I fully support the right of an employer to set their own policies related to employment. Unless employers have the freedom to set their own policies it is not possible for society at-large to influence pivotal issues. In other words, employer mandates (or surrogate mandates based on government regulatory compliance) allow stakeholders to vote with their words and collective actions and thus, render judgment. The simple fact that a mandate flows down from the central government does not mean it has intrinsic value or that it is ethical.
And with the right to issue mandates, it must logically follow that the threat of consequences (force) is necessary to ensure compliance. With that in view, it should then be obvious that the success of a mandate has nothing to do with its virtue and everything to do with its power to coerce. Otherwise, it would not be necessary to have a mandate. A mandate is successful when a useful number of people submit to it. It is rendered impotent when a critical number of participants opt out.
The justification for a mandate based on the collective good, without first considering individual welfare, violates the first principle of individual sovereignty regarding medical treatment. It is informative to consider what the AHA and AMA – and approximately 50 other professional organizations – have in common other than supporting a vaccine mandate.
The AHA and AMA are both essentially professional lobbying organizations for their industries. The AMA makes more money leasing rights to the CPT (one of the biggest factors fighting against price transparency and contributing to healthcare inflation) than they do from member’s dues. Less than 20% of physicians hold membership in the AMA. And the AHA has come out against price transparency, arguing twisted legal logic related to First Amendment protection and protection of proprietary contractual information with payers. I bring up these organizations only to point out that citing them as sources to justify adoption of a mandate carries no scientific or ethical credibility.
The follow-the-blind-leader mentality of various professional organizations should not come as a surprise considering that HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, admitted in a recent Senate hearing of being unaware of the landmark study from Israel regarding the importance/superiority of natural immunity when it comes to fighting COVID-19. Instead, he would rather demean those with reasonable science-based concerns who don’t agree with wide-spread indiscriminate use of the vaccine in all ages, regardless of risk or whether someone has had the disease. He would rather disparage those who hold those opinions as “not following the science”, while simultaneously being unaware of some of the most important data in circulation today regarding COVID immunity!
I am pro-vaccine. I recommend COVID-19 vaccine in any situation where I feel the risk of the disease is higher than the risk of the vaccine, as is the case for folks over 55 or those with severe obesity or any of the various co-existing conditions which carry increased risk with COVID-19 infection. Based on age-tiered risk and co-morbidity risk analysis, the vaccine risk to benefit ratio varies widely across risk categories. It is not self-evident by looking at the data that the m-RNA COVID vaccines should be administered to healthy children or healthy adults under 30. Nor is it obvious based on the data that those who have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection benefit long-term from taking the vaccine. After receiving the vaccine, those with a history of prior infection show a transient spike of antibody levels which return to baseline in about 4 months. However, a paper from March 2021 showed an unexpected decrease of spike-specific CD-4 responses in COVID-recovered individuals following a second dose of m-RNA vaccine, as measured by INF-gamma. In another study, recovered patients showed an increase in antibody with the first dose of vaccine as shown in multiple other studies, but NO increase in antibody after the second dose of vaccine; whereas in COVID-naïve individuals the second dose caused significantly higher antibody levels compared to the first dose.
On a personal note, I had COVID-19 in December 2020. It was rough, but I recovered fully. The preponderance of data (and as evidenced by my own antibody tests) indicate that I likely have robust and durable immunity. There is no proof that the vaccine improves my long-term protections, nor provides additional protection for others with whom I might come into contact.
It is my strongly held belief that the blind spots regarding certain COVID data need to be brought into view. Unfortunately, this unjustified mandate will be implemented using the enforcement apparatus of OSHA and HHS to coerce businesses, nonprofits and healthcare facilities into compliance; while the government cronies in media and corporate board rooms and hospital C-suites throughout the country use their bully pulpits to silence dissenters who have credible science-based objections.
We are long past the point in this pandemic where the general welfare or public safety is believable as a predicate for usurping individual choice; as if it ever should yield as a inviolable position. The evidence-poor vaccine mandate, while excluding naturally-derived immunity and other important risk-benefit assessments from the conversation, should be viewed as what it really is: Coercion at the hands of central planners who have lost their way, snuffing out liberty bit by bit as they flounder.
