If you do not know where you are going, any airplane will get you there, eventually.

You survived COVID-19 – one of over 99 other people when you are under the age of 55. Why should you get a vaccine for the same disease you had? I wish I could offer definitive words to get or not to get the vaccine. I cannot. This pandemic has been a strife with media headlines of doom and gloom that rarely come true. Why should I believe anything now?

COVID-19 Reinfection?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html. According to the CDC, reinfection is extremely rare. They will not define the statistics as extremely rare. Still, the recent Johnson & Johnson flap with blood clotting that was eventually relabeled as extremely rare puts the stats at around a million to one.

Can I live with a million to one risk of getting coronavirus a second time? Yes, I can easily assume that risk. Even at a 100,000 to one, I will gladly accept that risk. I would not change my mind at 10,000 to one or 1,000 to one.

When media headlines show a rapid increase in reinfections of people surviving the virus and reinfected that results in hospitalization, then I think there is a baseline to consider a profound reflection of the value of getting a vaccine if I already had the virus. We do not have any significant reinfection data to base a decision to get the vaccine for additional protection.
Maybe it is more of a ‘feel-good’ reason to get the vaccine rather than scientific evidence.

Long-Term Immunity Protection

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210428/Recovered-COVID-19-patients-show-signs-of-long-term-immunity.aspx Less than two months ago, studies that followed survivors of COVID-19 showed signs of long-lasting immunity. This study points out the antibody’s short-term and long-term observations.

IgG (immunoglobulin G) and IgA (immunoglobulin A) antibodies were potent one month after infection. Then a decline was explained by the gradual reduction in short-lived plasmablasts (activated specific memory B cells). Eight months later, the decline plateaued, and longer-lived and more durable plasma cells remained. The body maintains the long-lived plasma cells furnishing higher affinity antibodies to counter future infections.

This article concludes that recovered COVID-19 patients are likely to better defend against viral variants than those immunized by the vaccine. That conclusion is counter the gobbledygook being spouted today, telling us that survivors must get a vaccine to be fully protected from reinfection.

What about those vaccinated people who caught the virus after they were vaccinated? https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2101927 If a vaccinated person can become infected with SARS-CoV-2, why should a survivor consider a vaccine. I wish I could tell you.

COVID-19 Vaccines – Experimental?

https://www.thedesertreview.com/health/experimental-covid-shots-cannot-be-mandated/article_89b901ae-8126-11eb-a78d-07c0c7e926df.html Coronavirus vaccines were authorized by the FDA with an Emergency Use Authorization. As such, federal law allows people to accept or reject an experimental drug until it is fully approved. There have been numerous articles lately decrying the term, experimental, as applied to the COVID-19 vaccines for this reason or that. The fact is that all the current vaccines are not fully approved by the FDA and are hence, experimental.

The Vaccination Question

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-you-need-to-get-vaccinated-even-if-youve-already-had-covid-19 The CDC wants people vaccinated whether they survived the virus or not. Yet, the CDC scientists do not know how long the natural immunity from SARS-CoV-2 infection will last. They do not know how long any of the current vaccines offer full protection. Why are they harping on getting a vaccine regardless?

The fear that I am reading between the lines is the constant future surge from some unknown virus mutation that will doom all of us. Viruses mutate all the time. It is what they do. Most of the time, they are a nothing-burger. Why are some people holding out against all hope that a super severe strain of coronavirus will happen tomorrow or next month? Again, I cannot explain it. A strong argument is that there will not be a more robust variant next month. Otherwise, we would have seen hundreds or thousands of the nasty variants already.

Conclusion

Scare tactics, fearmongering, shabby forecasting, and more will be with us when situations like our pandemic exist. Some experts will always claim the worst is just around the corner. Others will say we have passed the most significant hurdles, and things are looking pretty good down the road.

If the scientists cannot prove how long natural immunity lasts and how long vaccinated immunity lasts, then it is speculation and hope. Give me the facts, the numbers of reinfected ending up in hospitals, before offering me a suggestion that I might increase my immunity if I get vaccinated. I am sorry, I am not buying the current hype of vaccinating the survivors of COVID-19.

Live Longer & Enjoy Life! – Red O’Laughlin – RedOLaughlin.com

 

 

 

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