Us and them- the vaccine. So much pressure

[ToTheLetter01]

Before i begin, i am not an anti vaxxer. Me and my DS have had all our jabs and we also have annual flu jabs.
However i feel such hostility and pressure from people who have had their vaccine for me to have it. The reason i do not want it at this moment is just because its still in the experimental stage until 2023 and i would like to know more long term data.
This is my choice, its my body and everyone should have the choice. Choice to have the vaccine and choice to not. I do not shame nor ridicule anyone for having it or not.
However i have felt so much pressure from friends and others in the wider public, media, government.

I feel like the nation is becoming split between us and them. ( vaccinated and unvaccinated). With things becoming unfair for people. Eg. may be able to travel and not quarantine if had vaccines, care home workers may be forced to have the vaccine. Now i get the point of view of they have had it and may be more "safe". But how is the ok in a freedom and rights point of view. As i stated freedom to do what you want with your body.

I feel like this world is becoming some kind of dystopian world. I miss my old life, i took all the freedom for granted. Its true that you don't realise how good it was until it's gone.
I don't want people to be hostile to me because of my choice to wait for long term data on the vaccine. Half of me wants to lie to people i've had it so they will not be stand off towards me.

@RedToothBrush - I'm being honest with her because that's how I see it. I'm not a doctor, never mind not her doctor, and I don't think it's helpful for you to try to censor responses. People are not all the same and can engage with a range of opinions; unless someone is being nasty it's a bit weird to intervene.

RedToothbrush the extent to which one can respond with tact and sympathy tends to be dependent on how people conduct themselves and interact with others in the first place.

But we have a walk of immunity

We don’t yet - and you know it, and you know why, so why don’t you spare us the fake confused emojis.

80% of adults having first doses would probably have us done and dusted against alpha, just.

But our catastrophically stupid government imported delta. Against which single vaccine doses perform pretty poorly (unlike alpha). Second doses perform ok, but again are less effective. So whereas before, 80% vaccinated would probably have got us there, with delta we’ll need closer to 100% of adults with sufficient immunity to provide that wall.

So we’ve got two problems. First, we have to rely on second doses. We’re not at 60% yet.

Second, we need a reach a higher threshold than before, not least because of all the unvaccinated children you mention. And we don’t know their antibody levels as they’re not in the ONS study.

But you know this already, as it’s been covered in detail previously. Have you tried discussing these things in good faith?

@bumbleymummy

Sorry,

I was asking for evidence that there are more severe incidents of this type of immune response reaction after natural infection than after vaccination

ok so you're asking if autoimmune responses are more common after natural infection than they are after vaccination

beginning to feel a little like your personal systematic reviewer, but for example, this review summarises studies which have evaluated autoimmune reactions following COVID infection

www.nature.com/articles/s41584-020-0448-7

we have not seen anything to the same scale regarding post vaccination

Emerging reports show that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection precedes the appearance of various autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases, including paediatric inflammatory multisystemic syndrome (PIMS) or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), thus adding to the growing mystery of this virus and raising questions about the nature of its link with autoimmune and autoinflammatory sequelae.

@Wimpund21

I've decided not to have it yet but the vitriol from many who are vaccinated has led me to keep quiet on the subject. I have no wish to enter debates about my choice in real life or be constantly hounded by some of the more 'militant' people I know.

I avoided the conversation within my work team for as long as possible. Last week unfortunately I could avoid it no longer and I smiled and said of course I'd had it, I had second dose last week.

That now what I'll tell anyone who asks in rl. It's a shame it's necessary tbh.

I completely agree and this is my point. Whilst there are those who are "anti-vax", there are so many in the middle. Concerned, anxious, distrusting etc. I've been saying "not yet" when asked the question but I've already told by a family member (who is fully vaccinated and in a house of all who are fully vaccinated) that she no longer wants to see me because I said "not yet" it's hard to express concern.

I am fully prepared to accept that restrictions will continue for myself, but I do worry that when the vaccine gets to primary school age the choice will be taken out my hands (my son really needs school as he has ASD and is an only child, so homeschooling really isn't an option).

@bumbleymummy

Sorry,

I was asking for evidence that there are more severe incidents of this type of immune response reaction after natural infection than after vaccination

Which immune response reaction in particular would you like evidence of? There have been studies written on many of them.

@bumbleymummy

www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/extras/02art9340web.pdf

The medical literature is full of claims and counter claims with respect to the risk of autoimmune disease as a consequence of vaccination. Only in a few rare cases, however, has autoimmune pathology been firmly associated with particular vaccines

Article gives the example of idiopathic thrombocytopenia, an autoimmune reaction that occurs in 1/30,000 children after MMR vaccination. In contrast, this autoimmune event occurs in 1/3000 natural cases of rubella, and 1/6000 natural cases of measles. So as you asked for, an example of how vaccines may trigger an autoimmune response, but at a much lower rate than after natural infection.

Clearly we do have a level of protection or we wouldn’t be below predicted levels of hospitalisations/deaths right now.

Iirc there was an article several months ago (pre-delta) saying that we would not be able to achieve herd immunity with vaccination. (Would require over 100% vaccination coverage).

And I didn’t say that we knew what Children’s antibodies levels are - just that there would be plenty of children with antibodies because of the number of cases in schools - so we can’t assume that they are all not immune. I’m not sure why you seem to think you’re in some superior position wrt information about this tbh.

@MRex you were the one who gave the examples - I’m wondering what you based your statement on. Or was it merely opinion?