References below
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00141-3/fulltext
…the incidence rate of reinfection was estimated at 0.66 per 10,000 person-weeks. Incidence rate of reinfection versus month of follow-up did not show any evidence of waning of immunity for over seven months of follow-up.
There are clear indications that SARS-CoV-2 infection results in the production of memory immune cells, suggesting that the same thing is likely to be happening among vaccinated people.
- Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells: Cell Reports Medicine
- Vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads in communities with a high prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant |medRxiv
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19
Virus-specific B cells increased over time.
Levels of T cells for the virus also remained high after infection.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/295552
According to the results of the study, the reinfection rate for people who already had natural infection (as opposed to immunity via vaccination) was just two per 10,000, or 0.02%, with 99.98% of participants who were infected before not becoming infected a second time at any point during the 35-week tracking period.
In addition, the study found that when reinfection did occur, it tended to be less severe than initial infections, with just one case in the sample of 43,044 in which a person suffered a severe case of COVID after having previously been infected. Two other moderate cases were reported among those with reinfections. No fatal cases were reported among those with reinfections.
This is the second recent study which has found that reinfections are rare following natural infection with the coronavirus.
A study of 43,044 people tracked for up to 35 weeks in Qatar found that just 0.02% experienced reinfection, suggesting that natural infection creates a high level of immunity for an extended period of time.
According to the study, conducted in Cleveland, Ohio and published in the MedRxiv journal last month, people who were infected with the coronavirus enjoy significant long-term immunity from the virus, which is unlikely to be increased by being injected with one of the coronavirus vaccinations now on the market.
Zero previously infected employees were reported to have become infected again with the virus, regardless of their vaccination status.
Vaccination significantly reduced the risk of coronavirus infection, the study found, but only among those who had not previously been infected.
The authors concluded that vaccination after natural infection is unlikely to have any benefit for recovered COVID patients.
This study followed 254 Covid-19 patients for up to 8 months and concluded they had “durable broad-based immune responses.” In fact, even very mild Covid-19 infection also protected the patients from an earlier version of “SARS” coronavirus that first emerged around 2003, and against Covid-19 variants. “Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients,” concludes the study scientists.
SARS-CoV-2 specific memory B-cells from individuals with diverse disease severities recognize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, May 29, 2021
This study found strong immune signs in people who had previously been infected with Covid-19, including “those [who] experienced asymptomatic or mild disease.” The study concludes there is “reason for optimism” regarding the capacity of prior infection “to limit disease severity and transmission of variants of concern as they continue to arise and circulate.”
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans, May 24, 2021
The study indicates “People who have had mild illness develop antibody-producing cells that can last lifetime.”
A 1 to 1000 SARS-CoV-2 reinfection proportion in members of a large healthcare provider in Israel: a preliminary report, March 6, 2021
This study found a rare Covid-19 positive test “reinfection” rate of 1 per 1,000 recoveries.
Negligible impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on CD4+ and CD8+ T cell reactivity in COVID-19 exposed donors and vaccinees, Nov. 1, 2020
This study concluded “T cell” immune response in former Covid-19 patients likely continues to protect amid Covid-19 variants.
SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls, This study found that all patients who recently recovered from Covid-19 produced immunity-strong T cells that recognize multiple parts of Covid-19.
They also looked at blood samples from 23 people who’d survived a 2003 outbreak of a coronavirus: SARS (Cov-1). These people still had lasting memory T cells 17 years after the outbreak. Those memory T cells, acquired in response to SARS-CoV-1, also recognized parts of Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2).
“Immune T Cells May Offer Lasting Protection Against COVID-19”
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(21)00203-2
- Most recovered COVID-19 patients mount broad, durable immunity after infection
- Spike IgG+ memory B cells increase and persist post-infection
- Durable polyfunctional CD4 and CD8 T cells recognize distinct viral epitope regions
- These immune cells also reacted with coronaviruses that cause common colds.
