We were invited to a birthday party for one of the kids in the neighborhood. A slender mom who appeared to be in her early thirties, on finding that we had moved from Massachusetts, said. “I have a close friend up there, but I haven’t been able to visit because she is afraid to be around anyone who is unvaccinated, even though I had Covid back in August.” It turned out that her Covid encounter was similar to what other unvaccinated friends experienced in 2020. She had a low fever, took a nap each day for a few hours, and had some body aches. Per standard, she tested negative several times before testing positive. Why hadn’t she been previously vaccinated? “Covid is not that big a deal and I didn’t trust that the immunity from the vaccine would be good enough or last long enough to be worth the risk of taking a new medicine.” She was not against older people choosing to get Covid vaccine shots, but she was against the government requiring it. #NotHerFrontDoor:
What was the anti-science Deplorable’s job? Nurse practitioner. Some Democrats explain the tendency of married women to vote Republican as due to brainwashing by husbands. Following the same logic, maybe a science-ignorant husband had controlled her mind? I asked about her husband’s job. “He’s an E-R physician,” she responded. “He got one shot and then decided it was mostly hype and never got the second one. I think all of us [in the family] have already had Covid at some point in the last two years.”
It turned out that the father of the birthday girl was a internal medicine doc and therefore more than half of the adults attending were doctors or nurses, all under age 50. Nearly all turned out to be anti-mask, anti-lockdown, anti-school closure, and anti-forced vaccination. They wanted to save lives, and in fact for most of them that was their day job, but they did not believe that salvation from SARS-CoV-2 infection was achievable via public health orders. (I.e., they might have been willing to fight a war against Covid if they believed that a war was winnable.)
None mentioned Donald Trump or any other political figure, so I don’t think that their Deplorable attitude toward Saint Fauci and the lockdowns, masks, and vaccines is driven by politics. In fact, the young nurse practitioner said, in response to my description of our old neighborhood with the political and social justice sign forest in front of most houses, “I have no interest in politics and these remote issues. I think about our kids, our jobs, and our friends.”
Separately, one attendee was from Martinique (an athletic coach, not a doctor). He talked about how the French government imposed the same rules on Martinique that apply back in France. “They’re supposed to check your vaccine passport and exclude you from a restaurant if you don’t have it,” he said, “but everyone in Martinique knows everyone. Are you going to exclude your brother-in-law from your restaurant? It never made sense because almost everything in Martinique is outdoors. They sent the military police in from France to enforce the rules. It is not a good place to be right now.” (see “France sends police reinforcements to Martinique to quell Covid unrest” from December 1)
Finally, what is the current #Science on immunity via infection versus immunity from vaccines? I personally know at least one person who became seriously ill with Covid 5.5 months into his Moderna protection period. I don’t know anyone who got Covid twice, though. And I haven’t read about people returning to the hospital for treatment of severe Covid 6 or 12 months after their first bad Covid experience. I asked some doctor friends “Do people get welcomed back to the ICU with a second case of Covid and doctors tell them ‘Here’s your old bed and ventilator”?” The answer was that it is vanishingly rare and essentially only the immunocompromised who have gotten Covid more than once.
From May 28, “Why COVID-19 Vaccines Offer Better Protection Than Infection” (Johns Hopkins):
Immunity from natural infection starts to decline after 6 to 8 months. We know that fully vaccinated people still have good immunity after a year—and probably longer.
(Just as 14 days to flatten the curve may take several years, good immunity for longer than a year runs out in 4-5 months.)
From August 25, 2021, “Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections” (Israeli study):
SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, … This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.
In the U.S., in other words, #Science says that the vaccines are way better. In Israel, #Science says that natural infection is much better (previous infection results in 1/13th the reinfection rate compared to those who got vaccines).
Color me confused!
From an immigrant physician friend:
“The answer was that it is vanishingly rare and essentially only the immunocompromised who have gotten Covid more than once.”
I have two friends with long-term COVID problems. One is a 44 yo PA who was an ultra-marathoner (100 mile races in the mountains) before his first bout with COVID, which knocked his running distance down to about 10 miles. His second COVID infection, post-vaccination, left him with chronic pain in his posterior shoulder and weakness in one of his thumbs (he can’t beat his little girl in thumbwrestling anymore).
The other friend (healthy 50 yo but not a marathoner) had COVID last year and seemed to recover fine. The he had a stroke just after his first vaccination in August (next day). His COVID test was positive during that hospital stay, so he blames the stroke on COVID and not the vaccine. After he recovered from his stroke and went home his knee swelled – he found out a month.5 later it was infected during his stroke stay. Now he has an antibiotic spacer and is on long-term antibiotics until he clears the infection so he can have a knee replacement. He hasn’t worked since August.
So, perhaps rare for to be readmitted to the same ICU bed, but there are some healthy folks getting COVID twice, even after vaccination.
Sam, I know two heavily overweight people in their 40th looking 60th who got light form of covid per-vaccination. Before they regularly suffered from frequent sickness and even injuries. Post-covid they decided to pay more attention to their health and now are nearing college athlete level of achievement in their physical exercises, something they have never achieved before, and are virtually illness and injury – free. Somehow ungratefully they do not credit coronavirus with improvement of their condition.
Hmmm…. could it be that vaccination actually makes vraia y strains of COVID more dangerous…? And that people get it second time because of vaccination not despite it?…
Goigle “original anttigenic sin”.
“variant” sorry for typos, phone keyboard, sigh.
None of those people got covid twice. They had covid once, it didn’t harm them, then they screwed themselves up by getting the vaccine.
Is it going to be harder for people to admit they harmed their own health by taking the vaccine, or to admit that the anti-vaxxers were right?
If mRNA vaccines change genetic code, as claimed by Moderna chief scientist, shouldn’t mRNA vaccinated change their names to hyphen Phizer or hyphen Moderna and raise legal claims to those entities assets, since they joined their respective families? Just a random thought.
I agree with her and her husband and the only reason that I haven’t mentioned more people in healthcare who also agree with them is because I don’t want to see them punished or harassed, but there are a lot of them.
I am on the vaccine wagon because of other serious health issues and the fact that I’ve got a couple of 70+ YO parents to consider. While I restore my health, the best ways that I have found to protect myself seem to be: 1) Get good at staying the heck away from other people and 2) Good ventilation when I can’t 3) I wear a properly fitted N95 when I can’t do either of the above.
It’s worked so far! And I’ve had a Moderna booster. I felt nothing, I don’t even know if it was really a good shot, I got it at a Walgreens and the person administering them looked really tired.
Fauci and the people at the CDC are wearing really thin. George Stephanopoulos won’t ask Fauci the hard questions like: “If you recommended vaccines and said fully vaccinated people would be protected, how can you now turn around and say that an endless number of booster shots will be necessary? Don’t you know anything about the virus you’re fighting? Doesn’t it seem like however many booster shots you tell people to get, the virus just keeps mutating and necessitating more booster shots? Wouldn’t it be better at this point for us to protect the vulnerable as best we can and let people live their lives again without your Diktat, Dr. Fauci?”
Those hard questions won’t be asked by people like Surgeon General George Stephanopoulos, but your NP and her ER doctor and millions of other people are starting to understand the hokum being peddled as #Science – at great expense and disruption to us all.
In the meantime, my goal is to get back in shape so that when I get COVID – just like Judith Persichilli said I would: “I’m definitely going to get it. We all are.” – I’ll be in a better position to manage it.