And let's not forget that people with natural antibodies are being fired from their private sector jobs too.

We seem to be focused on measuring output rather than outcomes. Other countries are giving recovered people the same status as the vaccinated since they have the antibodies. But I guess that makes too much sense...

Natural antibodies + vaccination is basically a win-win for everyone, especially noting that the US is wasting vaccines rather than using them. You don't lose anything by getting the vaccine and there's a strong upside in resistance (around 10x more resistant than people who are simply vaccinated).

Like, between a 100-200$ blood test to prove natural immunity* vs. a free vaccine, it should make sense to get the vaccine.

* IMO, honor system should be de-emphasized for people claiming natural immunity. If they want to fight on this hill, they should be able to prove they have that immunity in the first place, otherwise it's simply inconsiderate.

"Like, between a 100-200$ blood test to prove natural immunity* vs. a free vaccine, it should make sense to get the vaccine."

The antibody test is about $45 from places like Labcorp. The vaccine is $40 per dose (so $80 total for most), with the government picking up the tab.

Yes, vaccination plus infection provides more antibodies. I'm not sure that it is correct to quantify that as "10x more resistance" as we would need to know where the threshold for resistance lies and all the factors involved (they don't know the min effective level of antibodies, and they are seeing protection in individuals before the antibodies are being produced).

"You don't lose anything by getting the vaccine..."

There are some people with valid concerns about the possiblity of autoimmune antibodies, which in theory, could be substantially higher if having already been infected. Sadly, I haven't been able to find any real research into this one way or the other.

"... they should be able to prove they have that immunity in the first place, ..."

Yes, other governments such as Isreal are issuing green passes for those confirmed to have recovered. I don't believe they are doing antibody testing, but we aren't testing vaccine recipients for antibodies either.

Why would you risk side effects (which are really low, but do exist) if you already have antibodies? Is argue you do "lose something" if you get a vaccine after having recovered from covid.

That's incorrect, natural immunity will last many years. Your antibody levels do go down but your body remembers how to make more. Vaccine immunity does seem to need booster shots.

We do not have data to support the claim "natural immunity will last many years", as the disease hasn't existed for many years. There are studies that go in both directions as to whether recovery from infection provides better protection against future infection or not, and there seems to be a lot of cherry-picking by people trying to support their own arguments.

If we can't eliminate Covid, there will be mutations that reduce effectiveness of immunity whether obtained by vaccines or by previous infection, and everyone will need boosters, like we do for influenza shots.

That's funny considering I've had COVID at least twice now, once in December 2020 and again in July 2021.

P.1 (aka Gamma) and B.1.617.2 (aka Delta) have already been proven to reinfect those previously infected by COVID19 at alarming rates 180-days after they've recovered.

Look: this shouldn't be a surprise. Your body only has 6 months of natural immunity to the flu. Some viruses (Flu, COVID19, etc. etc.) just don't have long-lasting immunity from. We all were hoping for the best, but the numbers are in and they're not very good for natural immunity.

The Flu isn't one strain. It's many highly mutative strains, kinda different from the handful of stable strains of covid.

That is all FUD. Natural immunity does fine, just like the vaccine you may be reinfected but the effects will be severely diminished.

Look, this shouldn't be a surprise. Evolution is a bit better at this stuff than man, it's been doing it longer.

I'm all for people taking boosters if they want to for some reason, but don't push false information.

> That is all FUD. Natural immunity does fine, just like the vaccine you may be reinfected but the effects will be severely diminished.

Why did Manaus, Brazil run out of hospital space in a 2nd surge? Despite initial infection rates of ~75%ish ?

Why was this effect then replicated in a 2nd Brazilian city of Araraquara city by a different research team? (Aka: a "2nd wave" of COVID19, despite a highly infected population?)

Either mismanagement or false reporting / fear mongering which runs rampant in covid times.

I don't know how you think that translates to poor natural immunity.

You would need to know the % of patients with covid of the ICUs that are overrun, whether they were previously infected, etc.

We see the blood has fewer protections through blood-donor information (fewer and fewer antibodies present in blood-donors). We then see variants evolve that are explicitly avoiding immune responses (aka: Gamma and Delta). And finally, we see these variants reinfect huge swaths of the population in practice.

Its not really that unbelievable of a story. It lines up with the science going on all around the world. Immune response wanes through some indirect measurement, variants rise, reinfections happen.

It also is within-a-magnitude of vaccine-induced immunity. So even if you get your immunity from vaccines, its seemingly waning after 8 months (Pfizer). 6 months / 8 months... that's close enough that its practically the same when it comes to these early / less rigorous studies. It seems that's how long our bodies immune response works vs this virus.

