They discussed natural immunity, but natural immunity made rolling out the shot "complicated," so they chose to ignore it.
Instead they said take the shot or lose your job, educational opportunities or ability to enter public buildings. Who cares about "the hesitant!?" The President is losing patience with them!
The callousness of these decision makers is scarier than their disregard for good science and medicine:
"Frieden told The BMJ that the question of leveraging natural immunity is a “reasonable discussion,” one he had raised informally with the CDC at start of rollout. “I thought from a rational standpoint, with limited vaccine available, why don’t you have the option” for people with previous infection to defer until there was more supply, he says. “I think that would have been a rational policy. It would have also made rollout, which was already too complicated, even more complicated.”"
And
"“It’s a lot easier to put a shot in their arm,” says Sommer. “To do a PCR test or to do an antibody test and then to process it and then to get the information to them and then to let them think about it—it’s a lot easier to just give them the damn vaccine.” In public health, “the primary objective is to protect as many people as you can,” he says. “It’s called collective insurance, and I think it’s irresponsible from a public health perspective to let people pick and choose what they want to do.”"
They discussed natural immunity, but natural immunity made rolling out the shot "complicated," so they chose to ignore it.
Instead they said take the shot or lose your job, educational opportunities or ability to enter public buildings. Who cares about "the hesitant!?" The President is losing patience with them!
The callousness of these decision makers is scarier than their disregard for good science and medicine:
"Frieden told The BMJ that the question of leveraging natural immunity is a “reasonable discussion,” one he had raised informally with the CDC at start of rollout. “I thought from a rational standpoint, with limited vaccine available, why don’t you have the option” for people with previous infection to defer until there was more supply, he says. “I think that would have been a rational policy. It would have also made rollout, which was already too complicated, even more complicated.”"
And
"“It’s a lot easier to put a shot in their arm,” says Sommer. “To do a PCR test or to do an antibody test and then to process it and then to get the information to them and then to let them think about it—it’s a lot easier to just give them the damn vaccine.” In public health, “the primary objective is to protect as many people as you can,” he says. “It’s called collective insurance, and I think it’s irresponsible from a public health perspective to let people pick and choose what they want to do.”"
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101