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by eplanit 1743 days ago
A healthcare professional who may already have antibodies from prior infection, and who therefore does not need a vaccine, perhaps.
9 comments

Healthcare workers routinely work under flu vaccine mandates even though they may already have effective antibodies.
From the CDC:

"Yes, you should be vaccinated regardless of whether you already had COVID-19 because:

* Research has not yet shown how long you are protected from getting COVID-19 again after you recover from COVID-19.

* Vaccination helps protect you even if you’ve already had COVID-19.

Evidence is emerging that people get better protection by being fully vaccinated compared with having had COVID-19. One study showed that unvaccinated people who already had COVID-19 are more than 2 times as likely than fully vaccinated people to get COVID-19 again."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html

There are so many confounding variables that they can't make that statement without sounding like they're selling something.

Does it matter when people were infected? Does it matter if you got the shot after being infected? Hint: it probably does because you probably have more antibodies right after getting the shot.

In fact, they should do a study of uninfected vaccinated people who get infected. Do they have higher antibody counts after getting infected? They probably would. Does that mean that every vaccinated person should get infected too?

To be fair, that's the same CDC that only 5 months ago was saying getting vaccinated meant "getting back to normal" -- no masks, distancing rules, etc. Their reputation as being authoritative on this topic is understandably tarnished.
“Getting back to normal”relied on people not purposefully avoiding the vaccine and becoming bioreactors for additional variants.
Right, but those CDC statements make it clear that the CDC is guessing and asking people to get vaccinated - not knowing if it's helpful or not.
You are wrong. We know Covid vaccination is helpful and saves lives.
I’ve heard that many (most?) hospitals require that staff either wears a mask or gets the flu shot every year. Do these hospitals waive that requirement for people if they come down with the flu?
My previous employer was a healthcare system. Despite my role as a software developer working in an office nowhere near patients, I was required to get the flu vaccine (which was fine with me). These sorts of mandates are nothing new for healthcare workers.
Yup, the healthcare system I work for requires Flu vax for everyone. Including back office folks like me. They have for years now.
Influenza is special when it comes to mutations, so I wouldn't expect them to waive the flu vaccinations but I also don't think it directly relates to sars-cov2.
In these cases though, they have not.

It would be a better argument to say that they've tested positive for covid-19 antibodies - but that's not what's going on here.

They're just anti-vax.

So, somebody who has little to no understanding of COVID, its ability to reinfect, the higher contagiousness of Delta variant, and thinks their Facebook feed has better scientific knowledge than experts in the field? Got it.
"Perhaps does not need the vaccine", even if debatable, is still less good than "is vaccinated".
That’s just covid - what about all the other diseases like polio, tb, pertussis, chicken pox…

Would you expect healthcare workers to be vaccinated against those ? Or should they wait to get the natural antibodies?

Polio: no, across the world there are less than 100 cases a year. TB: we require teachers to take a TB test, why not health care? Pertussis: yes, that’s part of the TdAP vaccine and I was required to get that as an employee of a health system. Chicken pox: usually most people have antibodies for this either from vaccination or illness.
There doesn’t seem to be any problem with vaccination after infection. It’s unclear if that actually translates into better outcomes, but it’s likely. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/09/07/1033677...
I feel like if they tested positive for covid-19 antibodies, that might be a valid exemption - because it's a bit much to require vaccinations for them if we still don't even know that it makes much difference.
How many antibodies are needed? What level? What is the peer reviewed lower limit of antibodies to be safe? Oh? You don’t know? Well then.
Exactly, it's NOT known. ...which is why it's not ethical to require their vaccination in order to work when the benefit to their patients is unknown.

The burden of proof should be on the agency forcing vaccinations upon people to work.

But we DO know that vaccines prevent severe illness.
Is that situation well studied for it's risk profile?
So you are wondering if Covid might be the one and only virus in history where antibodies don't work?
How many colds have you had?
The common cold is caused by dozens of different viruses (including at least 4 coronaviruses). Gaining immunity to one of those cold viruses doesn't do much to protect against the others.

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_ca...

Cold only very rarely kills babies. If we're going to do analogies then let's go all the way.

Here on HN there was an article about how people who got through Covid were much more resistant to catching it again, compared to those who got a vaccine. It's almost as if their immune systems actually work!

I despair for the people who got surprised by this, as if our immune systems became a thing only during the last 2 years. And this forum is supposed to be full of educated people.

All this virtue signaling around having to take experimental vaccines is becoming very tiring.