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Comment by mcastle | Hacker News Reader

There’s a third choice, which is not getting the vaccine because you already have natural resistance to COVID, such as through a previous infection with COVID. In this case, a vaccine could introduce unnecessary risk.

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That’s the second choice. You’re just later on after catching COVID

It’s not the second choice though, since the initial state is different, and thus so are the risks and rewards of getting the vaccine.

What I'm still curious about is re: the risks of the naturally immune taking the vaccine. If they're immune, wouldn't they have fast deployment of antibodies to the vaccine-induced creation of the s-protein? Then surely it wouldn't be any greater risk than catching covid again, right? Meaning both situations (getting vaxx or getting covid again) would likely result in mild or no reaction (presuming an otherwise healthy risk profile). What am I missing?

One very small (but real) risk of the RNA vaccines is that it is quite difficult to dose the s-protein production. The amount of cellular uptake of the lipids envelopes, efficiency of ribosomes and many other factors play a role. The vaccine RNA is optimized to promote transcription. Someone who's cells are naturally happen to be great at transcription may create a lot more s-protein than someone else.

Too much s-protein can provoke a higher than optimal immune response which can also be dangerous.

Ok. I guess my question was: would it be safer for an otherwise healthy person that had covid and recovered to face covid again or to get the vaccine? And I guess the answer is: "it depends" - chiefly on which produces a larger viral load. And that might depend on how much virus you get sneezed into the open wound you're getting stitched up by the roadside Guatemalan doctor skimping on mask costs whose been feeling a wee bit snotty that afternoon. Or whether your cells produce more than is necessary and you have a bad immune response.

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