Why can’t people who’ve had confirmed covid be exempt?

[Isadora2007]

And if they don’t think it confers enough immunity how is the vaccine going to differ? If people who’ve been vaccinated won’t need to self isolate after exposure anymore then why isn’t that the case for people who’ve had it?

You can still catch it, have no symptoms , and pass it on.

So in which case, exposure after vaccination will be the same. So we’re fucked forever.

@tanstaafl

You can still catch it, have no symptoms , and pass it on.

It’s very very rare to get it again though?

It would drive people to COVID parties to get infexted

Not a scientist or epidemiologist but I believe the kind of immunity conferred by vaccination is different to that conferred by catching it. Don't know how or why. And still hugely suspicious the government will never lift restrictions fully.

It might currently be rare to get it twice but who's to say antibodies last about 9 months and are currently wearing off for people who had it in March?

@bathsh3ba

Not a scientist or epidemiologist but I believe the kind of immunity conferred by vaccination is different to that conferred by catching it. Don't know how or why. And still hugely suspicious the government will never lift restrictions fully.

It is.

@JacobReesMogadishu

It might currently be rare to get it twice but who's to say antibodies last about 9 months and are currently wearing off for people who had it in March?

They could give you a three month window though.

My daughter is currently in bed with it. Reasonably ill. It’s going to be quite annoying when she’s off school for another two weeks in December or January because there’s another case.

The whole thing is a bit of a mess.

My dad was talking to me yesterday and he was saying that he hoped that it would be bought in that people who don’t get vaccinated are forbidden from going on planes and going to big social events etc.

I said that it was my understanding that all the vaccine does is stop someone getting very ill if they catch Covid, but it has no impact all at all on a person’s ability to pass the virus on.

Therefore, a vaccinated person on a plane has exactly the same likelihood of passing on the virus as an unvaccinated person?

Is that right?

I find it all so confusing.

How do they know the vaccine won’t become ineffective over time?

They don’t as they haven’t been able to test that part due to being unable to have access to a time machine.

Thorn I don’t think that’s the case, the current high profile vaccines just give you an immune response, so it can fight it off. Just like a measles vaccine or any other vaccine.

OP, it is thought that a mild infection doesn’t provide long lasting immunity. More serious infections seem to be better at this, but we don’t know at which exact point that immunity has waned and is no longer protective.
The vaccine is different. If we can roll it out across high enough numbers of the population within a few months, there will not be enough available unprotected victims for the virus to keep spreading, and it will die out.
We may still need annual boosters to stop Covid coming back from unvaccinated areas in the third world, or to address mutations, but the trial results have been v encouraging.

Because the immunity given by a vaccine is not the same as the immunity from getting it.

There is also likely a correlation between how severely you get it, and how long you have immunity for. The viral load appears to be critical. You catch a small amount of viral load, you will have it very mildly, possibly no symptoms, and you may not have much immunity,

You catch a heavy viral load, and get very ill from it, then you maybe immune longer, it’s unknown.

However the longevity from a vaccine is a different animal

@ThornAmongstRoses

The whole thing is a bit of a mess.

My dad was talking to me yesterday and he was saying that he hoped that it would be bought in that people who don’t get vaccinated are forbidden from going on planes and going to big social events etc.

I said that it was my understanding that all the vaccine does is stop someone getting very ill if they catch Covid, but it has no impact all at all on a person’s ability to pass the virus on.

Therefore, a vaccinated person on a plane has exactly the same likelihood of passing on the virus as an unvaccinated person?

Is that right?

I find it all so confusing.

According to the chap I heard on the radio, from Pfizer I think, they are hopeful that it does prevent passing the virus also, but can't say with certainty without follow ups after 6 months of trial. I think it was the first, harder to store and less effective vaccine you're thinking of. Similar for the new Dutch one (as Pfizer) also.

From my admittedly limited understanding of vaccines and specifically the Covid vaccine, I believe the kind of immunity is different. Currently there doesn't seem to be a consensus on how long immunity lasts after having it some say 3 months others up to 9, and some sources say that at least Pfizer vaccine could only last a year.

So even if you've had a confirmed case there isn't a guaranteed immunity. The vaccine however would mean that vulnerable people could be vaccinated so if they are exposed they would either not develop Covid-19 or have milder symptoms.

