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It almost seems like a lot of people don't want the data to indicate that natural immunity is strong and long lasting, even though the data shows that reinfecti
by loveistheanswer 5y ago
It almost seems like a lot of people don't want the data to indicate that natural immunity is strong and long lasting, even though the data shows that reinfection is extemely rare.
Similar to how so many people have been unwilling to even consider a lab leak was a possibility, until just now it seems, because that idea was heresy to the orthodox dogma that ordained Scientists are Saviors.
Humans have equated sickness with Sin for thousands of years, and catching covid has been no exception.
- cdolan 5y agoI appreciate the fact you said this and find it ironic you are being downvoted for this heresy!
- ultralite 5y agoNatural immunity was used as a justification for some societal responses, particularly by some on one side of the political spectrum. Thus, some of those on the opposite side will interpret strong natural immunity to COVID-19 as a political loss.
- DarknessFalls 5y agoRemember that across the globe, there are many complex political affiliations. As it turns out, the governments that tend to be more authoritarian, such as India, the U.K., or the U.S. during the last cycle, denied the efficacy of wearing masks or getting vaccinated. Boris Johnson went as far as to suggest he get Covid on stage with the cameras rolling, to show the dangers were exaggerated. Now he's well on his way to early retirement, thanks to the damage it's done.
- hesarenu 5y agoHmm trying to change history? India govt is right winged but don't think they denied efficiency of masks or vaccination.
- Xplune13 5y agoDon't know about the U.K or the U.S. but saying Indian Govt. denied the efficacy of wearing masks is false. The Indian Govt. had some questionable reaction to the pandemic but they never denied efficacy of wearing masks and vaccinations. On the contrary they actually encouraged people to wear masks and get vaccinated as fast as possible (when there were plenty of vaccines that is).
- jokethrowaway 5y agoRight wing governments are definitely less authoritarian than left wing ones. Lockdown in left wing countries has been much worse (as in, you can't get out of this area, you need to wear masks outside) than in the UK or the US. Tbh I was expecting better from the UK Tories and I wish they didn't implement all these restrictions and gave away so much money - but they did way better than other European countries I have friends in. At the same time, I've seen approval for Boris and Rishi Sunak increase among leftists, probably because they enacted pretty left wing policies.
- qqqwerty 5y agoI think the 3.5 million deaths were used as justification for certain societal responses. But if you like attacking straw men, who am I to stop you. It is a free country after all!
- ultralite 5y agoI expect it works both ways: I expect a weak natural immunity to COVID-19 would have been considered a political loss to some. I don't have sufficient expertise on the matter to hold strong positions either way.
- qqqwerty 5y agoAs far as I am concerned, there was only one side that was trying to score political points. The other side was trying to do what was right based on the best evidence that we had at the time. https://www.businessinsider.com/kushner-covid-19-plan-maybe-axed-for-political-reasons-report-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/kushner-covid-19-plan-maybe-...
- loveistheanswer 5y agoHow would you know if your political party was trying to score political points? What specific criteria would have to be met?
- xienze 5y ago> It almost seems like a lot of people don't want the data to indicate that natural immunity is strong and long lasting, even though the data shows that reinfection is extemely rare. I too remember when the concept of "natural immunity to Covid" was a wild, dangerous conspiracy theory, along with the "came out of the Wuhan lab" theory. Funny watching the narrative change in real time.
- DC-3 5y agoNatural immunity was never a dangerous conspiracy theory. It was simply the case that it was too early to have blind faith in it. No-one credible ever denied that it was possible or even that it was likely that people would gain natural immunity.
- ultralite 5y ago> No-one credible ever denied that it was possible or even that it was likely that people would gain natural immunity. Let's not rewrite history. It was clear that the media (e.g. BBC, below) chose to amplify messages that discredited natural immunity. [Prof Wendy Barclay said:] "On the balance of evidence, I would say it would look as if immunity declines away at the same rate as antibodies decline away, and that this is an indication of waning immunity." https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54696873 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54696873 Oct 2020.
- Guvante 5y agoI don't know that discrediting is a fair assessment. There is evidence of fewer or no markers in blood tests of patients who previously tested positive. Unfortunately it was impossible to tell whether that impacted immunity due insufficient time to collect data. If losing markers is often an indicator of lost immunity then saying the expectation is lost immunity isn't wrong, even if that like ends up being false. For instance data around infections from recovered and vaccinated people to others is still scarce to my knowledge. While we know that the health benefits for you are there whether it is enough immunity to completely prevent spread is still hard to examine.
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- tomrod 5y agoSort of. The infectious disease experts I know and worked with this past year are less worried about a political point and more worried that the immunity fades.
- __blockcipher__ 5y agoThey must not think or read very deeply into their own field then, because there exists the phenomenom of immunological memory, ie the effect where memory B/T cells lay dormant in the body for decades, and upon exposure to the characteristic antigen of SARS-2 (in this case) they ramp up antibody production exponentially. This results in - theoretically, but this is definitely what happens - lower peak viral load, lower symptomacity, and thus lower transmission and a shorter disease course. Thus even when full immunity to reinfection is gone - which btw the estimates I’ve seen are that IgG lasts a few years before the individual is seronegative again - there will still be immunological memory which persists indefinitely and vastly reduces mortality and morbidity.
