So if you have mild symptoms after a vaccine...

[Jeremyironseverything]

My parents had their vaccines a couple of weeks ago. One had no reaction, and one had a headache and other mild covid symptoms as is quite common.

So how likely is it, that had they actually properly caught covid previously, that the one who had symptoms would have suffered quite severely, whilst the other one would have been either asymptomatic or had it very mildly?

Is there actually a correlation do you think, or am I barking up the wrong tree completely?

Anyone with any scientific knowledge here?

I don't think I fully understand the question, so sorry if my answer doesn't quite answer you! But I'm ploughing in anyway!... (Cos I'm enjoying Mumsnet tonight! And fancy typing away!!)..

So I had covid in march/April. Vaccine recently. Pretty nasty side effects warranting day off work but not bad enough for doc or hospital.

I'm 40s. I have a gut feeling that if I was 70s my side effects would have been severe enough to warrant hospital (since I wasn't far off I reckon, and currently in otherwise good health.)

I guess I mean that if a person has a reaction to the vaccine, should that person be thanking their lucky stars that they didn't get covid before the vaccine, because if their immune system reacted that strongly to the tiny vaccine trigger, would it have reacted really badly to a proper dose of covid, had they caught it before the vaccine?

Does that make sense? If a person has no reaction, does that mean their body would have coped easily, shrugging off covid proper?

Interesting question, I don't know the answer but I am interested. Both my parents felt unwell for one day after vaccination.

When you are elderly your immune system isn't as strong so reactions are less likely to occur or are much weaker. Of course we are all different so this will vary between people.

Unless you've not described it very well, it sounds like they've both had very mild symptoms. It's totally normal to get a headache and mind things after a vaccination but it's also normal not to. It's just how your immune system reacts in order to build a response.
Maybe you're not detailing what the symptoms were like properly but it doesn't strike me as anything particularly bad.
Also, it's the "cytokine storm" situation which causes the body to react very badly and hospitalise people, that I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is a further response from the body to the illness (and isn't limited to just covid 19) and happens after several days / weeks, so I don't think how you react to a vaccine has much baring on that.

In short my answer is no, I don't think what's happened means much but I'm also not a medic
or scientist so I also may be wrong

No: there is no correlation between having side effects from the vaccine and how poorly infection with covid would have made you.

There is also no correlation between having side effects from the vaccine and whether or not your immune system has responded at all.

Those two statements are scientific fact.

In more general observation, there is some evidence that young people experience side effects more than the elderly (and of course are generally would have been less at risk from covid infection). Some people also think (more anecdotally) that people who previously had covid are more likely to experience side effects when they then get vaccinated (this is not ‘a fact’ and does not mean vaccine side effects = someone was previously infected).

Interesting. So no correlation probably. I just wondered if there could be.

It's so strange that people react so widely and differently to it, isn't it.