--------

Why do you think the virus is resurging in USA? There already was a huge surge (the 2020 summer surge and 2020 winter surge). For there to be yet another 2021 July/August surge??

Well: July 2021 was over 6 months since the last surge (December 2020/January 2021). Our collective immunities wore off. People _are_ getting reinfected.

That Manuas study was not representative of the population, so it's unlikely that 75% got infected in the first wave.

Natural immunity doesn’t only last 6 months. Where did you get that?

I’m coming out of my second COVID infection now. Long story short, I was in the local hospital and the fact that this was my second infection caused a really big hubbub in the COVID ward and a nurse told me I was the first reinfection she has seen.

> Natural immunity doesn’t only last 6 months. Where did you get that?

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/delta-raises-covid...

You got 180 days before natural immunity wanes and Delta poses a risk of reinfection.

That's looking at relative risk not overall. It's not saying you lose immunity after 180 days.

Natural immunity wanes enough to cause a "2nd surge" in cities that were 75%ish infected, such as Araraquara city, Brazil, and Manaus, Brazil.

I can agree with you that the 180-days thing is just an estimate from one study. Further studies are needed to narrow down the exact time when natural immunity wanes. But its a good "first guess" at the phenomenon, and should be within a magnitude of the truth.

From what we've seen around the world, COVID19 (or at least its variants, like Gamma/P.1 or Delta/B.1.617) is more than willing to reinfect populations in less than a year.

The Manaus study used a convenience sample, meaning that you cannot infer population rates from it.

Who would have thought that reading the abstract of a paper could be a super power?

> Natural immunity doesn’t only last 6 months. Where did you get that?

> I’m coming out of my second COVID infection now.

I know I'm using anecdote here. Coincidently it is the same one.

It's my understanding we only measure antibodies, which hang around after an infection for a while. We still have "the pattern" to create more once our immune system learns how to beat something.

No. There are substantial studies on the reinfection rates of P.1 (aka Gamma)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909850/

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(21)00183-5/full...

B.1.617.2 (aka Delta) also has shown properties showing that it evades natural immunity after 180-days, similar to P.1 / Gamma.

The "antibody measurement" studies are trying to narrow down the exact time that our immunity wanes. But it is a well-proven fact that natural immunity lasts less than a year, given what we've seen in Araraquara, Brazil and Manaus, Brazil.

It seems to be ~180 days, subject to more tests. So that's the number I'm going to assume until I see a better study.

Your numbers are incorrect. Vaccination appears to boost immunity after infection by a factor of 2×, not 10×. The duration of additional resistance is unclear.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

This is just a talking point coming from people who don't want to get the vaccination. Those people who don't want to get the vaccination largely exist because of misinformation, not because of any real risk (read: very very very very minimal risk) that comes with taking the Covid vaccine.

Everyone (who can) should take the covid vaccine, regardless of their antibody status.

Isn't the vaccination rate of healthcare worker only about 60%? If the reasons are strictly misinformation, then it seems you have an almost 40% chance of getting an incompetent healthcare professional. In my mind, that suggests there are rational and reasonable reasons, since I find that more likely than 40% being blatantly incompetent.

Most groups of people are susceptible to misinformation. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bias among nurses, who know enough to be in the medical field, but use that confidence to overestimate their ability to make medical decisions like getting the Covid vaccine.

96% of doctors have gotten the vaccine. Top medical researchers in the immunology recommend the vaccine. etc. etc. These people are less (but not completely) susceptible to misinformation because they are truly able to interpret research and findings.

We should be following doctors and immunology medical researchers. Not nurses.

(This isn't meant to be an inherent slight on nurses, by the way. I think it's just human nature.)

We also have to account for demographics and understand the risk/benefit analysis. That 96% number is from a WebMD survey of about 300 physicians. The ages are mostly over 50 with only 7% being under 35. So they are in the somewhat higher risk groups. They also work a job that runs a high risk of exposure. This means they might see their risk of infection and serious illness being high enough to justify it without feeling it is necessary to recommend it to everyone. For example, we don't all receive rabies vaccines yet many animal handlers do.

Another important thing to note is that there could be bias in that group. If you dedicate your life to medicine, you may be more likely to trust medicine without questioning it. Unless you've had an experience that was negative. Many physicians that have had negative personal experiences abide by the idea that new means unproven (which matches the reason that most unvaccinated doctors gave in the survey and the CDC lists - that the longterm risks are unknown).

