Commentary
Natural Immunity Wins Again
A new study in The Lancet has confirmed that natural immunity from COVID infection is at least as protective and durable against severe complications as vaccination.
Yet again, another COVID “conspiracy theory” has become today’s “The Science™.”
Natural immunity has long been a well known and accepted part of immunology, despite rabid, frenzied attempts to discredit it.
Anthony Fauci himself publicly discussed the importance of infection-conferred immunity.
It may seem impossible to believe that basic immunology could be described as a dangerous “theory,” but that’s exactly what certain media outlets claimed during the pandemic.
Mother Jones, which describes itself as “A voice of reason,” and “a daily dose of sanity,” was one such example. In May 2020, they headlined a story, “Anti-Vaxxers Have a Dangerous Theory Called ‘Natural Immunity.’ Now It’s Going Mainstream.”
Of course, Dr. Fauci contributed mightily to the misinformation. In May 2021, Business Insider explained how Fauci viewed natural immunity. Spoiler alert: he maintained that the COVID vaccines were better.
The article begins with another declarative statement from the country’s leading medical expert.
“Dr. Anthony Fauci is calling it: mRNA COVID-19 vaccines can provide people with better protection against new viral variants than a prior coronavirus infection alone can.”
“Vaccines, actually, at least with regard to SARS-CoV-2 [the coronavirus] can do better than nature,” stated Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert.
“You had interesting increased protection against the variants of concern.”
Even so-called “experts” from Johns Hopkins were patronizingly dismissive of natural immunity. The Mother Jones story quoted an epidemiologist shrugging off the importance of infection-conferred protection.
“This is the coronavirus edition of their pervasive belief in ‘natural immunity,’ said Rupali Limaye, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist. “We have heard from those that are concerned about vaccines the argument that they prefer to allow their immune system to be naturally exposed to a specific pathogen to gain immunity.”
New information emerged recently confirming that a group of government experts also worked together to publicly dismiss the importance of natural immunity.
Unsurprisingly, former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx consistently dismissed natural immunity.
Repeatedly, “fact-checkers” labeled posts as “misleading” for claiming that natural immunity was highly effective and could provide similar protection as vaccination.
Except they’ve all been proven wrong.
The Lancet study examined 65 studies from 19 different countries to determine the level of protection from infection against severe illness from COVID.
And they found that natural immunity was extremely protective against further complications, even for newer variants.
The study’s summary reads, “Protection against severe disease remained high for all variants, with 90·2% (69·7–97·5) for ancestral, alpha, and delta variants, and 88·9% (84·7–90·9) for omicron BA.1 at 40 weeks.”
Not exactly a “dangerous theory,” is it?
COVID Vaccines Less Effective
Even more importantly, the study found that natural immunity was “at least” as protective as vaccination against all variants. And frequently more so.
“Past COVID-19 infection against re-infection, symptomatic disease, and severe disease for ancestral, alpha, delta, or omicron BA.1 variants, appears to be at least as protective as two-dose vaccination with the mRNA vaccines for all vaccines and outcomes,” their results explain.
And it gets better.
Beyond being as least as protective, natural immunity was potentially longer lasting than protection from vaccination.
“Furthermore, although protection from past infection wanes over time, the level of protection against re-infection, symptomatic disease, and severe disease appears to be at least as durable, if not more so, than that provided by two-dose vaccination with the mRNA vaccines for ancestral, alpha, delta, and omicron BA.1 variants,” the study says.
Figures from the study show that previous infection was significantly more protective in all aspects of protection against all variants, for a substantially longer period of time than vaccination.
The most profound and important graphic is the comparison for Omicron immunization.
Against the currently dominant variant, past infection thoroughly outperformed Moderna and Pfizer’s mRNA vaccination in both re-infection and symptomatic disease.
It’s almost impossible to be more wrong than Fauci, Birx, Mother Jones, dismissive “experts” and “fact-checkers” have been over the past few years.
With regards to masks, vaccine passports, school closures, lockdowns and natural immunity, for every single pandemic question the ‘experts’ formulated the wrong answer.
Vaccine Mandates Ignored Natural Immunity
As abhorrent, unacceptable vaccine mandates proliferated throughout society, a common, unfortunate feature took hold among US organizations: to ignore natural immunity
The CDC and Biden Administration still refuse to accept natural immunity for international travelers entering the country.
Novak Djokovic, who was recently allowed to compete in COVID-authoritarian Australia, is still not allowed into the US despite having previously contracted the disease.
Even other pandemic extremist countries like Canada have relented, accepting the protection it provides.
The US remains staunchly committed to ignoring science in favor of promoting endless booster doses. Booster doses that don’t actually work particularly well.
Even this study’s authors admit that the US is an international outlier in ignoring natural immunity.
“Second, restrictions of movement and access to venues based on immune status and vaccine mandates for workers should take into account immunity conferred by vaccination and that provided by natural infection,” they write.
Huge numbers of people were coerced into compliance with vaccine mandates. Many others were fired or denied opportunities because they refused to comply. All based on the lie that natural immunity was a “conspiracy theory,” or less protective than vaccination.
Yet other documents such as the Great Barrington Declaration pointed out the importance of natural infection to build up immunity. Only to be summarily ignored.
“The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.”
Fauci, the public health class, and major institutions subsequently unleashed a ferocious, relentless, fanatical campaign demanding that everyone be vaccinated. And then boosted. Then boosted again. And then boosted with a targeted, bivalent dose.
They ignored natural immunity because it conflicted with the behavior they wanted to compel. They’ve once again been proven wrong.
But if you were hoping this would lead to a permanent discrediting of these institutions and “experts,” don’t hold your breath.
One of the most consistent features of the COVID era has been “experts” lying to the public, while steadfastly refusing to ever admit they were wrong.
This piece originally appeared in the Brownstone Institute.