What is the difference in immunity acquired by actually having and surviving the virus vs acquiring immunity through a vaccine ? I.E. is either one better, permanent etc ?
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Herd immunity vs vaccine
- Thread starter thatsbaseball
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Depends on which can happen faster and the number of deaths involved. If a vaccine is available in 6 months, it's likely the best route. But, with multiple mutations, we may not know the answer.
I don’t think we really know much about immunity at this point. Are you 20% immune or 100% after infection? I just don’t think we know, but there seems to be evidence of reinfection. So, it doesn’t sound like it’s 100%.
That is also why the antibody testing right now doesn’t have a ton of value. We don’t really know how to interpret the results.
That is also why the antibody testing right now doesn’t have a ton of value. We don’t really know how to interpret the results.
If reinfection is more prevalent than just say a few cases then we are 17ed beyond the point of no return.
HIV is a virus that has been around 30+ years and we don’t have a vaccine yet... a Covid Vaccine is probably not on the horizon.
It'll just kill a lot more people. Yeah they'll all be old, but still the facts.
Millenials will finally get all the boomers' jobs!!!!!!****
Look I'm decidedly in the 'open up' and 'herd immunity' camp. But acting like this thing is the seasonal flu is also dumb, as are the conspiracy theories. The people don't have that much power.
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Well Magic Johnson is still kicking. So I'd say there is some effective treatment, somewhere.
If a large percent of the population is immune, the virus can't spread effectively. Doesn't matter if they acquired that immunity from a vaccine or from having the virus. We have herd immunity from things like polio, even though very few people in the USA today have ever had polio.
Well isn't this more dangerous than the flu bc we have no natural antibodies and a vaccine? If people develop some antibodies and a vaccine is developed that's at least as effective as the flu's, wouldn't how dangerous covid19 is diminish? Granted there's a few "ifs" in there
No we don't. You get a polio vaccine. What planet are you on? Or worse, are you an anti-vaxxer?
Possible, and yeah, I'm willing to take that chance, especially seeing that it seems many people had this thing back in December, January and February, including one guy I work with closely. But the problem I don't think we know if this is seasonal, or some harder core sickness like diphtheria. I think it's probably closer to flu than the others.
This is a complicated question and it really depends.
Theoretically, being infected typically induced a stronger immune response, which is the principle behind herd immunity. However, like Desoto mentioned, the stories of reinfection are troubling because that means the first infection didn’t result in a stringent immune response to developing memory to protect against a secondary infection, or there is enough strain differences that protection to 1 version doesn’t provide effective immunity to the other. In other words, it brings into question if this particular virus will generate herd immunity. Some viruses do not result in herd immunity or may not for some people.
Vaccines essentially trick your body into mounting an immune response thinking it is infected by the real thing. Some vaccines are better than others at tricking the body. So depending on vaccine effectiveness, it may do a great job at creating long term protection. Some do a great job getting a protective titer, but it wears off over time & so you need a booster.
The types of vaccines in the moderna study (mRNA) has never been used before. I have no what type of immunity this will generate.
To answer your question, we won’t know until we get data on the vaccine in humans. In a perfect world the vaccines will result in the same type of protection the polio or MMR vaccines cause, so you can avoid the risk of illness and have the same level of protection as being infected for years (I have a protective titer to polio and mumps measles and rubella almost 40 years since my last vaccine dose).
Theoretically, being infected typically induced a stronger immune response, which is the principle behind herd immunity. However, like Desoto mentioned, the stories of reinfection are troubling because that means the first infection didn’t result in a stringent immune response to developing memory to protect against a secondary infection, or there is enough strain differences that protection to 1 version doesn’t provide effective immunity to the other. In other words, it brings into question if this particular virus will generate herd immunity. Some viruses do not result in herd immunity or may not for some people.
Vaccines essentially trick your body into mounting an immune response thinking it is infected by the real thing. Some vaccines are better than others at tricking the body. So depending on vaccine effectiveness, it may do a great job at creating long term protection. Some do a great job getting a protective titer, but it wears off over time & so you need a booster.
The types of vaccines in the moderna study (mRNA) has never been used before. I have no what type of immunity this will generate.
To answer your question, we won’t know until we get data on the vaccine in humans. In a perfect world the vaccines will result in the same type of protection the polio or MMR vaccines cause, so you can avoid the risk of illness and have the same level of protection as being infected for years (I have a protective titer to polio and mumps measles and rubella almost 40 years since my last vaccine dose).
You bring up a good point.
The vaccines might not provide protection in humans. The fastest effective vaccine I am aware of took 4 years. Now we have more groups and money working on a vaccine for this virus, we have made Coronavirus vaccines (for dogs) before and we have vaccines for humans targeting viruses with this type of genome which is completely different than HIV, so there is hope. That said, absolutely no guarantee we will get an effective vaccine in 1, 4 or more years.
The vaccines might not provide protection in humans. The fastest effective vaccine I am aware of took 4 years. Now we have more groups and money working on a vaccine for this virus, we have made Coronavirus vaccines (for dogs) before and we have vaccines for humans targeting viruses with this type of genome which is completely different than HIV, so there is hope. That said, absolutely no guarantee we will get an effective vaccine in 1, 4 or more years.
