Yes indeed. In fact vaccine studies generally exclude people who have already recovered so we are literally flying blind for these people. If there is no exemption then here are two middle fingers for whoever thinks this is a good idea.
because the science is evolving so we shouldn't have to mandate those who already have natural immunity. Will coercing someone who has natural immunity to take a shot or lose their job be truly that much more beneficial to justify? I don't think so and it's ethically wrong.
But the method is identical. Get cells to present the proteins you want blasted. One uses direct mRNA deposition, the other hoodwinks denatured viruses into doing exactly the same thing.
mRNA isn't a scary new thing, it's a fundamental part of cell function. The clever new thing here is that we can bung it directly into cells to make proteins without having to mess around with carrier viruses.
Hundreds of millions of people have been exposed to covid and have also had a vaccine now, so even forgetting that there's no theoretical problem here, it has a physically tested track record.
The headline of that CDC article is misleading: the actual study compares the protection given by being previously infected with that given by being previously infected and then also vaccinated. There's no comparison against people who're relying only on vaccination to protect them. This is also a pretty weak justification, since if I remember rightly there's a comparable improvement by using one of the more effective vaccines rather than one of the less effective ones or possibly by increasing the number of shots required for a complete course of vaccination - but there's a huge taboo about noticing the difference in effectiveness between vaccines. (Also, I think this mandate kind of incentivises people to get the least effective of the US-approved vaccines, since it's a single shot and that makes it quicker and easier to meet the requirement.)
If you can't figure out whether natural immunity or vaccines are more effective based on the information we have available, the problem is with you, not the science.
Maybe. Vaccines generate a very predictable immune response. Natural recover results in a wide array of different immune responses, some of which are very weak and leave people susceptible to re-infection.
