Let's start this post with the disclaimer that everyone has to do these days...

I AM NOT AN ANTI-VAXER

In fact, today I vaccinated my son for Tdap and Meningococcal. So stuff your BS on that one.

Now the real question is if and when do I get vaccinated for COVID. I am young and in good health. So my chances of dying from COVID are really small. I'm not scared of COVID.

What I am scared of are more lockdowns, vax passports, and government overreach. Do I keep playing the game while they encroach on my freedoms? Or do I rebel? I really want to rebel.

But then I read this from a data scientist.

Vaccine Passport - Deep Dive

There’s a lot of talk about the morality of C-19 vaccine passports. I want to focus on the issue of whether they make sense from a public health perspective.

Not only don’t they make sense, they’re actually counterproductive. Here’s why:

First, let’s establish some facts:
1) C-19 is here to stay...we’ll never eradicate it
2) Everybody will eventually be infected
3) Viral respiratory infections are usually asymptomatic
4) Vaccines protect against disease, not infection
5) Common CVs still kill the elderly

Most people don’t realize that the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu (H1N1) and its variants are is still with us today. No effective H1N1 vaccine have ever been developed so why doesn’t it kill loads of people? While it still kills some people, we’ve collectively become immune to it.

This has happened with every single pandemic. Because it is new, it kills off the susceptible in 2-3 waves and then fades into the background of the hundreds of respiratory viruses that commonly circulate. These viruses still sometimes kill but it is elderly/sick people.

So the question health experts should be asking is how do we get to the point where C19 becomes a common respiratory virus? Before I answer this I want to explain what the vaccine does. It greatly decreases the chances that an infection will proceed to symptomatic disease. And it almost eliminates chance that exposure will lead to severe disease or death.

On the other hand, immunity to coronaviruses tends to decrease in time.
Also, being vaccinated does not offer more efficient immunity than being infected with the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus.

So ideally you want to ensure that you have some pre-existing immunity to C19 and then let it circulate freely. Why? Reinfection serves as a booster shot. Vaccines ensure that high risk individuals have sufficient pre-existing immunity that they won’t die if exposed.

But the clock is ticking. Immunity starts decreasing as time passes. If the idea is to achieve a level of balance with the virus then having it circulate is how you ensure that immunity doesn’t decrease below a threshold where the virus is deadly.

If I have just completed my vaccine schedule for C19, I want to go out into a world where C19 circulates! Why? Re-exposure, will allow my immune system to see the entire virus and all its epitopes, and will keep me up to date with new variants.

Paradoxically, vaccinated people should not want restrictions. They should want life back to normal because re-exposure is actually beneficial. But the longer it takes to be re-exposed, the weaker your immune response.

For a vaccinated person, freely circulating C19 is not a bad thing.

Now, if you choose not to get the vaccine then you believe your pre-existing immunity is a better bet than the risks of the vaccine. I got vaccinated because I think the vax gives you better odds. People who don’t get vaccinated know full well that they will eventually have to deal with an infection by SARS-CoV-2.

It is not vaccinated people who are at risk from non-vaccinated people, but rather the other way around. If we segregate for 2 years then it will flip! The unvaccinated will probably have already been exposed while the segregated vaccinated people’s immunity has waned and are now more susceptible because of a lack of circulating virus in their ranks.

I hope this is not too confusing.

The ideal solution is to get to a point where everybody who wants a vaccine has gotten one. Then reopen completely and let the virus circulate normally.
That’s how C19 becomes just another respiratory virus.

This will lead to deaths in unvaccinated people, but this is their choice to make. And they have enough information to make decisions based on their level of risk. You can’t force vax because it doesn’t endanger vaccinated people!

Now I’m going to explain why you can’t force people to take a vaccine for a respiratory virus. Respiratory viruses do not go away. Our common defense against respiratory viruses is to let them circulate freely so that our immune systems are constantly adapting to new variants. You can’t compare respiratory viruses to other diseases where mass vaccination (polio) or segregation (leprosy) actually makes sense. I see a lot of intelligent people making dumb statements on this subject. It's a respiratory virus FFS! It’s not aerosolized ebola!

There is a natural balance between humans and respiratory viruses. The pandemic stage sucks, as susceptible people people die. But then the virus starts to circulate freely and our immune systems do the rest. Yes, a vaccine helps but not in terms of eradicating the resp virus.

If we ever want to get back to normal, then once everybody who wants it has been vaccinated, we need to return to normal. Current policy on passports makes no sense. Segregating vax’d people from non-vax’d is detrimental to vax’d people’s immune health against C19/variants.

Thank you!