Talk:2557: Immunity

well, if you look at society as a whole it makes more sense. the reason we have so many mutations is that we have a significant portion of the populous with no immunity 172.68.110.125 20:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC) mark ifi

But the mutations come about from the virus replicating a lot, i.e in people with the virus. It still doesn't make sense to catch it, because you have a chance of your infection being the one that produces a terrible mutation 141.101.77.130 22:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I can see this one annoying a lot of people. It's the lot of people who can already be annoying, so I don't think that's a big problem. (A few, who misread it as about vaccination giving immunity, may actually think it supports them. I'm not sure we can do anything about that either.) 162.158.159.85 21:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Would you kindly provide a link to the "Mount Stupid" comic for reference. -- 172.70.174.119 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

To be fair, if the vaccination would only protect you for ONE infection it wouldn't be worth it. The idea about immunity is that immunity trained by either vaccination or infection will then protect you from multiple following infections. The problem with it is that in case of covid (or flu), the immunity wanes off with time AND the virus mutates into new variants the immunity doesn't work as well against. Sure, it still makes sense to vaccinate, but just because the virus spread so much you are very likely to catch it. -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Are you making the mistake (without the other baggage) I mentioned above about misreading the comic? This comic isn't about the vaccination at all. It's about infection. 172.70.86.22 22:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

(And, to add, if the vaccine just protected against ONE infection, where that one infection was sufficiently dangerous, it would indeed be worth it. Better than chancing the infection on a naïve immune system and hoping to come out the other side with a similarly infection-specific immune effect (c.f. annual flu waves) but without the QC and care given to the vector.) ((See, I knew it'd spark response, didn't intend to say much. Maybe I should just stay out of this until it blows over.)) 172.70.85.79 23:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Of course it is about the vaccination - this supports Randall's earlier statements for being pro vaccine, that you should get the immunity from vaccination and not from infection! --Kynde (talk) 08:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, no. It's about COVID (and that by inference). It doesn't mention the vaccine. The conversation might have been about the vaccine, but the comic (and its discussion of what it is sensible to do, or not) is vaccine free. It's "anti-infection", but not directly "pro-vaccine". (He, I and you are all sensibly pro-vaccine, I think. The comic itself is only vocal on that subject by omission and a chain of logic that will never occur to those stuck at the original fallacy.) 172.70.85.73 13:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

People who know a lot about the immune system could also be referring to people who are aware of possibilities like the varicella zoster virus which causes chickenpox, but stays dormant in your body after you recover and can come back later as shingles. This is less likely to happen if you get the vaccine to prevent chickenpox in the first place. --Norgaladir (talk) 00:32, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

A vaccination doesn't necessarily give you immunity, e.g. with the Covid or influenca vaccines, so you still can get infected. But being vaccinated reduces the risk of suffering complications like death that can ruin your and other peoples' life.162.158.94.229 07:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

...significantly reduces the risk, in fact. It likely also (though it's a harder thing to establish) reduces the catch-and-transmit rate, thus yet another thing to do to help others, even those you'll never meet directly, who are unable or (ugh!) unwilling to think this far ahead. Unmitigated (and, especially, sought-after) 'natural' infection as represented in the comic just helps spread the thing further and faster and does a gross disservice to onward contacts, contacts-of-contacts, etc, etc. Excuse my preaching to the choir here, but it needs to be said. 172.70.85.73 13:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

While trying to update the explanation for 'neutrality of tone' and address some infectious disease history, I came across this interesting article Infectious Diseases in Critical Care from the NIH published January 3 of 2020 which includes a comparison of smallpox, measles, SARS-1, and MERS-cov. 172.70.110.227 13:46, 21 December 2021 (UTC)