Vaccines versus infection

[Dustyboots]

Interesting article here. I found it informative.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098

No, we weren’t relying on it then because we didn’t have the data. And I don’t think either puppeteer or I were suggesting that we should have completely relied on it without using the restrictions that we did. The point was simply that it didn’t necessarily need to be ‘lifelong’ to be helpful. Whether we were relying on it or not, it was helping to reduce community spread. I'll go back to that!

You seem to have forgotten how quickly infection rates soared, how many were infecetd, were in ICU, died. The point was, as @puppeteer actually said, had the government relied on acquired uimmunity it would have been a decision based on guesswork, one big, immoral, unsupportable punt.

Your point has moved a bit, so I am no longer sure what you are referring to. Do you mean back last year, or the EU decisions this year, or the mooted changes later this year?

I have no idea what point you are making then! As you have just typed up what I have been posting!

Yes, I was wondering why you were actually arguing with me. That’s why I was starting to think it was deliberate.

My position isn’t ‘veering’ at all.

Sorry, I don’t really have time to keep rehashing my points over and over. They’re there if you want to reread them.

Sorry, I don’t really have time to keep rehashing my points over and over. They’re there if you want to reread them. Yes! They are.

You quoted me accurately, @CuriousaboutSamphire, but actually I don’t agree with your extension:

“as [I] actually said, had the government relied on acquired uimmunity it would have been a decision based on guesswork, one big, immoral, unsupportable punt.”

I don’t agree that a judgement would have necessarily been equivalent to guesswork, nor necessarily immoral.

It would have been possible to say “f* it; just carry on; who cares”, and that would have met your mark. :-)

But we could also have discussed the balance of probabilities (e.g., “is the virus really likely to /totally/ evade immunity?”), and we could have undertaken trials to test and extend our knowledge (e.g., allow volunteers to get the virus twice to see how their immune systems respond).

We actually looked aside while school kids and supermarket workers played that game, it’s just we ignored it and didn’t gather data.

So it seems we are willing to work on a hunch sometimes. (And I certainly hope the hunch was “it’s prob a normal virus, and kids and supermarket age groups typically haven’t been exceeding the IFR, so let’s continue”, as opposed to “I really have no clue if you’ll die, but you still have to go to work and school anyway!”)

Apologies if I read more into that than was intended

I don't necessarily disagree @puppeteer

But, as I have said since last July(ish) I know people who have been working on various studies into acquired immunity, amongst other tinngs. They may only be newly qualified, first job out of university, but that is what they have been doing for a year now.

And many here have taken part in a wide range of studies - who knows if they could have got allow volunteers to get the virus twice to see how their immune systems respond past ethics, but there would have been a number who got covid twice and had their bloods sampled - that has been discussed in many places, here and elsewhere.

I am not sure that we actually looked aside - that would have been based on balancing various social and commercial necessities. Also widely discussed here.

None of us have to agree or disagree with whatever decisions were taken. But it is odd to assert that no decision making process was undertaken, to deny the many and varied studies that are relatively easy to find on Google, Scholar or otherwise.

www.immunology.org/coronavirus/connect-coronavirus-public-engagement-resources/covid-immunity-natural-infection-vaccine

That main infographic has been posted on a number of threads here!

www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/files/coronavirus/covid-19-infection-survey/finalfinalcombinedve20210816.pdf

And many more

But it is odd to assert that no decision making process was undertaken

Has anyone done that here?

Yes. Read it back, comments about not looking, not measuring etc.

I'm on my phone now, or I'd quote it properly.

In puppeteers post immediately before mine "we could have undertaken..."

Sorry. You are right. I was not really clear. I conflated things.

Thing is, at the science level, I’ve no doubt things got discussed. Prob quite openly and rationally.

But as things got translated into the government space, and especially in public discourse, it was almost as if anything outside the core narrative (stay home, deadly virus, your risk/my risk) was unsayable. In fact it was exactly unsayable. Unless you had a really loud voice, and even thicker skin.

So what’s that… it’s not looking aside exactly. What is it… more like saying one thing, and doing another, being inconsistent is the nice word, perhaps lying?

Oh!

I can't disagree with that! Don't forget the Meeja, anything for a headline.

When it comes to nepotising your way to a small fortune or headline grabbing - fuck the science!

Something we all can agree on!

There had to be something. I doubt any of us are totally deluded 😃

Here’s to that. :-)