Israel study: Natural immunity better shield against Delta variant than two doses of Pfizer vaccine

by WorldTribune Staff, September 3, 2021

Individuals who had a Covid-19 infection are much less likely than never-infected vaccinated people to contract the Delta variant of the virus, according to newly released data out of Israel.

Those with natural immunity from a previous infection are also less likely to develop symptoms or become hospitalized with serious Covid-19.

The Delta variant was 27 times more likely to break through Pfizer protection from January-February and cause symptoms than it was to penetrate natural immunity from the same period, the study, published online on Aug. 25, said.

The vaccine-dependent people had a seven-fold higher chance of symptomatic infection, and a 6.7-fold higher chance of being hospitalized, the study found.

“It’s a textbook example of how natural immunity is really better than vaccination,” Charlotte Thalin, a physician and immunology researcher at Danderyd Hospital in Stockholm, told Science magazine of the Israeli study, which tracked more than 700,000 individuals.

“That’s right – natural immunity provides more of a shield against Delta than two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine,” The Washington Times noted in a Sept. 2 editorial.

Other studies show similar results to the new research out of Israel.

A Public Health England study released in January found less than 1 percent of 6,614 people who tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies developed reinfection within five months. A Cleveland Clinic study published in June found that not one of the 1,359 unvaccinated people previously infected with Covid-19 contracted the virus. They concluded, “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from Covid-19 vaccination.”

Yet, the Biden administration “wants to frame the debate around the vaccinated and the unvaccinated,” The Washington Times editorial noted. “Instead, they should be talking about the immune and the non-immune. More of an emphasis should be placed on antibody tests.”

Based on California studies, roughly a third to half of Americans who are unvaccinated have natural immunity, according to Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who has repeatedly pressed the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci to include natural immunity in their herd-immunity calculations and Covid-19 guidance.

“During every month of this pandemic, I’ve had debates with other public researchers about the effectiveness and durability of natural immunity,” Dr. Makary told US News & World Report in August. “I’ve been told that natural immunity could fall off a cliff, rendering people susceptible to infection. But here we are now, over a year and a half into the clinical experience of observing patients who were infected, and natural immunity is effective and going strong. And that’s because, with natural immunity, the body develops antibodies to the entire surface of the virus, not just a spike protein constructed from a vaccine.”

The CDC, citing a study of blood donations, said that about twice as many Americans have been infected with the virus as have been officially counted.

The study from 17 blood collection organizations, which tested about 1.4 million samples, found that more than 80 percent of Americans 16 and older have some level of immunity against the coronavirus.


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