the same about the latest pandemic, and people's attitudes and beliefs are going to significantly colour the amount and nature of the self-reporting system.
Those are separate concerns from the age/demographic ones I was addressing. I could see what you raise driving some difference in the rates of reporting to VAERS. I could not see it driving a difference of, say, zero "Death + Life Threatening" reports for influenza vaccines in 2020 versus 2,857 "Death + Life Threatening" reports for Covid vaccines in 2021 for the 18-59 age group.
You need to apply some Bayesian thinking. No reasonable person (expert or not) believes in such a thing as zero danger.
- The vast majority of new drugs that undergo safety trials are found to have serious side effects.
- The near totality of new vaccines that undergo safety trials are found to have a formidably beneficial risk profile.
Don't make the mistake of applying the same risk heuristic in your mind for both things. Risk assessments in science have absolutely nothing to do with politics.
Still, I don't see how public health would benefit from not recommending shots to everyone as there is no downside.