"Conclusions This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant."
> previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional
Exactly. In addition, the vaccine is vastly less life-threatening than acquiring natural immunity. In addition, the vaccine is more effective against the original variant and is very successful in that regard. The same will hold true when Pfizer/Moderna "print" updated vaccines.
> In addition, the vaccine is vastly less life-threatening than acquiring natural immunity.
Nobody reasonable is disputing this, but I find it interesting that this seems to be such a common response to the findings that natural immunity is strong and durable. It's as if some people are threatened by the fact that natural immunity is so good.
I don't think any of the researchers looking into natural immunity are doing so to create a narrative that people should prefer to be infected than get vaccinated. Obviously, that would be dumb. They're doing so because substantial numbers of people have already been infected and for a variety of health and policy reasons, we need to know what that means.
One of the good implications about the strength and durability of natural immunity is that in parts of the world where vaccines continue to be in short supply but significant percentages of people have already been infected the situation might be less dire than feared.
> In addition, the vaccine is more effective against the original variant...
More effective than what?
Given that Delta is the variant responsible for over 90% of cases in the US (and likely a similar percentage in other parts of the world that continue to have high rates of infection), efficacy against the original strain of the virus is a less and less meaningful metric.
It's not that the information itself is threatening, but people will use the information in a destructive manner. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that people will likely die from people saying that people don't need to get vaccinated because people will say natural immunity is 'better'.
> I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that people will likely die from people saying that people don't need to get vaccinated because people will say natural immunity is 'better'.
In the US at least, vaccines have been widely available for months. You can literally get an appointment same day to receive the vaccine of your choice. 180 million people -- half the population -- are fully vaccinated. I don't think it's a stretch to conclude that at this point the people who have chosen not to get vaccinated are not going to be easily swayed. All of these people either a) know that COVID can be deadly and have decided to accept the risk, b) are so concerned/fearful about the vaccines that they will not consider them an option or c) are so crazy that no scientific data will influence their thinking.
In this context, the "but if you get COVID you could die" responses that seem to be quickly posted every single time there's a study about the strength and durability of natural immunity are just strange to me.
> US [...] people who have chosen not to get vaccinated
This is very true. However, I do know an otherwise reasonable American who was convicted not to vaccinate by her recent significant other. My family in South Africa, who are still in early-ish days of vaccination, have many friends who have listened to unvaccinated Americans.
The kind of truth in this study can easily be misused to tell a lie. It doesn't hurt to add a footnote of reason.
I think the reason for this sort of response is that people are worried (and reasonably so, in my opinion), that people will say, "I'm pretty sure I had covid back in February of 2020 so I don't need the vaccine!"
First news item in a quick google search: "Cheap covid-19 antibody test shows if you have immunity in 5 minutes". Perhaps stop treating people like children that need to be lied to by omission 'for the common good'?
I don't think the original commenter here is lying by omission, they're adding additional context - that even if you have natural immunity, you still benefit from getting vaccinated.
Antibodies are not produced forever and do not hang around for more than a few months. If you think you had covid last year you’re S.O.L. on the antibody testing front, because those antibodies are loooong gone.
It absolutely is true. Antibody production declines at an exponential rate(1). You don’t lose your immune response quickly, because T-cells and the like “remember” the virus—but your body doesn’t waste energy producing antibodies forever when there is no active need to have them around.
This confuses false negatives with true positives. If someone can produce a positive antibody test, it means they had covid, period. As such, they don't need the vaccine.
The credibility problem arises when people are so gungho into pushing vaccines onto everyone, whether they need it or not, that they willfully ignore any possible alternative.
Correct, I misinterpreted. Found a paper on the CDC website. Antibody tests exist and can identify 85-90% of prior asymptomatic or mild covid infection after 8 months, but there is no $5 antibody kit yet. I know, small sample size, this is the best I can do.
> We analyzed data from 7 participants with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and 51 patients with mildly symptomatic COVID-19 (Table 1). Eight months after their infections, we detected anti-N pan-Ig in 53 (91.4%), anti-N IgG in 15 (25.9%), anti-S IgG in 50 (86.2%), and anti-S1 IgG in 40 (69.0%) (p<0.01) (Table 2).
Translation: We could spare you the trouble of getting a vaccine by performing an antibody test, but these tests are labor intensive and we are swamped. We'll just pretend these tests don't exist, assert that taking the vaccine is good for you in all circumstances and mandate you take the vaccine anyways.
Edit. It should be mentioned that EU permits the use of prior covid infection evidence for their covid passport initiative, though does not permit antibody tests for the purpose.
> The EU COVID Vaccination Passport will be issued to all those who have been fully vaccinated against the Coronavirus, with one of the four vaccines approved by the European Medicine Agency
> Travellers who have recently been infected with COVID-19, and recovered from it, should also be permitted to travel with an EU COVID travel certificate
> However, the Commission also points out that tests that detect if a person developed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 – also known as antibodies tests – cannot be used to obtain a recovery certificate.
> The same will hold true when Pfizer/Moderna "print" updated vaccines
To this point - why haven't they? In the spring/summer there was a lot of talk regarding the ability to quickly switch to a new variant recipe, yet that doesn't seem to have happened. The plan for the boosters still uses the original Wuhan strain.
How long should be the clinical trials for updated vaccines? Historically, 'on average, vaccine development can take 10-15 years'. We've rushed the current crop of vaccines 10x. It was an emergency, fingers crossed everything works out fine in the end. Is this the new normal? Are we going to throw long-term safety concerns out the window as a matter of normal procedure? Reminder, there is no reboot button. Perhaps 'move fast and break things' is not the right motto to use in vaccine development.
The parts of vaccine development that we fast forwarded were not the research phases, it was the bureaucracy about funding. Vaccines do not get "long term" testing because the immune system is typically done responding within 5 weeks of inoculation, this is not like drug development.
The delivery technology has been in development for ages. The payload was tested for about 1 year. IIRC the formulation was done early 2020 in 2 days.
Re your link, it asserts 'MYTH: If I’ve already had COVID-19, I don’t need a vaccine.'. I have serious doubts that is the case, see the OA.
The flu vaccines have been on a yearly basis update schedule. As an organics kind of guy that never sit well with me, but I knew little about vaccines and the flu damage seemed low enough to not matter. It's just an inactivated virus, I'm going to get it either way. These days I wonder how safe the iterated flu shot really is.
Much of this discussion, including to a significant degree this study, rate immunity using a linear metric based on detection of infections. A more nuanced view of the situation shows that vaccine immunizations cause a very strong immune reaction to the particular viral components in the vaccine while natural immunity tends to cause immune reactions that are not as strong but cover more if not all of the exposed virus components.
Having weaker but more general immunity would potentially explain why natural immunity was better able to handle a new variant. This does not eliminate the possibility that a new booster deliberately designed to counter all current variants may be even more effective.
In particular that is true for the Delta. The Delta variant is so virulent that it currently dominates by a wide margin over all other variants and there is not necessarily going to be a more virulent variant. This means that the current problem is quite likely not to be ready for more variants, but to focus on handling the Delta variant. That in turns means that vaccines and vaccine boosters may be called for as the best possible option even though natural immunity may be helpful. Natural immunity also comes with far greater risks which is another reason to focus on vaccines and boosters.