Lastly, most doctors are to mechanics as medical researchers are engineers. Most doctors aren't looking up studies on PubMed or doing research. They mostly rely on what they've been taught in school and in continuing education. For the most part they are following established protocols. Hell, even the experts admit that there is a lot they don't know about the immune system. Take for example that researchers are seeing protection from the vaccine before antibodies are produced - which was unexpected.

So while most groups are susceptible to misinformation, that doesn't invalidate the position that one may avoid the vaccine due to the unkmown longterm affects. It's really a question of risk/benefit analysis in a sea of incomplete information.

I can't find exact distributions, but the average ago for nurses and the average age for doctors are the same. Around 51 years old. Seems like poor argument to use.

At the end of the day, doctors and medical researchers are producing the highest quality opinions on the subject. If you're not following their lead, then you are very likely in the wrong.

Are they sometimes wrong? Absolutely. But the key point: to think that you are more likely to be correct is absurd.

96% of practicing physicians are fully vaccinated [1]. That number goes way down as you look at nursing home aids, nurses, and home aids. If the argument is that healthcare workers not taking it makes it rational and reasonable, you need to contend with the fact that the more educated you are in medicine, the less hesitant you are.

It seems more likely that nurses and aids can't interprete dense medicalese or understand mRNA any better than the average person and are no less susceptible to misinformation than the average person. That doesn't make them incompetent at their jobs, which aren't about creating complex treatment plans using the latest and greatest medical research, but finding veins, delivering meds, scrubbing sores, changing bed pans etc.

[1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-3150

It could be that they are in higher risk demographics too. Only 7% were under 35, with the majority of the 300 or so being over 50. That greatly changes the risk/benefit equation. Although I think your generalization is probably accurate to some degree.

Can you explain why a "talking point" immediately invalidates something?

>A talking point, often used in the plural, is a pre-established message or formula used in the field of political communication, sales and commercial or advertising communication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_point

Let me ask you this: is "Everyone (who can) should take the vaccine" a message that medical organizations are communicating with minimal variance?

If "talking point" is getting us tripped up here, maybe "convenient excuse spread mostly to help the vaccine hesitant continue to not get the vaccine" would be a better phrase.

I'm not an English major here. Just trying to get my point across.

Natural antibodies are fun until you've waited a year and now you don't have them anymore.

I would imagine that there will be medical exceptions. I gather from the article that either get the shot or show your exception. Showing a negative test is not an option.

except a lot of doctors will be unwilling to give out medical exemptions because they are afraid to lose their license (even though they agree with the patient). It's happening here in Canada.

Happened to me.

Doctors gaslight me when I had an allergic reaction to Macrogol, claiming it was an anxiety attack while I could visibly feel myself suffocating to death. Did anyone bother to add it to my EHR? No.

Did anyone even add the allergies after I used the online portal to send a message to PAMF? No. Still in pending.

I keep on trying but somehow I keep getting doctors who don’t care or shift me from specialist to specialist since I’m apparently a case nobody wants to take.

I’m so tired of hearing ‘it’s safe and effective’ sometimes.

Should I go and get a shot that has a good chance of a giving me a life threatening reaction that may be fatal? (Oh and before you mention epinephrine, that’s also contraindicated; I have no faith that if it happens again, I’ll even end up alive considering I was left to just kind of suffer while nearly dying in the hospital ER not just once, but TWICE in the last few years).

I give up. I admit defeat.

I would imagine that, too. Or hope that. Expect that, even. But I would feel better if they actually said that. (Too much nonsense around Covid has made me a cynic...)

Just FYI, a cynic is someone who assumes people are selfish. A lot of people confuse it for pessimist.

But "pessimist" is more characters to type...

And, cynically, I see an amazing amount of selfishness around Covid.

One side won't wear masks because it impinges their freedom, and they'd rather have their freedom than not have vulnerable people die.

The other side wants to get everyone to do what they're supposed to do so that they (the ones demanding that others do what they should) can get back to living like they want, and never mind if they run over others' freedom or limitations on governmental authority or whatever. (Yes, I know, the second group is also concerned about the vulnerable. But it seems to me that at least some of the outrage comes from "Things should go the way I want them to, and it's unacceptable that the actions of others take that away from me.")

Federal agencies are still subject to the ADA, which Biden cannot waive without Congress. While the ADA appears to allow for vaccine requirements in general, it still requires reasonable accommodations for those who cannot get a vaccine.

Indeed, how might conflict with the Americans with Disability Act?