We can all see how much higher the hospitalization and death rates are in unvaccinated people as compared to vaccinated and vaccinated plus boosted people.
CDC estimated that 146m US residents had covid between Feb 2020 and sep 2021. Obviously that was pre-omicron and is much higher now. Estimated COVID-19 Burden | CDC
Other sources estimate up to 70% of the population has had covid.
Not sure how anyone could look at those unvaccinated hospitalization and death rate numbers and think natural immunity protects anywhere close to the level the vaccines plus boosters do, knowing that itâs likely a significant proportion of the unvaccinated have already had a first round of covid.
Actually previous infection is extremely protective with regards to breakthrough infections. Look at the attached graph, it ranks very close to vaccination.
To believe that natural immunity approaches that of vaccinated/vax plus boosted people would require one to believe that many of the unvaccinated people currently in the hospital and dying didnât have a prior covid infectionâŠis that what you are saying?
Considering that Delta has been deemed a stronger variant compared to Omicron I think this data and graph speaks volumes.
Looking at the data I would say that the majority of those dying are in fact individuals that are unvaccinated and are those that have not had a previous infection.
Maybe, but the numbers donât seem to work out then, if 50%-70% of people had covid prior to omicron. I do think thereâs so much we still donât know, including how long natural immunity or vaccines/boosters might last. Time will tell.
Youâre correct, we donât know how long either protection from previous infection or vaccines last and that will have to be determined later.
It seems reasonable that if prior infection provides a similar protection as the vaccines do, even if itâs not exactly the same, that those groups are both much more protected than unvaccinated individuals with no prior infection. Then, in my opinion anyway, it would be reasonable to believe that the majority of individuals with severe cases, and thus the majority of the deaths, are in unvaccinated individuals that havenât had a previous infection.
Once Omicron has moved through the population, there should be even more individuals that will have acquired this ânaturalâ protection.
Perhaps the distinction is that during the Blitz, children were sheltered with lights out or sent to the country w/o their parents for their own protection. The Blitz didnât discriminate by age - Covid does. The risk of serious illness or death to a child is orders of magnitude lower than it is for their parents, grandparents, and other adults. They are made to mask up or do their schooling via remote primarily in order to protect the grownups.
In May to June 2021 (i.e. just prior to Delta, and just as vaccines were becoming easily available to all who were eligible), a CalSCOPE community antibody study found the following:
Status
Adults
Children
No antibodies
33%
57%
Infection only
18%
26%
Infection and Vaccination
9%
5%
Vaccination only
41%
13%
However, the demographics of survey respondents did not seem too representative of the general populations in the counties surveyed (e.g. 63% White).
Obviously, Delta added to those infected, and additional people got vaccinated, so the next phase of the community antibody study from around November 2021 (just before Omicron) may have the information you are interested in. However, it looks like the Delta wave infected far fewer people in California than were infected in the pre-vaccine time, according to https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/ .
In order to have natural immunity, you first have to SURVIVE infection.
If you survive, thereâs a 20% chance that you did not develop any antibodies. This could be due to a number of factors, including viral load, symptomatic versus asymptomatic, other possible reasons. Thatâs what I mean by not reliable. You donât know if youâre one of the people who failed to develop antibodies.
Finally, there was a talk in the Infectious Disease society from a doctor in South Africa when Omicron first hit. SA is a young population, not vaccinated. They have people who have had 4 (thatâs four) infections from Covid. So 3 reinfections. And this was back in late November or early December, I donât remember which, but they probably are seeing people with 5 infections by now. In the US, we have seen a lot of people infected in early December who were reinfected in late December. We were thinking maybe Delta-Omicron, but then more people who were infected over the holidays and reinfected 2 weeks later, and some infected twice in January alone. These later instances Delta was gone. So what is causing these recent reinfections? Maybe these are the 2 variants of Omicron, or Omicron and something else. No one knows and my head starts to spin.
South Africa data.
Of course you have to SURVIVE infection to develop antibodies. Hundreds of thousands have already survived Covid. That in no way discounts the deaths and the seriousness of Covid. Why are you so afraid to admit that those people have antibodies and the new Johns Hopkins study supports that. Theyâve already SURVIVED!
Iâve read a total of two reasons why they donât want to acknowledge natural immunity.
We just donât know how long natural immunity lasts. Well we donât know how long the vaccine lasts either. Wait, yes we do. It starts to wain at 6 months thus the booster. And we are already seeing the booster start to wain, thus the talk of booster 4. The new study says at least 22 months for natural immunity. Well that sure seems better than 6 months to me.
We canât keep track. Thatâs no reason to tell someone who already has immunity that they are mandated to get a vaccine they donât want. Thus all the distrust.
Iâm not anti vax. I have the initial series. I am not boosted and donât intend to get boosted at this time due to my own medical reasons. If you read the booster thread you can read why I will not get the booster. My spouse has two shots and had Covid. He SURVIVED and according to other reports that is like a super immunity, so no booster there either.
The minute anyone here posts any good news like I did about the natural immunity the people here immediately jump to thatâs not good enough. Itâs all âfollow the scienceâ unless âfollow the scienceâ doesnât say what I want it to say. I choose to look at this new study as a good thing, getting closer to endemic. Iâm sorry if thatâs upsetting to some of you. Iâm allowed my opinion just as you are allowed yours. And thatâs what the majority of this thread is, itâs âopinionâ
If you read my previous post you would have seen my comment that we should not discount natural immunity.