Are there really any corona or flu or other respiratory viruses that don't result in milder infections after you've had it the first time? My assumption is that this is going to be somewhere between the flu and other corona viruses going forward. We won't have immunity per se, but you will be protected from reinfection for a while and when you eventually get reinfected, it will generally be a mild infection because you still have memory cells that allow your body to react more quickly than it would to a novel infection? Is that not right? Did my 10th grade biology teacher do me an injustice by not providing me enough information to adequately understand pandemics and respiratory infections?
You contribute to herd immunity by getting a vaccine. That's one of the reason we push the flu vaccine for people that aren't high risk, is to contribute to herd immunity and to protect those people that are at risk, and especially those at risk that don't respond well to the vaccine.
Most of the people who got HIV when he did died of it. Most who get it still do, just not here. It took billions and about two-three decades to get HIV to where it is in the developed world.
We don't know that yet. We have no idea what the real infection rate is in the general population so there is no way to compute that number. Given the numbers we do know, its's probably going to be around a 1% death rate with around 90% being infected. That sounds sort of ok , till you realize that around 3 million dead in the US, and probably 75 million hospitalized over the outbreak. Those numbers only hold if you can't get it again.
Flu changes from year to year. You also don't get everlasting immunity to the strains you do get. It can be just as bad the second time if you are far enough removed from your initial infection.
We have herd immunity from polio BECAUSE a large majority of the people get a vaccine. There are some people who can't get vaccines for medical reasons (a friend's daughter is one), and they depend on that herd immunity. That's what makes the anti-vaxxers dangerous. If enough people don't get vaccinated, the disease could come back.
We don't routinely vaccinate for polio in the US anymore. Now if you are going to Pakistan or Afghanistan you better get one.
To answer your question (and I have no medical degree or anything), I would think the relative immunity acquired from a legitimate vaccine and from the actual virus would be the same. The antibody development works the same, body sees intruder and body fights intruder. Only difference with a vaccine is there are no symptoms present except for perhaps a mild fever due to elevated white blood cell activity.
That's actually an intersting question about herd imminity and polio in the US. We probably DON't have it. It was eliminated here in the past through vaccinated herd immunity. WE don't routinely vaccinate foir it anymore here. Somebody my age is probably immune because I was vaccinated as a kid. A lot of younger people aren't.
Polio (and others) and the flu are not the same. That is why you get a number of vaccines as a baby, and have to get a flu vaccine every year.
Safe to say I disagree. I also do not get a flu shot every year. I do, however, support getting children vaccinated against the truly murderous diseases.
Seriously?
Yes, depending on the virus, the length of time since previous infection & your immune status, it’s possible to be reinfected and have similar symptoms. You’re correct though, for many viruses it’s milder if you did get reinfected. The reinfection viruses I have read most about cause colds, so not exactly a big deal to have it again years later - just a pain.
it’s definitely possible in this case that most people get infected once, and develop long-term immunity or if they have a reinfection it’s milder. We just don’t know definitely to say for sure in this case yet.
And that's a big problem, if true (not sure I believe that). I know the theory and all that, but again, polio is a different animal than seasonal flu.
SO what happens to strains of the flu that are particularly deadly? Is the spanish flu floating around and its' just not a big deal now b/c we've been exposed to it? Or does flu mutate to the point that old strains disappear?
I did not argue that they are the same. I was just pointing out that herd immunity is not limited to the concept of having immunity because of a previous infection as opposed to having been vaccinated. There are presumably some people out there that don't have immunity to MMR b/c their body for whatever reason didn't respond to the vaccine, or didn't respond strongly enough, but enough people did have an effective vaccine that we still have herd immunity and protect those individuals that aren't immune. Doesn't matter that many of those people never had MMorR. We still have herd immunity.
You’re exactly right - combination of herd immunity plus antigenic drift (mutation) lead to that strain basically changing to different H1N1 strains. The 2009 pandemic was a H1N1 strain. The most common strain this year is a H1N1.
Early this decade the guy in Wisconsin and in the Netherlands freaked people out When they modified a H5N1 strain (avian) so that it could spread among ferrets. There are some H7N9 strains that could, with the wrong mutation be bad news in humans and then eventually disappear through mutation/herd immunity.
Early this decade the guy in Wisconsin and in the Netherlands freaked people out When they modified a H5N1 strain (avian) so that it could spread among ferrets. There are some H7N9 strains that could, with the wrong mutation be bad news in humans and then eventually disappear through mutation/herd immunity.
We don't know what the case fatality rate will be, but it's looking very likely it's going to be somewhere around two to four times higher than the flu. So somewhere between 650,000 and 1.3M deaths if you assume every single person in the US gets it, which of course is unlikely but it could be 90% of those numbers.
That's really bad, but probably not bad enough to justify something other than Sweden's approach unless we get lucky and find a way to significantly cut the mortality rate.
We still give the polio vaccine in the US.
We switched from live attenuated to inactivated several years back.
You won't get to one without the other.
Did you get a measles shot? Mumps? Smallpox? Polio?
Or do you trust "herd Immunity" to those as well?
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