Sure. And you'll continue to be better protected every time you get a booster, every 6 months, for the rest of your life. But all of us are going to stop getting boosters at some point. We're going to decide we're "immune enough", and go on with our lives, even though there will be some minute chance of getting Covid, from whichever variant is then around.
Many people with prior infection may feel they are "immune enough", and you can argue over the significance of the remaining risk, but ultimately that's a decision they make for themselves, just as all of us do in every facet of our lives every day.
No, it isn't. It's clarifying that there's a great big forest here, lest we get lost in the details of the spots on the bark beetles in one particular tree. The immunity granted by prior infection is at least on par with that of vaccination.
Moreover, I quoted directly from the study to explain why short-term squiggles in the lines at the bottom of the graph aren't worth dwelling upon: the vaccines are getting worse over time (against symptomatic infection), and the effect of natural immunity is gaining importance. This is exactly as you would expect for a virus that has evolved to partially escape the vaccine.
Regardless, these are minor differences. You can't reasonably argue that vaccination has a definitive advantage over natural infection. We should be counting both.
This is shifting the goal. The disclaimers I cited come directly from the study and are highly relevant when comparing the effect of natural immunity vs vaccination.
> No. That's not what that study said. First, it followed symptomatic infection, not severe illness.
This doesn’t contradict what I said. The study gives evidence that natural immunity (to symptomatic infection) declines more quickly than vaccine induced immunity.
> Also, methodologically, the study you're citing was bad. It only gave credit for natural immunity to those people with confirmed infections, which was/is an underestimate, and made vaccines look more effective than they are.
One, the same effect would also have been present in the natural immunity group, as people may have been reinfected since their initial confirmed infection.
Two, this is largely irrelevant to the point I was making.
The statistical evidence suggests that even if you have had a previous confirmed infection, you’re still better off getting vaccinated.