And I have previously posted that perhaps boosters arenât needed.
The distrust is likely already pre-existing in being the reason someone does not want to get vaccinated, regardless of any mandates or lack thereof.
While it is reasonable policy-wise to accept documented previous infection in place of vaccination, for the person who was previously infected, getting vaccinated still something one would want to do if there is no medical contraindication, since it generally does improve immune response. Going the other way, variolation to gain natural immunity is more risky, especially if not vaccinated.
From what I can see from the various study pages linked recently:
mRNA vaccines are tightly focused on antibody response against the ancestral spike protein.
Infection tends to result in a variable immune response (which in a nontrivial percentage of cases is too weak to prevent reinfection, even with a similar variant), but it can also be broader than that induced by mRNA vaccines (e.g. may result in antibodies against more of the virus).
Against the ancestral virus and variants close to the ancestral virus (e.g. Alpha), mRNA vaccine immunity appears to be more effective than natural immunity.
Against variants with spike proteins that have mutated further away from the ancestral virus (e.g. Delta), mRNA vaccine immunity appears to decline significantly, while natural immunity appears to decline less in effectiveness. mRNA boosters which were mostly given just before Omicron may have been timed just right to compensate for antibody mismatch with increased antibody volume for a time frame that just happens to match the Omicron wave, which may account for better results among the boosted than unboosted vaccinated.
There does not seem to be as much study on the J&J vaccine.
An mRNA booster probably helps if gotten just before a new wave that is partially mismatched to the vaccine, so that the temporary increased antibody volume somewhat compensates for the partial mismatch. But it has to be timed just right (as happened accidentally when boosters started being widely advised around November, just before Omicron showed up).
A J&J booster may be helpful at increasing T-cell response in someone who has only had mRNA doses.
Of course, a booster aimed at the current circulating variants may be more helpful. But the vaccine companies have not produced them yet.
And thatâs exactly why I got my 4th shot the day my child went back to school in January after the holiday break. It may only provide an increased circulating barrier to a poorly matched variant, but that was enough reason for me.
This. I canât agree with those who think kids should have been allowed to live life unimpeded by the pandemic, because their lives and futures are more important than the people more at risk from covid.
And as far as people only being concerned with the youngest who still canât get vaccinated, donât go overboard about that. A low percentage of children aged 5 - 11 have gotten vaccinated, and it is expected that it will be an even lower percentage for the youngest children.
(To clarify, I know people on this board are concerned about family members who are young children, and rightfully so! But to be concerned about all the other young children whose parents wonât even get them vaccinated?)
If someone WANTS to get the vaccination after having had Covid, thatâs great. Have at it. Thatâs their choice and I respect that. Iâm talking about the ones who have had Covid and DONâT want it. The study indicates robust antibodies at 22 months. They should not be mandated to 2, 3, 4, or ? shots.
And back to variolation. Just stop with that. Of course itâs more risky. I have never brought up nor supported variolation. This study does NOT support variolation. MANY, MANY people have had Covid and survived. They did not go out and try to get Covid. They did things correctly and got Covid and now there is evidence (there has been other studies with evidence also) they have robust antibodies. What doeâs variolation have to do with the natural immunity of the previously infected?
(Reuters) - A new type of PCR test can quickly tell which variant of the coronavirus is causing infection, helping doctors choose the most effective antibody treatments, researchers said.
Most current PCR tests can check broadly for the presence of the virus but cannot identify specific variants. The new test uses special âprobesâ - fluorescently labeled molecules - called âsloppy molecular beaconsâ that glow in different colors when they attach themselves to DNA or RNA in the virus. When the sample from the patient is heated, the probes fall off their DNA or RNA targets and their color disappears. They fall off at different temperatures depending on the DNA or RNA sequence they were bound to.
Because the variants each have some unique sequences, they can be identified based on the pattern of color changes at each temperature, explained Dr. David Alland of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
âWe have already performed a clinical study which showed that the assay was 100% sensitive and 100% specific for identifying variants of concern including Delta and Omicron,â Alland said. âWe are asking the N.J. Dept of Health to clear our testâ so that New Jersey labs can use it, he added.
A typical hospital molecular laboratory would be able to perform the test, his team reported on medRxiv ahead of peer review.
mRNA vaccines seem to be more targeted than other types of vaccines. They were by far the most effective against the virus strain they target, but they also seem to lose their effectiveness more quickly as viruses mutate more substantially from the one they target, relative to other types of vaccines.
the problem is always the varients. My D got covid Nov 2020, and was pretty down for 2 weeks. Then in March/April got Moderna. Then this December got Covid again (but had not been boosted). WE think Delta, not Omicron, though we could never be sure. Yes the 2nd time was a bad cold, but she also got the tireness again. So Natural immunity, plus vaccines, with no booster (8 months out) and covid again. With new varients, the only thing previous infection or vaccines are doing is preventing, hopefully servere cases /hospilizations/death.
Maybe because we were getting conflicting information in the same daily press conferences by the govt in 2020? Some of us chose to follow the scientists in those conferences.
I think it is important to remember that this was a new situation - the scientists were updating their info as they learned more, which I think eroded some trust (although it still does not make sense to me that you would believe a FB post about livestock deworming medical before scientists/the medical profession!)
