Well we’re about 10 months into this and most news outlets won’t even admit that there’s natural immunity, even though with 10s of millions of cases we have maybe a dozen of cases worldwide of reinfection.
I think the fundamental issue is that the public health measures break down once everyone doesn’t have to follow them. So either you refuse to admit that there’s no reason for a recovered COVID patient to wear a mask, or quarantine after close contact with a new case, etc.
Or else, if you admit that exemption, you either basically can’t enforce the rules anymore, or you need to track everyone who was infected and provide verifiable “passports” which is a step toward a dystopian future we should not allow.
I think in the end it’s easier to deny that there is true natural or vaccinated immunity than to deal with this conundrum head-on. However, at some point the admission must come, I can only hope in the April/May timeframe once vaccination is more widespread.
Newspapers are very willing to admit natural immunity. But scientists point out they don't know how effective it is, and/or how long lasting it is.
It's very clear newspapers have been way to casual with admitting natural immunity.
If you want some fairly clear evidence of this, if you were gonna ask a 1000 people whether they were immune if they got the virus and recovered from it, I suspect 999 of them would say yes. And you wouldnt get those numbers if newspapers were stating the opposite.
What the rest of your comment ignores is that we actually don't know whether people who are immune, can nevertheless transmit the disease. Furthermore, false positives do exist.
In fact, even people who are vaccinated will be advised to wear masks, because we do not know whether the vaccine prevents spread, or if it only protects the vaccinated. The Pfizer and Moderna trials did not factor this in their testing at all. I am not sure about the AstraZeneca one, but their trials have had a lot of issues anyways. And no other vaccine's trials have been completed yet.
E.g: A NYTimes article comparing natural immunity vs a vaccine from 2 weeks ago. Note the concept of natural immunity is considered a given, and is not even questioned (and it includes the statement, for example, "Natural immunity from the coronavirus is fortunately quite strong"):
> If you want some fairly clear evidence of this, if you were gonna ask a 1000 people whether they were immune if they got the virus and recovered from it, I suspect 999 of them would say yes.
I don't think this is close to true. For example when Rand Paul claimed he had immunity after recovering from Covid, liberals I'm in casual contact with were jumping up and down screaming "he's not immune! he's not immune!" Of the maybe 10 people I know of who've had Covid and recovered, 2 are still actively worried and living in terror that they will get it again.
I think the fundamental issue is that the public health measures break down once everyone doesn’t have to follow them. So either you refuse to admit that there’s no reason for a recovered COVID patient to wear a mask, or quarantine after close contact with a new case, etc.
Or else, if you admit that exemption, you either basically can’t enforce the rules anymore, or you need to track everyone who was infected and provide verifiable “passports” which is a step toward a dystopian future we should not allow.
I think in the end it’s easier to deny that there is true natural or vaccinated immunity than to deal with this conundrum head-on. However, at some point the admission must come, I can only hope in the April/May timeframe once vaccination is more widespread.