@ollyollyoxenfree I’m wondering what mRex based her statement on. I’m sure she’s capable of answering for herself. 😊

I am curious, are there any studies for how much immunity is obtained from actually having the virus itself compared to that of the vaccine? Both my son and I had Covid back in December, which is why I'm asking. Not goady, genuinely asking .

[quote bumbleymummy]@MRex you were the one who gave the examples - I’m wondering what you based your statement on. Or was it merely opinion?[/quote]
it's a statement anyone with biological/medical knowledge would give unthinkingly, because it's obvious

a vaccine contains a single antigen which stimulates an immune response, and can therefore also trigger an autoimmune response. In contrast, a virus contains the same antigen + many others and additional proteins which will activate many separate signalling cascades, thus giving the same risk as the vaccine for triggering autoimmune events, plus additional risk.

I gave the example above of the MMR vaccine.

[quote bumbleymummy]@ollyollyoxenfree I’m wondering what mRex based her statement on. I’m sure she’s capable of answering for herself. 😊[/quote]
I'm not sure why that means you need to ignore the example I gave which answers your question? It's an area I know a little about, hence why I involved myself in the discussion. It's an open forum, no?

www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/extras/02art9340web.pdf

The medical literature is full of claims and counter claims with respect to the risk of autoimmune disease as a consequence of vaccination. Only in a few rare cases, however, has autoimmune pathology been firmly associated with particular vaccines

Article gives the example of idiopathic thrombocytopenia, an autoimmune reaction that occurs in 1/30,000 children after MMR vaccination. In contrast, this autoimmune event occurs in 1/3000 natural cases of rubella, and 1/6000 natural cases of measles. So as you asked for, an example of how vaccines may trigger an autoimmune response, but at a much lower rate than after natural infection.

@ollyollyoxenfree except there are also examples where they’re more common after vaccination than infection - such as the h1n1 example I gave above.

And reactions related to the pertussis vaccine too iirc.

@NC276

I am curious, are there any studies for how much immunity is obtained from actually having the virus itself compared to that of the vaccine? Both my son and I had Covid back in December, which is why I'm asking. Not goady, genuinely asking .

Antibody levels vary by person and the overall immune response from B cells and T cells varies further. You're probably both well protected for now, but at least one vaccine as a booster is good. Because nobody knows how long natural immunity lasts nor how strong it is, two doses are recommended; taken together with one infection that should give you extremely strong protection.

[quote bumbleymummy]@ollyollyoxenfree except there are also examples where they’re more common after vaccination than infection - such as the h1n1 example I gave above.[/quote]
causality on this one is still very much debated, and it was established, is certainly the exception not the rule

but why bother asking these questions if you're just waiting to bring up an outlier like the H1H1 narcolepsy association? It's clear you're not actually going to listen to anything that contradicts your point of view

@MRex thank you so much for answering. Is there any way to have immunity tested (sorry if that's a silly question)?

So it isn’t always as ‘unthinkingly obvious’ as you are making out. And I would like to know what mRex based her statement on when she gave examples that she said were more likely to occur after infection than vaccination. The paper she linked to did not do that so I asked her for clarification. Why do you have a problem with that? You seem very defensive.

@bumbleymummy

So it isn’t always as ‘unthinkingly obvious’ as you are making out. And I would like to know what mRex based her statement on when she gave examples that she said were more likely to occur after infection than vaccination. The paper she linked to did not do that so I asked her for clarification. Why do you have a problem with that? You seem very defensive.

i'm not defensive in the slightest

it's simply that there seems to be a pattern of which you'll be given long informative answers that posters have clearly put a lot of thought into, and you'll simply ignore them and swerve onto another point

it's not an enriching way to discuss anything

I won't repeat what @ollyollyoxenfree says as it's concise. Just to extend it though, an immune response and autoimmune effect are different, though autoimmune diseases do get triggered by most immune reactions (especially in my personal experience unfortunately), so they're a good example.
Other immune responses include fever for example, again it's the body response. With covid-19 pyrexia is known to last for some time and recur; with vaccine it's usually gone within 2 days if it even occurs at all.

@NC276 yes, there are antibody tests available. There’s a new T cell test available too.

Several studies have shown that antibodies persist in the majority of people for 8+ months although they tend to wane faster in older people.

@bumbleymummy
I think you missed my other reply to you one page back:
When you read in any paper about adaptive immune response, or about response to the antigen, what they mean is that's how your body is responding to the specific thing you're being vaccinated against. In the case of the covid-19 vaccines in use in the UK, it's a very mild version of how the body responds to the spike protein. The spike protein exists in the virus, so there can be some side effects related to symptoms from that bit of the virus, but not from the rest of the virus. Some people might not react at all even though they still build immunity, they would likely still have had virus symptoms. It's possible that mounting a spike protein response happens less frequently with older people, which is why they have lower side effects but worse virus symptoms.
These articles may be interesting:
www.huffpost.com/entry/covid-vaccine-side-effects-predict-symptoms_l_605a09dcc5b66a80f4eb23c0/amp
www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/side-effects-of-covid-19-vaccines

@MRex I wonder why you picked the paper you did when it doesn’t show what you stated and what I asked about. A strange choice.

[quote bumbleymummy]@NC276 yes, there are antibody tests available. There’s a new T cell test available too.

Several studies have shown that antibodies persist in the majority of people for 8+ months although they tend to wane faster in older people.[/quote]
Thank you I'll have a look!

Also, sorry, do we know the risk of transmission for those who have had Covid? So I know we could both still get Covid again, and obviously still transmit it but is that at a higher rate than those who have been vaccinated?

As you can probably tell, I'm more worried about giving it to the vulnerable. My son showed no symptoms but I was very poorly which is why we were both tested.