- The findings suggest that existing immune cells may help account for the wide range of symptoms experienced by people with COVID-19.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3
Conclusions Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z
In all of these individuals, we found CD4 and CD8 T cells that recognized multiple regions of the N protein…these T cells displayed robust cross-reactivity to the N protein of SARS-CoV-2.
- Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells: Cell Reports Medicine
- Vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads in communities with a high prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant |medRxiv
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19
“Several months ago, our studies showed that natural infection induced a strong response, and this study now shows that the responses last,” Weiskopf says. “We are hopeful that a similar pattern of responses lasting over time will also emerge for the vaccine-induced responses.”
Previous SARS-CoV-2 exposure increased the odds of developing clinically significant symptoms following the first dose of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, researchers reported in JAMA Internal Medicine. “These vaccines can elicit greater local and systemic reactions in persons with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection,” Amanda K. Debes, PhD, MS, an assistant scientist in the department of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and colleagues wrote.
Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals, June 1, 2021
This study followed 52,238 employees of the Cleveland Clinic Health System in Ohio.
For previously-infected people, the cumulative incidence of re-infection “remained almost zero.” According to the study, “Not one of the 1,359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a [Covid-19] infection over the duration of the study” and vaccination did not reduce the risk. “Individuals who have had [Covid-19] infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination,” concludes the study scientists.
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans, May 24, 2021
This study examined bone marrow of previously-infected patients and found that even mild infection with Covid-19 “induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.” The study indicates “People who have had mild illness develop antibody-producing cells that can last lifetime.”
World Health Organization (WHO) scientific brief, May 10, 2021
This scientific brief issued by WHO states that after natural infection with Covid-19, “available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months.”
Detection of SARS-CoV-2-Specific Humoral and Cellular Immunity in COVID-19 Convalescent Individuals, May 3, 2020
A 1 to 1000 SARS-CoV-2 reinfection proportion in members of a large healthcare provider in Israel: a preliminary report, March 6, 2021
This study found a rare Covid-19 positive test “reinfection” rate of 1 per 1,000 recoveries.
SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in a cohort of 43,000 antibody-positive individuals followed for up to 35 weeks, Jan. 15, 2021
This study found Covid-19 natural infection “appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection” for at least seven months. “Reinfection is “rare,” concludes the scientists.
Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to eight months after infection, Nov. 1, 2020
This study confirmed and examined “immune memory” in previously-infected Covid-19 patients.
Negligible impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on CD4+ and CD8+ T cell reactivity in COVID-19 exposed donors and vaccinees, Nov. 1, 2020
This study concluded “T cell” immune response in former Covid-19 patients likely continues to protect amid Covid-19 variants.
Orthogonal SARS-CoV-2 Serological Assays Enable Surveillance of Low-Prevalence Communities and Reveal Durable Humoral Immunity, Oct. 13, 2020
This study found that “neutralizing antibodies are stably produced for at least 5–7 months” after a patient is infected with Covid-19.
SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls, July 25, 2020
This study found that all patients who recently recovered from Covid-19 produced immunity-strong T cells that recognize multiple parts of Covid-19.
“Immune T Cells May Offer Lasting Protection Against COVID-19”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3
Conclusions Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.06.21253051v1
Out of 149,735 individuals with a documented positive PCR test between March 2020 and January 2021, 154 had two positive PCR tests at least 100 days apart, reflecting a reinfection proportion of 1 per 1000. Given our strict inclusion criteria, we believe these numbers represent true reinfection incidence in MHS and should be clinically regarded as such.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00141-3/fulltext
…the incidence rate of reinfection was estimated at 0.66 per 10,000 person-weeks (95% CI: 0.56–0.78). Incidence rate of reinfection versus month of follow-up did not show any evidence of waning of immunity for over seven months of follow-up.
There are clear indications that SARS-CoV-2 infection results in the production of memory immune cells, suggesting that the same thing is likely to be happening among vaccinated people.
- Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells: Cell Reports Medicine
- Vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads in communities with a high prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant |medRxiv
- Lasting immunity found after recovery from COVID-19 | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19
“Several months ago, our studies showed that natural infection induced a strong response, and this study now shows that the responses last,” Weiskopf says. “We are hopeful that a similar pattern of responses lasting over time will also emerge for the vaccine-induced responses.”
“A person who recovered is to be considered as being immune, even if he has received negative [antibody] serological tests,” the authors concluded, arguing that serological testing should be ended for recovered coronavirus patients.
This is the second recent study which has found that reinfections are rare following natural infection with the coronavirus.
A study of 43,044 people tracked for up to 35 weeks in Qatar found that just 0.02% experienced reinfection, suggesting that natural infection creates a high level of immunity for an extended period of time.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310963
According to the study, conducted in Cleveland, Ohio and published in the MedRxiv journal last month, people who were infected with the coronavirus enjoy significant long-term immunity from the virus, which is unlikely to be increased by being injected with one of the coronavirus vaccinations now on the market.
The study followed 52,238 employees of the Cleveland Clinic Health System, monitoring infections among vaccinated and unvaccinated workers, and the incidents of reinfection among both vaccinated and unvaccinated workers.
Of the 52,238 employees tracked in the study, 2,579 had previously tested positive for the coronavirus, while 49,659 had never been confirmed as carrying the virus.
Fifty-three percent of the 2,579 employees who had been infected with the virus previously remained unvaccinated (1,359 people), compared to 41% (22,777) of the employees who were never diagnosed with the virus.
Zero previously infected employees were reported to have become infected again with the virus, regardless of their vaccination status.
Vaccination significantly reduced the risk of coronavirus infection, the study found, but only among those who had not previously been infected.
The authors concluded that vaccination after natural infection is unlikely to have any benefit for recovered COVID patients.
This study followed 254 Covid-19 patients for up to 8 months and concluded they had “durable broad-based immune responses.” In fact, even very mild Covid-19 infection also protected the patients from an earlier version of “SARS” coronavirus that first emerged around 2003, and against Covid-19 variants. “Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients,” concludes the study scientists.
SARS-CoV-2 specific memory B-cells from individuals with diverse disease severities recognize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, May 29, 2021
This study found strong immune signs in people who had previously been infected with Covid-19, including “those [who] experienced asymptomatic or mild disease.” The study concludes there is “reason for optimism” regarding the capacity of prior infection “to limit disease severity and transmission of variants of concern as they continue to arise and circulate.”
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans, May 24, 2021
The study indicates “People who have had mild illness develop antibody-producing cells that can last lifetime.”
World Health Organization (WHO) scientific brief, May 10, 2021
This scientific brief issued by WHO states that after natural infection with Covid-19, “available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months.”
Detection of SARS-CoV-2-Specific Humoral and Cellular Immunity in COVID-19 Convalescent Individuals, May 3, 2020
A 1 to 1000 SARS-CoV-2 reinfection proportion in members of a large healthcare provider in Israel: a preliminary report, March 6, 2021
This study found a rare Covid-19 positive test “reinfection” rate of 1 per 1,000 recoveries.
Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to eight months after infection, Nov. 1, 2020
This study confirmed and examined “immune memory” in previously-infected Covid-19 patients.
Negligible impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on CD4+ and CD8+ T cell reactivity in COVID-19 exposed donors and vaccinees, Nov. 1, 2020
This study concluded “T cell” immune response in former Covid-19 patients likely continues to protect amid Covid-19 variants.
SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls, July 25, 2020
This study found that all patients who recently recovered from Covid-19 produced immunity-strong T cells that recognize multiple parts of Covid-19.
“Immune T Cells May Offer Lasting Protection Against COVID-19”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00675-9/fulltext
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.28.21258025v1
This finding, that VoC-RBD-reactive MBCs are present in the peripheral blood of all subjects including those that experienced asymptomatic or mild disease, provides a reason for optimism regarding the capacity of vaccination, prior infection, and/or both, to limit disease severity and transmission of variants of concern as they continue to arise and circulate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9
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