While White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has dismissed the power of natural immunity from a previous COVID infection, a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found natural immunity was superior to vaccine-produced immunity during the delta surge.
The study, released Wednesday, concluded “infection-derived protection was higher after the Delta variant became predominant, a time when vaccine-induced immunity for many persons declined because of immune evasion” and declining immune protection.
Among the caveats, the CDC pointed out, was the fact that the data used in the study ended in November, before delta was replaced by omicron. However, even the CEO of Pfizer has acknowledged that his vaccine provides little protection, if any, from omicron.
The finding confirms an Israeli study in August demonstrating “that natural immunity affords longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization” compared to vaccine immunity.
The CDC issued a statement Wednesday insisting that while previous infection offers protection, vaccination is the only safe way to ensure lasting protection.
However, the CDC study acknowledged vaccine immunity waned within months during delta. And it’s been known for more than a century that natural immunity confers protection against a respiratory virus’s outer coat proteins, with strong evidence for the persistence of antibodies. For example, nearly two decades after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-1, which is about 90% similar to SARS-CoV-2, natural immunity has persisted, according to studies. Researchers have found that as many as 50% of people with no known exposure to the novel coronavirus have an effective response to the virus from their T cells, the part of the immune system that attacks foreign particles. Further, many studies forecast long-term immunity for people who have had COVID-19. A study published in February 2021 by Science magazine found “substantial immune memory is generated after COVID-19.” And an article in Nature magazine in May 2021 reported researchers believe “people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. ” A study by Emory University and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that was funded by the National Institutes of Health – for which Fauci works – predicted “long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection.”
And, in fact, the new CDC study released Wednesday stated: “Whereas French and Israeli population-based studies noted waning protection from previous infection, this was not apparent in the results from this or other large U.K. and U.S. studies.”
‘The evidence shows’
Last fall, the CDC released a study claiming the COVID-recovered are five times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID than the vaccinated. But Dr. Martin Kulldorf, formerly a Harvard faculty member, was among many epidemiologists who quickly pointed out the CDC study’s fatal flaws.
Kulldorf compared the CDC research with the Israeli study, which found people vaccinated for COVID-19 were 27 times more likely to have a symptomatic COVID infection than those previously infected by the virus.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci has ignored the current research affirming the longtime consensus of immunologists that the COVID vaccines provide superior immunity. But the White House coronavirus adviser was stumped last fall when CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked him why people who already have been infected with the novel coronavirus should get a COVID vaccine, citing the Israeli research.
Fauci said he didn’t have a “firm answer,” but insisted the Israel study didn’t address the issue of the durability of natural immunity compared to the vaccine.
“So it is conceivable that you got infected, you’re protected, but you may not be protected for an indefinite period of time,” Fauci said.
A former health adviser to the federal government, Dr. Paul Elias Alexander, has teamed with Dr. Harvey Risch of the Yale School of Medicine and others to compile a list of 146 studies indicating natural immunity to COVID-19 from a previous infection is superior to immunity afforded by vaccines.
“We should not force COVID vaccines on anyone when the evidence shows that naturally acquired immunity is equal to or more robust and superior to existing vaccines. Instead, we should respect the right of the bodily integrity of individuals to decide for themselves,” Alexander writes for the Brownstone Institute.
He is a former assistant professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, in evidence-based medicine and research methods; a former adviser to WHO-PAHO in Washington, D.C., and a former senior adviser for COVID pandemic policy at Health and Human Services.
