Editing 2557: Immunity

{{comic
| number    = 2557
| date      = December 20, 2021
| title     = Immunity
| image     = immunity.png
| titletext = This plan may sound appealing to people who know a little about the immune system, but the drawbacks are clear to people who know a lot about the immune system and also to people who don't know anything about it.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is, although not specifically referenced, another entry in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

A common issue posited by people opposed to {{w|vaccination}}, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, is that there are other ways to become immune to diseases caused by viruses or bacteria — most notably, contracting the disease "naturally". 

[[Cueball]], by way of questioning, points out to [[White Hat]] that this makes no sense. Contracting the natural disease is the thing people are trying to ''prevent''. Diseases are bad.{{citation needed}}  

Although there are plenty of instances where someone has already recovered, and therefore is in possession of [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1087466/covid19-cases-recoveries-deaths-worldwide/ natural immunity], it would be better to have that immunity without getting sick at all. Especially with a disease like COVID that can cause permanent damage even to those who eventually clear the virus. Vaccination provides similar immunity without the negative effects of infection. While explaining that getting infected is the best way to avoid getting infected, White Hat thus realizes the {{w|Circular reasoning|circular logic}} presented by {{w|Vaccine hesitancy|anti-vaxxers}} ([[2806: Anti-Vaxxers]]), and thus stops mid sentence.

The title text elaborates on this by pointing out that people with ''no'' understanding of the immune system will understand that contracting a disease to avoid contracting a disease is a bad idea, and that people with a ''strong'' understanding of the immune system will understand the specific ways it can fail (and that vaccines provide a greater benefit for less risk). It is thus only people with a ''limited'' understanding of the immune system, who know that infection can provide immunity but haven't thought out the disadvantages of catching the disease, who would [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-12-28 make a claim] such as White Hat does.

The comic does not specifically reference vaccines and anti-vaxxers. It could also be about people who refuse to wear masks and social distance during the pandemic, who do not understand how much they are putting other people at risk. White Hat may even be fumbling an explanation of his previous [[2515: Vaccine Research]] into why vaccines are good.

Older folks may be familiar with the "infection gives you immunity" trope due to their experience with so-called "childhood diseases". Before there were vaccines for e.g. {{w|measles}}, {{w|mumps}}, and {{w|chickenpox}}, it was seen as preferable for young children to contract these diseases, because the risk of serious illness is greater for those who get "first infections" later in life. Children run a comparatively smaller risk of serious illness in return for (usually) life-long immunity. Note that this only ever made sense for children whose immune system is still flexible enough to adapt, and not for 30 something fitness bros. Furthermore, the trope has outlived its context. Small as the risk to children of serious illness from measles, mumps, and chickenpox might be, vaccines all but eliminate the risk of contracting serious symptoms at all, so there is no sensible reason to subject oneself to infection. 

The trope, moreover, is misapplied to COVID-19, because, on present evidence, immunity from infection is short-lived (which, at least at the time of this comic, was exacerbated by the fact that variants with sufficiently different spike proteins to at least partially evade natural immunity (such as beta, delta, and omicron) were arising at a rate of multiple per year), so there is no benefit to be gained by running the risk of winding up in the hospital - or the morgue. The better comparison is to {{w|influenza}}, which people get vaccinated against every year. Instead of childhood diseases, think of diseases that had a high probability of serious illness at any age, such as {{w|poliomyelitis}} and {{w|smallpox}}, for which few accepted the "infection gives you immunity" trope (even though, for those diseases, infection typically yielded life-long immunity), and there was far less resistance to effective vaccines once these became available.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat has raised his hand, palm up, as he addresses Cueball.]
:White Hat: See, it's ''good'' to get infected, because it gives you immunity.

:[White Hat has lowered his arm.]
:Cueball: Why would I want immunity?

:[Same setting.]
:White Hat: To protect you from getting inf...
:White Hat: ...wait.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:COVID-19 vaccine]] <!-- the underlying subject is to get the immunity from the vaccine and not from infection -->
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Comment - This very much feels like a straw man. I get that it's a webcomic, but can we talk about this? The description says that natural immunity is "short lived" (as in, how short-lived, and how much compared to vaccination?) but meanwhile I hear like one in five COVID hospitalizations were vaccinated patients. Are there studies on reinfection with COVID in vaccinated vs non-vaccinated patients? It seems to me from the latest comics that Randall is frustrated. I think everyone is frustrated. Citation needed, haha. But I get tired of reading "haha the other side is dumb" from both sides of every damn issue these days, and the bigger the impact an issue has, the more furious the mudslinging. One could, for example, make the same "circular argument" jab at trusting the FDA in this example, or in a more agnostic case, the value of a college degree or a certification: Ex. "we're qualified to make decisions about what's right or smart for the populace because we're a bunch of people who say so, and we have a pretty looking seal to prove it, and also please keep giving us a lot of money." I mean, for those of us who have been to college, haven't we all churned our way through that just to get into the workforce and discover that it's completely different than what we actually needed to know? Would we call people "anti-uni's" and laugh at their incompetence for questioning the system? Even at the unlikely minimum of "anti-vaxxers (or x-person who disagrees with me) are 100% dumb and wrong and that's a fact", isn't the discourse important? I understand that the opposite extreme is "I'd rather let my child die of Polio than trust another human being", but isn't that just another straw man? When are we going to stop polarizing? Thoughts?