[s1artibartfast]

I was addressing a specific statement that was unsupported

>The vaccines offer better protection against variants than having had COVID and recovering.

The cost/benefit overall is much more complicated than this simple statement.

[ImPostingOnHN]

the overall cost/benefit for getting vaccinated is actually not at all complicated

for example: how are you personally, materially harmed by taking the vaccine?

that would be the cost

[s1artibartfast]

Keep in mind this discussion thread is about people who have already contracted Covid and recovered.

The benefits:

Unknown increase in immunity against alpha strain

Unknown increase in immunity against variant strains

...

The Costs:

Chance of currently known adverse effects

Chance of unknown adverse effects specific to vaccination of people with prior immunity.

Some recent data [1] suggests that those with prior covid infection 13X lower chances or reinfection with delta than those with 2 vaccine doses. If this is accurate, it begs the question of how much benefit is gained by vaccination on top of existing immunity in comparison to to the rare but known side effects.

https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...

[ImPostingOnHN]

any benefit would be enough, because those adverse effects are extremely rare in non-contraindicated people

[s1artibartfast]

Im sorry, but that is missing the point.Any benefit doesn't equal cost/benefit.

For some with naturally acquired immunity, Both costs and benefits are amazingly small!

If you are a healthy 18 year old (infection fatality 1/100,000)[1] w/o vaccine, plus have previously acquired immunity 13X better[2] than a vaccine 90+% effective, you are talking about about 1/ 10s of millions of chance of death or severe complications IF you are infected. This easily puts it in competition with the more serious vaccine complications.

Looking at just two aspects for this hypothetical individual, you could weigh

1/10 million chance of death with no booster vaccine shot VS 17/100,000 chance of bells palsy[3] and a 60% chance of fever, chills and headache.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0 https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on... https://www.fda.gov/media/144413/download

[ImPostingOnHN]

I checked your link regarding Bell's palsy, as an example, and the study said:

  >Currently available information is insufficient to determine a causal relationship with the vaccine

so where are you getting the evidence for the claim that 17/100,000 people will get Bell's palsy?

is all your evidence for a non-negligible cost this flimsy?

[s1artibartfast]

17/100k It is straight from the prescribing information.

Similar nonzero observations have been made in other national studies with sufficiently large samples.[1]

Some countries have added additional content around it to the prescribing info [2].

Scientific consensus is that the risk is clearly is lower than covid.

Another rare but acknowledged side effect is mycarditis.

We can quibble about the rates but they do exist.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-s...

https://www.aappublications.org/news/2021/06/10/covid-vaccin...