That doesn't work so great if you don't die and have lifelong complications, though. It doesn't work so great if you get it and kill your child/grandmother either.
It doesn't work so well if you have to catch the virus multiple times to have immunity either (folks aren't always immune after catching it). Not to mention the unknowns with mutations of the virus.
It is seriously much better to try to avoid catching the virus at all. The virus means you might be ok... or you might die, or you might have a lifetime of suffering that you wouldn't get with a vaccine.
https://qcovid.org/Calculation
eg. 30 year old healthy white male: 1 in 7,092 risk of hospitalisation, 1 in 250,000 risk of death.
By contrast the risk of death from anything for a 30 year old male in the UK is 1 in 1,215:
http://www.bandolier.org.uk/booth/Risk/dyingage.html
Even taking a healthy 80 year old male, the risk of death from COVID is 1 in 275, whereas the annual risk of death from anything is 1 in 15.
But it's not just about the risk to the individual. It's about the risk to the population as a whole. Both of these risks need to be balanced.
While the vaccine might not /appear/ to be worth it at a young age, by getting vaccinated and blocking the transmission of the virus you are protecting the population at large. From that perspective, not getting vaccinated is actually very selfish (using the exact meaning of the word).
People need to look at both the personal and societal aspects of the vaccination strategy. There will be social pressure to be vaccinated because it's not just about you, it's about everyone, and if we are to reopen society and get back to normal, then the expectation is that nearly all of us will need to get vaccinated.
- Death is not the only bad outcome. Many otherwise healthy younger people have experienced months of debilitating sickness, in addition to weeks of the worst flu you've ever had.
- You can pass it on to people less fortunate than yourself, who can't take weeks off work, and (in some countries) may not have health insurance, and might be at higher risk of death or morbidity.
- You're burdening a stretched health system, literally preventing other people (or even yourself) from getting life saving treatment.
- You're stopping me and everyone else from going to the pub.
The vaccine greatly reduces the chances that I have any of these things. Or heck, it even greatly reduces the chance that I'll have a week or two of misery.
The fact that we have insufficiently tested vaccines does make the decision harder.
The most sensible thing is to investigate this, maybe more without the vaccine died from thrombosis, but need to see.
Still, the consequences for those unfortunate riders can stay with them throughout life.
Ride safe.
From an article titled "Lab studies suggest Pfizer, Moderna vaccines can protect against coronavirus variant" I quote:
"While the blood serum samples produced less neutralizing antibody activity, it was still enough to neutralize the virus, they wrote in a letter to the journal. This is in line with other studies. And it's well within what is seen with other viruses, one of the researchers said." [1]
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=covid+immunity+from+other+co...
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/17/health/pfizer-vaccine-south-a...
The problem however is those with weak immune systems. In these cases, the vaccine is unlikely to help these people much, and they become breeding grounds for escape variants.
It's like taking a quarter dose of an antibiotic, against an infection of an organism that tends to mutate at a high rate. This places a large pressure on the organism for an escape variant.
This is exactly what Bossche warns of. Listen to minute 37 onward: https://www.brighteon.com/257797f0-06fa-4596-be69-af71bb3adc...
I watched enough of the video you sent to see what Dr. Bosche was saying - that vaccination immunity is more specific than natural immunity, and that may present problems down the road with variants. I also found this note/presentation/slides by him [0]. I read some of this to get more detail, video is kind of lame for relating so much information. I'm not a virologist. But I have read a bunch of this stuff. I thought what Dr. Bosche said was interesting. I had a few initial questions. I'd love to see more virologist's opinions on this.
He says "Covid-19, a highly mutable virus, only needs to add another few mutations in its receptor-binding domain". I didn't know that covid19 was considered highly mutable, like the flu. Is he hedging here, saying this might happen? I guess the specific proteins that the vaccines target would need to mutate. I wonder how likely this is. I assume there are lots of things that are "several mutations" away from killing us all. Papers I've seen early on said that left to its own covid19 had a 50/50 chance of mutating to become no more deaadly than the common cold (because it would spread better that way), or settle into something that flares up every few years, like a bad flu season. I took that to mean that there are also pressures to mutate to something less deadly. They think this is what may have happened in 1873 (if memory serves), a new coronavirus came on the scene, it looked like a very bad flu season at the time.
He mentioned several cases of young people dying from covid19 variants, and several cases of people shedding variants. "Several" is not a large number, especially considering how much we don't understand about the immune system. Typhoid Mary was shedding for years, and that had nothing to do with a vaccine. I don't know that I'd consider his several examples to be anything out of the ordinary out of a sample size of how many tens of millions.
He seems to be saying we'd be better off if we didn't proceed with vaccinations and allowed the population to reach natural herd immunity at this point, since covid19 has already spread to so many people. That people who caught it and got better on their own would be better protected. This reminds me of the virologist early on who recommended finding the least deadly variant and spreading that around on purpose.
It's an interesting topic, and I appreciate you bringing it up! I don't mean to argue over it, so much as relay my thoughts and left some of the details of what he's saying.
Do you think most of the people fearful of variants are on the same page with this guy? The news stories I see mentioning problems with vaccines and variants don't ever seem to have solid sources/studies backing them up, I've never heard this guy mentioned before, and he seems to be a relatively lone voice at this point. I'd like to think that the experts have had a chance to hash all this out amongst themselves, but I know things don't always work out that nicely.
[0] https://www.deblauwetijger.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Ge...