- anonymouse008 5y agoWhat always tickles me is if the immunity fades, you get a bout of no taste and smell for a few days, and recover again. But we aren’t testing as much, so it’ll be worse for those at risk
- dmlittle 5y agoI’m not sure if all natural immunities are stronger, or even strong. I’m not denying those exists but I also personally know 3 people that have gotten COVID-19 twice. If natural immunity only protects against a particular strain and the vaccine against a group of them I think that’s still a solid reason to continue pushing for people to get vaccinated.
- Scoundreller 5y agoThe vaccines (so far) all use sequences of the spike protein from an early sample of COVID-19. They just make spike proteins and your body sees it and becomes immune to it. They've made some modifications, but for better stability/structure outside of the virus, but not (yet) to address variants. If anything, infection from current circulating virus is more relevantly effective (but obviously more dangerous than the vaccines). What I wonder is how much post-infection immunity might be from something other than just the spike protein, and therefore a bit more flexible against new variants than our strictly 'detect the spike protein' vaccination programmes. And how 'flexible' immunity is from infection vs. vaccination.
- __blockcipher__ 5y agoYes exactly this. Naturalistic immunity learns a more diverse set of epitopes. Whereas the artificial-spike-protein immunity is learning just the S protein. The spike is super important but it’s not the only source of epitopes. And I’ve seen some papers on immunology of SARS-2 that do show a lot of activity that’s not based around the spike protein. This notion that natural immunity is “worse” or won’t be able to handle the “variants” is completely contrary to the evidence as well as just basic napkin immunology. It’s, IMO, purely an idea spread implicitly through media headlines with the obvious intent of convincing people who don’t benefit from the vaccine (those who have already recovered successfully from COVID-19) to get it. I’ve talked to multiple friends in real life who had PCR-confirmed COVID/19, recovered, and got the vaccine anyway (which of course had even worse side effects than the usual second shot syndrome since the immune system had already been sensitized to SARS-2), and upon my prodding they basically all seemed to think they needed the vaccine to be protected against “the variants”.
- DarknessFalls 5y agoAnecdotally, I've known at least three people who have caught Covid twice during the pandemic. This runs contrary to your statement that natural immunity "is strong and long lasting". Rather, it is a forgetful, fickle thing to rely upon. Get vaccinated.
- plank_time 5y agoAnecdotally, I don’t know anyone personally who has gotten COVID. That doesn’t mean that I discount science and don’t believe that it exists. Reinfection is extremely low otherwise it would have shown itself in the data. That’s really a simple fact.
- jonnycomputer 5y agoOr maybe some people thought that serious accusations like this require evidence and looked askance upon Trump's xenophobic blame-shifting and hate-mongering. "the China virus" he likes to say. And we see the consequences with old Asian ladies being punched in streets by young white thugs. I've personally always held it as a possibility. But no way I'll defend the Trump administration on this.
- joemazerino 5y ago> And we see the consequences with old Asian ladies being punched in streets by young white thugs. Speaking of hate-mongering..are we seeing the same data on anti-Asian attacks?
- jonnycomputer 5y agoIf you have data, cough it up joe.
- jonnycomputer 5y agoLet me see if I can say restate this more clearly. I have always accepted the possibility that the virus escaped from a lab in China. However, like many other Americans, I refused to be drawn into public speculation about it by people, like Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, with a political and ideological interest in stoking xenophobia. In particular, I saw their attempt to blame China--before definitive evidence was acquired--as an attempt to shift blame away for the Trump administration's dismal response to the virus to external actors. And yes, we have seen a rise in anti-Asian hate crime and sinophobia in America, largely as a result of this kind of rhetoric.
- treeman79 5y agoEnough time has passed that social distancing, masks, vaccines have become moral issues to many. “Only bad people don’t wear masks” mentality. Completely separate from if they are still needed or not.
- paxys 5y agoAlmost like it's okay to dismiss statements made without ample research and evidence and accept them later when due diligence has been done.
- loveistheanswer 5y agoThats not how science works. 1. First you make a hypothesis. 2. Then you gather data. If people arent allowed to make hypotheses or gather data around hypotheses, we can't do the scientific method.
- flarg 5y agoHow do you know that reinfection is rare esp for variants? We've been in lock down and meant of those infected self isolate voluntarily or as a consequence of being sick. And what's the consequence of your pov? That everyone just gets sick and those who make it are all good? What good is public policy if it doesn't protect the public?
- wheels 5y agoIt's been very interesting to me listening particularly to American podcasts and the extent to which the American left equates Covid rules to piety. You can here that there's significant genuine resistantance to the idea of letting go of the restrictions as they've become part of identity. I'm American, but I've lived in Germany for the last 20 years. Here, vaccines are being used as the carrot to be able to get rid of the restrictions (like mask wearing, limiting of contacts, etc.). It feels like everyone wants to get rid of the restrictions here, and it's more of a fight about who gets to do that first and why.
- hef19898 5y agoMy impression, as a German still following US politics post-Trump more than I should, is that US governors, especially the GOP ones, never put real restrictions in place and were among the first to get rid of them. Examples include Texas and Florida. In Germany everything Covid turned political last fall, with Laschet being anti-restrictions and Söder being pro-restrictions. In both cases to score political points for their campaigns to become the conservative's candidate for chancellor. Everybody wants back a normal life, some people simply have trouble accepting that it will take a while still. And that doing it prematurely poses a significant risk.
- sharken 5y agoIt certainly seems very hard for a lot of people in countries with high vaccination percentage to cope with Corona being "just another disease" at this point. My hope is that all the laws and restrictions will be rolled back as we learn that we can live with Corona.