Health

I am not vaccine resistant.

I am not suggesting not getting the Covid vaccine, even though I'm talking about my own personal high level of immunity. I'm 74 years old. Last got flu some time in the early or mid 1970s. Have gotten maybe two colds in the last ten years. Yes, I have gotten the Covid vaccine (J&J one and done) plus two boosters, and will get the third booster early next year.

And no, my understanding of natural immunity is not an act. It's based on science. Also, personal experience, which often doesn't matter here on DU. Nonetheless, I don't get sick these days. I got sick a lot as a young child. Lived in subsidized housing from about age 2 to 7. Lots and lots of other little kids around. Then went to Catholic school, which was overcrowded. I got sick A LOT in those early years. In my kindergarten year I don't know just how often I was absent, but it was a lot. Back then, in kindergarten, it didn't matter very much because kindergarten wasn't remotely academic. First grade year, I was out exactly one day.

I continued to get the (normal back then) typical childhood illnesses like measles, mumps, rubella, and whatever. No vaccines back then, although I'm not about to suggest kids don't get those vaccines today.

Keep in mind our immune system is designed to be challenged a whole lot in our first twenty or so years of life. Challenged by getting various and many diseases, which we recover from, and are now permanently immune. Not that vaccines aren't a good thing, but notice that a lot of vaccines require a booster or second shot, unlike if you'd gotten that disease in the first place. Never mind.

Here's the thing. An appropriately challenged immune system becomes very strong and resilient. I'll refer back to influenza. There are three types of flu, unimaginatively labelled type A, type B, and type C. There's actually a type D but it only occurs in cows so we'll ignore that. Type A is by far the worst and most virulent. It's the kind that was the 1918 epidemic, the 1957 epidemic also known as the Asian flu, and the one in 1968 known as the Hong Kong flu. Here's the thing. You get a type A flu, recover, and you are probably immune to the next type A that might come around. That's why in 1918 old people didn't get the Spanish flu. They'd been exposed to an earlier type A some fifty years prior, and were either already immune or had gotten it and recovered and were now immune.

That's why if you depend on the flu shot you need to take it every year, because the immunity from the shot is relatively short lived. Oh, and you are actually better off getting the flu shot every other year. Please don't take my word for it but google that on your own.

So when I start nattering on about things like immunity, I'm not just blowing smoke. I have some idea what I am talking about.