You can still carry the virus and pass it to other people you come into contact with, during the many months it will take to roll out vaccinations there will still be a risk of another spike in infections if we simply stop taking precautions.

I think also I read that they only need fifty percent of the population vaccinated to effectively stop the virus spread, so if you get enough folks vaccinated you stop it’s transmission, ans effectively it dies out.

I think it's because some people would try to deliberately catch it in order to then be exempt. It would be tempting as a young healthy uni student, to go and catch the virus from a pal, (knowing that you had a 99.99% chance of being fine) and then you could live your life as normal. I know I would be tempted.

woke up worrying about the different strains of coronavirus that are out and will this make the vaccine ineffective?

Because there would be many people who would intentionally expose themselves to the virus, some of whom will end up quite ill. And because there is evidence that re infection can occur.

They're exempt from further quarantine in Iceland and also exempt from masks. Our Chief Epidemiologist said about Boris Johnson's quarantine:

"I was surprised and it will be interesting to see the justification for this." He said that people who have had the virus can carry it on their hands and pass it on that way "but it is very unlikely that the virus will enter their bodies and manage to multiply in the respiratory tract and nose so that they could pass it on by coughing. That is contradictory to the basic principles of epidemiology, so I am bit surprised about it."

Our Director of Health said perhaps the British are being "overcautious" because he is the PM and that there were examples of reinfection, but in the context of how many have had COVID-19, these people were extremely few.

Perhaps they are wrong and will change their minds after further reviewing the evidence, but that's the official attitude here at the moment anyway!

@ThornAmongstRoses

The whole thing is a bit of a mess.

My dad was talking to me yesterday and he was saying that he hoped that it would be bought in that people who don’t get vaccinated are forbidden from going on planes and going to big social events etc.

I said that it was my understanding that all the vaccine does is stop someone getting very ill if they catch Covid, but it has no impact all at all on a person’s ability to pass the virus on.

Therefore, a vaccinated person on a plane has exactly the same likelihood of passing on the virus as an unvaccinated person?

Is that right?

I find it all so confusing.

There are different types of vaccine, that do different things. There is no such thing as "THE vaccine".

Is their some sort of database of people who have tested positive? I would imagine a positive result would be quite easy to falsify otherwise.

Or are we just going to rely on people policing it themselves? We might as well just lift all restrictions then, because 99% of people are convinced they had it last December.

Not to mention the scope for discrimination in the world of work.

A few things - vaccines prompt a different response in the body. Immunity lasts much longer from a vaccine than catching the actual illness in most cases (chicken pox is an exception here for example, although some do catch it twice). It’s likely we may need annual boosters, like flu. Particularly if the virus mutates. We’ll need new protection. Again, like flu.

Secondly, we don’t know yet if the vaccines prevent you catching it or if the only prevent severe illness. That’s not been reported on yet.

Thirdly, if it does stop you catching it, not everyone really needs to be vaccinated. You do 50%, the R number will fall well below 1 and transmission will drop dramatically and it’ll circulate around like colds & stomach bugs do. Norovirus, for example, wiped about 60% of my DD’s nursery last year. We passed it to my parents & they passed it to a friend etc.. grim. But eventually transmission stopped. Covid will be similar, it’ll spread in a group not vaccinated, say nursery children. If my DD got it but both of us as her parents had been vaccinated, transmission stops would stop with us.

If it only prevents severe illness, then great, we can stop worrying about potentially giving our vulnerable family a deadly disease. Either works for me!

But until there is a vaccine, we have to carry on. It’s shit if you’ve had it. Reinfection seems rare and/or less severe if you do get it twice but you can still pass it on. Just hold tight. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Is part of the reason because you have 2 doses?

There is also likely a correlation between how severely you get it, and how long you have immunity for. The viral load appears to be critical. You catch a small amount of viral load, you will have it very mildly, possibly no symptoms, and you may not have much immunity,

You catch a heavy viral load, and get very ill from it, then you maybe immune longer, it’s unknown.

A friend of mine says that as a child she had chickenpox twice but it was very mild. Then she caught it very badly and never caught it again. I do worry about my DD, she has never had chickenpox (that I'm aware of) despite me trying to expose her to it, and I believe the older you are when you get it the more serious it can be.