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Comment by literallyaduck | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this an unnecessary medical procedure for people who have already recovered?

Yes indeed. In fact vaccine studies generally exclude people who have already recovered so we are literally flying blind for these people. If there is no exemption then here are two middle fingers for whoever thinks this is a good idea.

CDC says vaccines are still better: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/12157/

This paper says natural immunity better: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

Unfortunately the science is evolving so fast and the variants are coming so fast, it's impossible to keep up!

because the science is evolving so we shouldn't have to mandate those who already have natural immunity. Will coercing someone who has natural immunity to take a shot or lose their job be truly that much more beneficial to justify? I don't think so and it's ethically wrong.

My antibody test was more painful than the pair of injections.

Vaccination doesn't harm people with existing antibodies (they just rebuff it faster) and going through the process serves as a good booster.

You don’t know this. We don’t know this.

We have to stop making these statements so casually about things that haven’t been studied.

What? They have been studied. For this and for other vaccinations. Kids get duplicate MMRs all the time because of lost paperwork.

Sometimes it feels like a new virus comes along and people forget we have 111 years experience with vaccinations.

It's not even the same technology.

But the method is identical. Get cells to present the proteins you want blasted. One uses direct mRNA deposition, the other hoodwinks denatured viruses into doing exactly the same thing.

mRNA isn't a scary new thing, it's a fundamental part of cell function. The clever new thing here is that we can bung it directly into cells to make proteins without having to mess around with carrier viruses.

Hundreds of millions of people have been exposed to covid and have also had a vaccine now, so even forgetting that there's no theoretical problem here, it has a physically tested track record.

What medieval test did you get?

I got the finger prick with a drop of blood. Quick and simple. Biting my tongue is much more painful.

The finger prick was more painful than the jabs.

Fingers are sensitive. Upper arm muscle isn't.

If you can't figure out whether natural immunity or vaccines are more effective based on the information we have available, the problem is with you, not the science.

The headline of that CDC article is misleading: the actual study compares the protection given by being previously infected with that given by being previously infected and then also vaccinated. There's no comparison against people who're relying only on vaccination to protect them. This is also a pretty weak justification, since if I remember rightly there's a comparable improvement by using one of the more effective vaccines rather than one of the less effective ones or possibly by increasing the number of shots required for a complete course of vaccination - but there's a huge taboo about noticing the difference in effectiveness between vaccines. (Also, I think this mandate kind of incentivises people to get the least effective of the US-approved vaccines, since it's a single shot and that makes it quicker and easier to meet the requirement.)

Plus, the article is old (before delta) and an opinionated piece by one of the most biased news outlets ever. yikes....

I don’t have the links, but studies from Israel and UK are showing 9x to 27x better protection by acquired immunity over vaccine.

Google around and you should find these.

It's a bit disingenuous to omit that they showed even higher protection in those who had previous infection and a vaccine.

The time wasted trying to confirm a previous infection would be better used just getting a jab.

Yes, mostly. Prior immunity needs to be considered.

Maybe. Vaccines generate a very predictable immune response. Natural recover results in a wide array of different immune responses, some of which are very weak and leave people susceptible to re-infection.

You can opt for regular testing instead.

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