Let's look at the other side of the coin

[perfectSmiles3]

Please explain which bit of this makes any sense!!! Unvaccinated people newly recovered from covid pumped full of antibodies (tested x2 and confirmed by the NHS) still have to self-isolate on contact with the infected, whereas someone who let's say was last jabbed in spring with clearly depleting antibody levels, doesn't.

@GreyhoundG1rl

I'm not bumbleymummy but I suspect that she and I have been reading similar things. Here are some I find interesting.

This is one of the studies which suggests that natural immunity lasts longer than vaccine induced immunity. It is awaiting peer review.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1#disqus_thread

This is one on natural immunity (also waiting for peer review)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.15.383323v1.full

One of several on waning vaccine induced immunity.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410

my other question is re. the two antibody tests done by the NHS when testing positive via pcr....

What exactly is the point of doing these tests, when the NHS then does not provide any quantitative measures with their findings, they literally just say whether you have or haven't got antibodies? I've tried getting the actual numbers for both my tests, but to no avail - NHS Test & Trace say they have no access to the data and couldn't signpost me anywhere. You get your unquantified result in a text message and that's where it ends.

If you think about it, when going for any blood test in general, you get given the results in numbers relative to a range .... why not provide the result in the same format when testing for covid antibodies? I think it is absolutely key for anybody to know whether their level of IgG antibodies is 1 or 80,000 AU/ml.

This is what so many of us see as wrong though @thewhatsit

People should not be incited to get a vaccine they may not need for health reasons just so they can travel, not have to isolate if track and traced or get into a nightclub or cinema.

Absolutely fine, offer a free vaccine to anyone at risk or to anyone of any age it’s approved for if they want it. Not fine to coerce, punish, segregate or ignore well established scientific knowledge regarding natural immunity. Shouldn’t be necessary.

@perfectSmiles3 I don’t know if you can receive that information via a private test but you definitely get the numbers in France. As they generally only vaccinate once if you have been previously infected with covid then it’s possible to get a pre-vaccine blood test to check for antibodies.
That is of course until your 6 months is up when antibodies or at risk or not, you’ll be required to get a booster in order to continue being able to go inside a library or dentist office.

Getting vaccinated is for the greater good because it means you do everything you can to keep yourself out of hospital and a drain on the already overly stretched system! @bumbleymummy- do you think the current unvaccinated in ICU thought they would end up there with Covid? Clearly not - most thought they took a calculated risk and they would be fine and are healthy, not old etc. The virus is tricky and can really get people who think they are healthy and will be fine.
We need the ICU beds and capacity for all those whose medical procedures have been postponed. Many need to go into recovery with one to one nursing after an operation.

So no, I strongly disagree that the greater good argument has gone, especially in this country where we know how stretched the NHS is. Have some compassion for the people who work there.

It's about saving money and reducing the drain on the NHS. To get immunity via infection, people would have to be infected first, and they're already taking up too much room in the hospitals. How would you propose to fund the additional beds the NHS would need were we to stop vaccinating people?

@Incognito22333

Getting vaccinated is for the greater good because it means you do everything you can to keep yourself out of hospital and a drain on the already overly stretched system! *@bumbleymummy*- do you think the current unvaccinated in ICU thought they would end up there with Covid? Clearly not - most thought they took a calculated risk and they would be fine and are healthy, not old etc. The virus is tricky and can really get people who think they are healthy and will be fine. We need the ICU beds and capacity for all those whose medical procedures have been postponed. Many need to go into recovery with one to one nursing after an operation.

So no, I strongly disagree that the greater good argument has gone, especially in this country where we know how stretched the NHS is. Have some compassion for the people who work there.

Do you think the vaccinated thought they’d end up there? Did you know that over 80% of people in icu are overweight or obese? Do you think people are aware that they are at higher risk of being hospitalised if they have a BMI > 25 even if they are younger?

@Barbie222

It's about saving money and reducing the drain on the NHS. To get immunity via infection, people would have to be infected first, and they're already taking up too much room in the hospitals. How would you propose to fund the additional beds the NHS would need were we to stop vaccinating people?

Most covid patients in our local hospitals are over 70. They’re vaccinated (would be eligible for boosters) and can’t be discharged because they don’t have anywhere to go. (Great idea to sack carers when there was already a shortage ) The couple of dozen unvaccinated under 50s are really not the ones putting pressure on the system right now.

I would also agree with a pp and say that it is a one size fits all, shit happens, it’s been a shit few years, some may have antibodies, other not so much?

I would love to know how many anti vaccers chose not to go abroad in the past, as they required a vaccine to do so? How many questioned it and stayed at home instead?

