I had Covid in March 2020. It almost did me in. Was in ICU for a while.
Had the J&J shot three weeks ago. Did not feel a thing. My arm was slightly sore at injection site. Nothing else. I guess my body was used to it and just sort of shrugged it off.
Some of my friends who got J&J were sick for a few days, but rebounded quickly after that.
> If I have already had COVID-19 and recovered, do I still need to get vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine?
> Yes, you should be vaccinated regardless of whether you already had COVID-19. That’s because experts do not yet know how long you are protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19. Even if you have already recovered from COVID-19, it is possible—although rare—that you could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 again.
Another thing is that, although it hasn't been scientifically studied yet, there are some reports that getting vaccinated has helped some COVID long haulers with their symptoms:
> That’s because experts do not yet know how long you are protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19.
Since when has not knowing something been justification for intervention?
Given that people have been getting sick from COVID-19 for at least as long as vaccines have been available for testing, shouldn't experts have a reasonable understanding of whether previously infected people are as protected as recently vaccinated people, or how often (or rare) it is that people can be infected with the virus again?
If most of a population is already infected and has natural immunity, those people would certainly make the efficacy of the product seem much higher.
At some point, they'll declare the campaign a success. We'll never get to see the real data because they aren't collecting it. There's no centralized reporting or control.
In the US, there has been 32M cases reported so far, and who knows how many asymptomatic cases that were never counted. Since a large portion of cases are asymptomatic, the total case count could be multiples of the confirmed case count.
The clinical trials will never be replicated, it will just be 'oops, pandemic over, we assumed it all worked.'
In Singapore they had massive outbreaks in foreign workers dormitories one year ago. Now they have apparently seen new cases among the previously infected, suggesting that immunity starts to wear off after about a year. I'd definitely get vaccinated even if you already had it.
I'm in a similar situation - COVID-19 resulting in an ICU stay, then the vaccine (Oxford-AZ) - and I figured it couldn't hurt (read: was extremely unlikely to cause major side effects) and _may_ confer some slight benefit (similar to mixing vaccines or just renewing my immunity). Vaccine passports were also being mulled around that point, and I assumed it would make that process easier if necessary.
In the end, I did get some side effects, but nothing long term - a hard, hot to the touch, red circle of about 4" diameter formed around the injection site, and I could barely move my arm away from my body without significant pain, both for about a week.
I had COVID in March 2020 too (not as serious of a case as GP) and I'm getting my 2nd Vaccine does tomorrow so I'll answer for myself.
It's actually quite simple for me I'm traveling internationally again and the the first country on my list is a lot easier to get into if you're fully vaccinated. It seems like things will coalesce around people who are vaccinated having greater access to things, at least until enough of the world population is vaccinated that it doesn't matter.
For me, the answer is: the human immune system is weird and error prone.
Perhaps you got better because your innate immune system cleared Covid--you may not have antibodies. Perhaps your immune system keyed off something screwball on the virus--you may have antibodies that are less effective for other variants. I can go on.
Getting the vaccine means that I know I have antibodies to the spike protein in particular--which seems to be common to all the variants.
Even taking the data least charitable to my postulate, a study[1] (which there are issues with that I will not mention) using a sample of 63 million medical records found a reinfection rate of 0.48% compared to 2.2% infection rate for the previously uninfected.
This study therefore estimated protection against reinfection was 78.8%.
That's higher than the 72% efficacy offered by the J&J vaccine.
Potentially all the vaccines; the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were tested before the emergence of variants. The J&J was more effective in the US where fewer variants were present at the time of testing than internationally where the opposite was true.
The studies have only gone on for, at most, 8 months. So for every time period studied so far, including the longest possible time periods, people retain immunity. Perhaps use this science to revise your initial belief/statement.
While I mostly agree, there have been a few rare cases of reinfection; here [0] is a metastudy that looks at several claims of reinfection, ultimately concluding that 6 cases were credible reinfections. So while the relative risk is very low, I think one could make a plausible argument that since the risk of harmful side effects is also low, getting vaccinated may be beneficial.
There is also preliminary evidence [1] to indicate that post-infection vaccination can help to resolve lingering symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness, and insomnia.
Vaccine-based immunity allows for a greater variance in neutralizing antibodies to form relative to the spike protein, compared to natural immunity attacking less critical vectors. Get the vaccine even if you had covid
Infection is possible with all vaccines as well. Resulting viral load will be what matters: How strong their immune response is, how infectious the re-infected patient is, and how severe their symptoms are.
It's not a binary "You have COVID" vs "You don't have COVID". Not for vaccines, nor for re-infections.
An unvaccinated health care worker set off a Covid-19 outbreak at a nursing home in Kentucky where the vast majority of residents had been vaccinated, leading to dozens of infections, including 22 cases among residents and employees who were already fully vaccinated, a new study reported Wednesday.
Immunity lasts a long time in the vast, vast majority of people. People that survived SARS-CoV-1 still have strong immune response almost two decades later. You are improperly conflating lack of antibodies with lack of immunity, they are not the same thing. Antibodies are the product of active infection, not having immunity.
It is unhelpful and disingenuous to suggest that lack of antibodies imply lack of immunity or that rare edge cases are the norm. In disease, there are always edge cases.
We don't really know much about how strong or long lasting natural immunity from infection is so we aren't relying on it and can't make any assumptions. However, immunity from the vaccines is well studied and it's perfectly safe for someone with a history of covid infection to receive a vaccine.
The Trumps both received vaccines before leaving the Whitehouse even though they had prior covid infection. I know at least 4 people with prior covid infection who have received vaccines
>Data from clinical trials indicate that the currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines can be given safely to people with evidence of a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. People should be offered vaccination regardless of history of prior symptomatic or asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Viral testing to assess for acute SARS-CoV-2 infection or serologic testing to assess for prior infection is not recommended for the purposes of vaccine decision-making.
Had the J&J shot three weeks ago. Did not feel a thing. My arm was slightly sore at injection site. Nothing else. I guess my body was used to it and just sort of shrugged it off.
Some of my friends who got J&J were sick for a few days, but rebounded quickly after that.