Amid the push to vaccinate all eligible people against COVID-19, the one thing that our public health officials refuse to address is natural immunity. Perhaps officials are afraid they might discourage people from getting the vaccine with such a discussion, but it is a serious scientific and medical question that needs to be addressed.
Millions of people have contracted and survived the coronavirus, which means their immune systems “know how” to fight it off again, if necessary. So, why are they being treated like they’re at risk?
Several studies have proven that the immunity acquired by previously having the virus is significantly better than immunity from vaccination. The largest study on this subject, conducted in Israel with more than 700,000 people, found that those with natural immunity were 96.3% less likely than never-infected and vaccinated people to contract COVID-19 for a second time and develop symptoms from it. This confirmed what researchers had been saying for months: Natural immunity is both effective and long-lasting, even against the virus’s variants.
This is not to say that vaccination serves no purpose. Indeed, the Israeli study found that those with natural immunity who also chose to get the shot were even more protected against COVID-19’s symptoms (at least slightly) than those who had just one form of immunity. Moreover, we already know that vaccinating those who have not yet been infected with COVID-19 dramatically reduces their risk of hospitalization and death from the coronavirus.
But the point is that vaccination is not always necessary — especially not for those who have already had the virus. Public health officials don’t want to talk about it. The Biden administration has not once mentioned an exemption from its proposed employer vaccine mandate for those able to prove that they have antibodies against the virus. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, flat-out dismissed the scientific evidence backing natural immunity by claiming vaccines provide better protection. And coronavirus czar Dr. Anthony Fauci has largely avoided the topic other than to say it’s something “we need to sit down and discuss seriously.”
Perhaps these officials think they are helping to increase vaccination rates, but the cynic in me believes these officials know exactly what they’re doing. If they acknowledged that natural immunity is just as reliable, they would be admitting that we are very close to reaching herd immunity and putting the pandemic era behind us. And what would they do with themselves then?