@bumbleymummy

Do you think the vaccinated thought they’d end up there? Did you know that over 80% of people in icu are overweight or obese? Do you think people are aware that they are at higher risk of being hospitalised if they have a BMI > 25 even if they are younger?

I see this is the argument of the moment when you have have run out of other arguments. It is somewhat offensive and a bit off the point, but a number of you are running with it. Obesity is a complex condition with many causal factors. Someone else suggested lockdown for these people instead of the unvaccinated - smacks of desperation really. The obese aren't likely to spread disease, are they?

My only suggestion OP is that vaccines have been through large, placebo controlled, double blinded trials, with an exact dose of the agent generating an immune response, and with the study participants closely monitored.

As far as I’m aware, there is no comparator study of people who caught the virus and the corresponding levels of immunity?
So the “effectiveness “ of prior infection against future infection, hospitalisation and death is unknown. The “dose” is unknown. You don’t know what “dose” you had.

I haven’t looked it up so I don’t know what the best studies are to look at preventative effect of mild infection. Do you have some papers?

@Dishhh

*@bumbleymummy*

Do you think the vaccinated thought they’d end up there? Did you know that over 80% of people in icu are overweight or obese? Do you think people are aware that they are at higher risk of being hospitalised if they have a BMI > 25 even if they are younger?

I see this is the argument of the moment when you have have run out of other arguments. It is somewhat offensive and a bit off the point, but a number of you are running with it. Obesity is a complex condition with many causal factors. Someone else suggested lockdown for these people instead of the unvaccinated - smacks of desperation really. The obese aren't likely to spread disease, are they?

Infected obese people can spread covid just as non-obese infected people can. They are also more likely to end up in hospital. Whether you find that offensive or not, it is a fact and we need to stop tiptoeing around it because it might upset some people. The current justification for having restrictions on unvaccinated people is that ‘they’re more likely to end up in hospital’. Technically, obese people are more likely to end up in hospital but if anyone suggested putting restrictions on people based on their BMI there would (quite tightly) be outrage. It’s being suggested to highlight how unreasonable it is to lockdown and restrict one particular group. Particularly when that group contains many young, healthy, previously infected so most likely immune people who are very unlikely to end up in hospital anyway. Was that not obvious?

@everythingthelighttouches

My only suggestion OP is that vaccines have been through large, placebo controlled, double blinded trials, with an exact dose of the agent generating an immune response, and with the study participants closely monitored.

As far as I’m aware, there is no comparator study of people who caught the virus and the corresponding levels of immunity?
So the “effectiveness “ of prior infection against future infection, hospitalisation and death is unknown. The “dose” is unknown. You don’t know what “dose” you had.

I haven’t looked it up so I don’t know what the best studies are to look at preventative effect of mild infection. Do you have some papers?

There are several studies that have shown immunity after (even mild) infection that lasts for over 9 months. Some have shown over 13. Switzerland has updated its covid pass to include people who have had the virus in the last 12 months. I’ve linked to several studies previously (including on this thread I think) but if you do a quick google you can find plenty of articles and studies from universities and medical journals.

Most covid patients in our local hospitals are over 70. They’re vaccinated (would be eligible for boosters) and can’t be discharged because they don’t have anywhere to go. (Great idea to sack carers when there was already a shortage ) The couple of dozen unvaccinated under 50s are really not the ones putting pressure on the system right now.

But that's not the case nationally, is it? The proportion of unvaccinated people in hospital is much higher than the proportion of vaccinated people, so if many more unvaccinated people catch the virus, there won't be a situation where a 'couple of dozen unvaccinated' are in hospital. We'll have a situation where a large number of people require expensive critical care and the other services offered by the NHS are severely limited. The national data really doesn't say anything else.

@Lostinacloud

This is what so many of us see as wrong though *@thewhatsit*

People should not be incited to get a vaccine they may not need for health reasons just so they can travel, not have to isolate if track and traced or get into a nightclub or cinema.

Absolutely fine, offer a free vaccine to anyone at risk or to anyone of any age it’s approved for if they want it. Not fine to coerce, punish, segregate or ignore well established scientific knowledge regarding natural immunity. Shouldn’t be necessary.

All this post does is highlight your complete lack of understanding toward vaccines.

The rules have to be simple, easy to follow and by and large for the greater good.
Look at the daily threads on here with people wondering whether they should be isolating or not and how many people, nearly 2 years in cannot sort that out

@Barbie222

Most covid patients in our local hospitals are over 70. They’re vaccinated (would be eligible for boosters) and can’t be discharged because they don’t have anywhere to go. (Great idea to sack carers when there was already a shortage ) The couple of dozen unvaccinated under 50s are really not the ones putting pressure on the system right now.

