The virus is a moving target and what was true of the alpha variant may not be true of delta or downstream. I guess it depends on what you mean by excuse. If you mean allow people to say go on a cruise with a positive covid test as opposed to a vaccination record that seems tentatively reasonable. If you mean allow workers at an old folks home to opt out based on a prior positive test that is unreasonable. If it makes you even possibly slightly less likely to kill the old folks you should get the jab.
The real problem is the grey area created by such a rule. There are probably multiple times as many people who think they have had covid compared to those that have actually had covid that have never been tested. I know people in the US who had an illness in 2019 who are sure they had covid. If you give them an opening they wont let it go. It will surely get ugly.
> If you mean allow workers at an old folks home to opt out based on a prior positive test that is unreasonable. If it makes you even possibly slightly less likely to kill the old folks you should get the jab.
Where is the line drawn? Maybe it would be more effective for people with 2 doses to get a third? What science is there showing antibodies + 1 shot is more marginal protection than 3 shots?
I don't believe that it's firmly established that natural immunity is as good as 2 shots or natural immunity + 1 shot.
We bought more than enough doses to vaccinate everyone and downsides are small.
Consider a population of 10 million with natural immunity. Let us suppose that vaccination with Pfizer will kill between 0 and 1.
Suppose that 1% would fall ill and 1% of those die. That is 1000 preventable deaths.
It needn't be very much of a difference just 1/100th of 1% to vastly outweigh the risk of a very safe vaccine.
Why would we do that when the vaccines are safer than the actual disease and effective enough to contain the spread?
It seems like we should be optimizing for vaccinating as much of the (non-antibody) population up to a level where the spread of the virus is contained rather than maximizing resistance in the population with antibodies. There must be a threshold at which the low hanging fruit becomes “people without antibodies” rather than “people with fewer antibodies”. I’m not sure it matters if the antibodies are from the vaccine or infection.
> I’m not sure it matters if the antibodies are from the vaccine or infection.
I'm not entirely sure either. There is some research that since the vaccine is just the spike protein, while natural immune response was to the entire virus, that the natural immune response is more comprehensive.
The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect”, says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Yes, but don't just take their word for it. Confirmed clinical test should be the bar. I fear if the "you don't need a vaccine if you've had it" narrative gains traction, even if it is undeniably true, it's going to result in the anti-vaxxers lying about having already had the virus, to manufacture another excuse for themselves. If we've learned anything in the last year, it's that any system that relies on people to pinky-swear they're telling the truth will be exploited by a small but significant minority of people.
We don't actually know this. We know it's less dangerous to them thus far. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56696907 https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/202...
We are not a collective. We do not have these types of arbiters who will police and decide what is best for everyone. We are a nation of individuals and if you cannot trust people to "pinky-swear" on this matter then how can you trust them to do anything? Including vote on anything? Or reason? Who will make all the decisions for them?
Florida and other states have not had mandates and they’re doing fine per the data.
There are many many people who have confirmed positive COVID tests. At least excuse those.
>I think it's a little irresponsible to society to give anyone an out on getting vaccinated.
I think it's irresponsible to require people who most science points to having better protection naturally, to also have to get a vaccine. From this point of view, 2 dose vaccine still have less protection than natural antibodies. Maybe we should require the vaccinated to keep getting more vaccine shots until science shows they're at par with natural antibodies, lowest hanging fruit and all...