Given that it’s always going to be a leapfrog race with variants vs. booster, I’d encourage everyone regardless of vaccination status to consider investigating what else they can also do to be strong against the virus.
Research shows a large majority of the cases are in Vitamin D deficient individuals. It’s too easy not to fix that one if needed. Vitamin D is added to milk in the US, but doesn’t get to me eating vegan. Sure enough, I tested low and had no idea.
I wish there were more media time paid to strong immune system measures. These efforts could reduce circulation from the low severity vaccinated cases.
Doctor told us to take Vitamin D supplement. Forgot about that. One of the reasons the flu tends to hit in winter is because a lot of people in cold climates don’t go outside that much and don’t get enough sun to produce Vitamin D.
Zinc is another one.
Another thing we did was monitor blood oxygen level with a pulse oximeter.
Lots of them on Amazon for pretty cheap.
So true @DaveT, again, something Bill Maher has been preaching since the beginning. Build your own immune system. But Mc’merica aint up for that by and large, shot in the arm is easier than giving up burgers and pizza.
That’s the truth. It’s unfortunately not enough anymore. No silver bullets only for this one. But then pizza and burgers have been killing people for years without anyone willing to change; this is just one more avenue.
It’s surprisingly difficult to find useful and reliable information on what am individual can do to protect their health against Covid on their own. I think much of this information gets peddled by less credible or controversial individuals. I guess it’s really not that different from viruses in general for the basics. But the whole “novel virus behaves like nothing before” headline caused me to disconnect from at least even acting like it’s a virus at its core.
If people want to take control over things they can control, some areas to investigate and see if it’s useful or not may be the actions of Zinc, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Quercetin (enhances uptake of Zinc) in managing virus load in the body. Some have promoted Melotonin while others have pointed out taking it long term can reduce the body’s ability to produce it naturally.
It took me forever wading through internet nonsense and cross comparing information to get to that short list.
From there it gets controversial and more fringe. I just can’t believe how much pandemic I let go by without attending to basic health improvement.
Be super careful with data. This study was flawed, and the results are unreliable.
The paper you’re citing has NOT undergone peer review yet. It’s only pre-published on MedRxiv. Already lots of doctors and scientists have found a really serious flaw with their methodology: Data was not drawn from a random sample, rather data was drawn very heavily from self reported symptomatic patients who chose on their own to get a PCR test. That means there could also be 10,000x more cases of the vaccine working better than natural immunity out there for every one case where natural immunity might appear to work better. We can’t tell, because Gazit, et. al didn’t do a random sample. Basically there could be zero people that vaccine>natural immunity or 99% where vaccine>natural immunity because almost no one who was asymptomatic was included in the data.
My guess is this paper will either be denied for publication outright because of this huge methodological error - or will be published with a giant warning of , “oh yeah, we made a huge mistake, our data is inherently unreliable, and our results can’t be extrapolated”.
(I’m not trying to jump on you @RuknRole - I’m just professionally very immersed in the immunology of COVID - and I knew exactly what study you were talking about the instant I read your comment. A lot of Docs facepalm when the press uses pre-pubs as a source - the whole point of peer review is so that doesn’t happen.)
No worries. I’m trying to inform myself reading as much as possible with what is available to me. I’ve survived Covid, and having natural antibodies is a good thing in my book. Antibody test shows we still have antibodies 6 months after our infection (We were told by the Health Department it would only be 90 days).
My wife had direct exposure (and me indirectly through her) to what could have been Delta from a conference she had to attend (22 people had breakthrough infections but no-one who had previously contracted Covid reported getting infected). Could be luck, will probably never really know.
I’m not an antivaxxer and believe in Science, but to be honest with you, I now look at everything with skepticism, especially anything coming from the CDC or Fauci. They should come out with a new brand of flip-flops with his name on it! Everything seems driven by political ambition or interests from big Pharma, and I can guarantee you that many Doctors and Scientists are silent for fear of retribution.
I suppose I’ve been labeled as non vaccinated as well. Personally, I don’t care(nor ask) if anyone has had their flea and tick shots …but what I DO know, is that I was a front line worker of sorts back in 2020…and somehow have all the antibodies now in my system (obv pre vaccine) …so my dr assumes I had it early on with very mild (or no) symptoms.
At this point, I’ve chosen to wait out the vaccine as I too have been researching it and have read many good things about natural immunity.
Regardless of my choice, I respect the hygiene and mask coverage for myself and others.
Canada has entered the vaccine screening in an app form (soon to be released) and us ‘non vaxers’, will be limited to where we can go and can’t go.
Meh, if a store or restaurant doesn’t want my money after a 2 yr economic depression, then another one will. I will adhere to guidelines set forth by any business or person without an uproar…but I won’t let the government force me to inject something, with minimal data, into my body.
That’s just my personal take on it…maybe I’m just tired and grumpy from it all.
Happy bass playing guys!!! I’m going to be starting it all back up soon (we moved and I am renovating a section of my new place for a studio).
Cheers…be safe and be well.
