I'm sorry about your experience. Having Covid sucks. But your anecdotal data here is inaccurate at best, especially since it was from pre-Delta variant (you said December 2020 was your time of this happening) and we do have studies from that time showing how robust immunity was for those who had natural infections:
"Available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months)." [0]
No offense, but these kind of anecdotal reports that "someone said" (even a health official), which sound authoritative because of the context, are how misinformation spreads.
0: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/341241/WHO-...
That's why they still exclusively discuss being fully vaccinated, and discount natural immunity. They believe it's better.
Furthermore, I have seen no-one in the health community that has recommended not getting the vaccine if you've already had the virus. Compare this to, for example, chicken pox, where they only recommend the vaccine if you haven't had it.
In the context of this thread where the comment I was responding to was trying to argue that natural immunity is being short-changed somehow, I think the sentiment I'm expressing is perfectly accurate regardless of how exact timelines have been shifted in the past year. You still need to get fully vaccinated even if you've had the disease. Nothing about that has changed.
[0]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13372 -- This study was published this month
Also, Most of the re-infected in Israel were from the vaccinated population, even after you adjust for vaccinated vs. unvaccinated population sizes: https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/7/20/22584134/whats...
On the other hand, with natural immunity, even after your antibody count wanes in your bloodstream, you still have your bone marrow and memory B cells to protect you:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34030176/
It's looking more and more like natural immunity will be more long-lived than vaccine immunity: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
This is insane. No vaccine works better then natural protection from real stuff - simply because its less stressful to the body and more stress equals better immunity.
I have nothing against vaccines in general but this is nothing but pharma propaganda.
Other research shows that natural immunity is long lasting.
> Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.
As far as the reports from Israel:
> By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.
Gotcha, that was not at all clear from your comment. Thanks for providing a citation for the other claims, I'll take a look at it.
Please stop using atomic anecdotes to percieve the world, or at least stop propogating them.
Almost certainly vaccine immunity is more robust than asymptomatic infections (especially those that rely on the innate immune response rather than adaptive immune response). Asymptomatic infections (especially in the young) are extremely common and possibly in the majority for those under 30.
Those only measured patients who suffered acute symptoms. Those are unlikely to represent even a bare majority of infections although it's quite difficult to get accurate data for asymptomatic infections.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9
"only 10% had been hospitalized"
I look forward to your citation of relevant peer-reviewed longitudinal studies.
Even more interesting from a medical point of view, what mechanism do you propose for developing long term immunity, where the innate immune system rapidly controls infection?
The point I made was that vaccination is not more robust than being infected, or at least dont assume it is without solid evidence to support it.
The whole point is that the adaptive immune system doesn't really ramp up for many days up to weeks, while viral load typically peaks at 3-5 days. That's why the second shot is typically delayed for the MRNA vaccines. A young asymptomatic carrier with a strong innate response who recovers early is unlikely to develop a significant adaptive immune response (e.g. test positive on an antibody serology) thus they are also then very unlikely to develop durable immunity.
"Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells".
Is that good enough for you?
So unfortunately since I specifically and repeatedly referred to asymptomatic cases, which are relatively common in those under 30, it is not good enough.
If I could edit my original post to <B>BOLD</B> asymptomatic even more, I would, since I highly doubt you're going to find many studies on that group.
The sample size is very small and they list other limitations to their findings, but:
"In conclusion, despite concerns of waning immunity, appropriate immunoassays can detect antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 at 8 months after infection in most asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic persons."
However, from my very first post "vaccine immunity is more robust than asymptomatic infections"... and detectable antibodies is a far cry (orders of magnitude) from neutralizing antibody levels, which are not uncommon even 8 months out in healthy vaccinated youth.
A quick scan says:
* 13% of those with natural immunity "lost detectable IgG titers" after 10 months
* Protection durability from the vaccine is still mostly unknown, but appears to be good for 2-3 years
My anecdote is from 8 months ago, so I'm not surprised the data has been revised. I got my first dose of the vaccine less than a week after I'd recovered, which at the time was the recommendation of the CDC and health department. Less than three weeks after my first dose, they revised that to have people wait six to eight weeks.
I tested positive the last week of December 2020 (exactly three weeks before I was scheduled to get the vaccine, which I did also eventually get). When I spoke to the county health department, they said they had already seen repeat infections. They said immune protection from direct exposure only seems to last 3-6 months, which is backed up by the fact that the virus had only been in my state about 10 months at that point.
Vaccine protection is much more robust.