It is a pleasure to have reasonable debate. I tend to be against vaccination for the youth. In due course they will fight it off. I am also of the opinion that natural immunity is the real thing, gets to T cell (memory) and that if you have had it you are good to go and need not to be vaccinated.
In my judgment, a tiered approach should be used and it seems to be what is happening. I think that anyone over 65 should be vaccinated regardless of health status. I think anyone over 40 with comorbidities should be vaccinated or with high exposure (health care workers for example).
I think if you are under 40 and in good shape — not being vaccinated is a very reasonable choice. The risks and benefits are about the same for this age group.
I am also of the opinion that the delta variant is far more contagious and spreads more rapidly, while being less severe. This is exactly what should happen in a pandemic. Lots of people in the middle part of this pandemic compared this to the Spanish flu of 1917. That came in three waves. I think this is the third wave, that will run its course more rapidly, and hopefully with many vaccinations being given, will accelerate the speed of the wave because there are just not as many placed for the virus to take hold.
This third more contagious wave + natural immunity + vaccine immunity should equal true herd immunity.
You actually said something reasonable. Thank you.
1) Almost to the day, but certainly to the week, the present uptick in deaths is happening exactly as it did 1 year ago. The reason why is not known. My money is on heat driving people indoors to AC and virus.
2) The virus is likely not natural. Artificial. Putting all your eggs in the natural immunity basket is a shakey decision. Natural immunity vs non natural virus. Nope.
3) Saying the dead are only unvaccinated ignores the changed PCR cycle count criteria for a declared infection in vaccinated vs unvaccinated. Way too much presumption of bullet proofing. That armor will get more and more porous as the virus variants that evade vaccination are the ones that infect and reproduce. Hard to see how this does not happen.
Agreed, the tiered approach makes sense but on a voluntary basis — my position all along.
I can’t speak to the Delta variant other than reciting the facile news reports. But FR “should” be a good place to discuss/debate.
https://twitter.com/noorchashm?s=20 says basically the same thing, except he says don’t get the vax if you have natural immunity. He uses the hashtag #ScreenB4Vaccine.
As encouragement, it's spot on. You never said mandate any of it, which quickly becomes a hot button issue. Perhaps even more importantly, you said having had COVID-19 was at least equal to having had the vaccine.
Thank you for that. It's a completely defensible position for a cautious approach to strange disease, regardless of other treatments being available.