But that's not the case nationally, is it? The proportion of unvaccinated people in hospital is much higher than the proportion of vaccinated people, so if many more unvaccinated people catch the virus, there won't be a situation where a 'couple of dozen unvaccinated' are in hospital. We'll have a situation where a large number of people require expensive critical care and the other services offered by the NHS are severely limited. The national data really doesn't say anything else.

I think you’ll find that the older age groups make up the majority in most hospitals. Iirc vaccinated do now outnumber unvaccinated in actual numbers (there are more vaccinated than unvaccinated and the elderly are still the most likely to be admitted to hospital and the vast majority have been vaccinated in that group).

Here's an excellent paper aspects of immunity after infection, for 8 months post-infection.The main author (Shane Crotty) is highly respected in this field and his lab (La Jolla Institute, CA) is at the forefront of research. It's worth doing occasional searches on his name on Google Scholar to see the latest papers.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf4063

Immune memory against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) helps to determine protection against reinfection, disease risk, and vaccine efficacy. Using 188 human cases across the range of severity of COVID-19, Dan et al. analyzed cross-sectional data describing the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 memory B cells, CD8+ T cells, and CD4+ T cells for more than 6 months after infection. The authors found a high degree of heterogeneity in the magnitude of adaptive immune responses that persisted into the immune memory phase to the virus. However, immune memory in three immunological compartments remained measurable in greater than 90% of subjects for more than 5 months after infection. Despite the heterogeneity of immune responses, these results show that durable immunity against secondary COVID-19 disease is a possibility for most individuals.

Don't forget it's harder to find test subjects for this type of research as people must have been infected but not vaccinated.

@Barbie222

Most covid patients in our local hospitals are over 70. They’re vaccinated (would be eligible for boosters) and can’t be discharged because they don’t have anywhere to go. (Great idea to sack carers when there was already a shortage ) The couple of dozen unvaccinated under 50s are really not the ones putting pressure on the system right now.

But that's not the case nationally, is it? The proportion of unvaccinated people in hospital is much higher than the proportion of vaccinated people, so if many more unvaccinated people catch the virus, there won't be a situation where a 'couple of dozen unvaccinated' are in hospital. We'll have a situation where a large number of people require expensive critical care and the other services offered by the NHS are severely limited. The national data really doesn't say anything else.

I would imagine that alot of the unvaccinated are among the younger and healthier demographics which will mean that hopsitilisations will not rise in the way you imagine. Hospitilisations seem to rising most quickly in the elderly and vulnerable, which to me seems to suggest they should be focusing on getting boosters out as quickly as possible to people who need and want them, rather than trying to coerce people who clearly don't.

@bumbleymummy

It’s being suggested to highlight how unreasonable it is to lockdown and restrict one particular group. Particularly when that group contains many young, healthy, previously infected so most likely immune people who are very unlikely to end up in hospital anyway. Was that not obvious?

😁 Not obvious, no - your posts don't come with "I'm just kidding with absurd proposal" disclaimer. And if it is isn't unreasonable to lockdown the vulnerable and elderly, so the healthy "can get on with things" (as was the often-repeated catchphrase on here a few months ago), why not this group? What makes them special?

The government should announce restrictions on who can get vaccinated and then there would be a massive outcry from people saying it is a violation of their human rights to be denied, and demanding to get the jab.

@Dishhh

*@bumbleymummy*

It’s being suggested to highlight how unreasonable it is to lockdown and restrict one particular group. Particularly when that group contains many young, healthy, previously infected so most likely immune people who are very unlikely to end up in hospital anyway. Was that not obvious?

😁 Not obvious, no - your posts don't come with "I'm just kidding with absurd proposal" disclaimer. And if it is isn't unreasonable to lockdown the vulnerable and elderly, so the healthy "can get on with things" (as was the often-repeated catchphrase on here a few months ago), why not this group? What makes them special?

Actually, I remember specifically saying to you how unreasonable it sounds as a proposal in a previous conversation.

The ‘unvaccinated’ as a group aren’t all necessarily at high risk of hospitalisation. Most unvaccinated are young, healthy people who are unlikely to need hospital care. Many are already immune after having the virus and, as ONS data shows, reinfection is rare and more serious reinfection is even rarer.

When you see statistics like these, I really struggle to believe that the unvaccinated are a major problem. Vaccination rates amongst the elderly and most at risk are extremely high. They are still high amongst younger populations, even though these populations are less likely to end up seriously ill and in hospital. Surely even with the unfortunate few who do, they can’t be enough in number to justify the heavy handed approach applied to unvaccinated people.

www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/ Link to full very interesting stats here.

Every age group over 18 is above the 75% of population cover most countries seem to be aiming for as a minimum to control spread.

Or close enough to 75% amongst the very youngest.