Naturally Immune People At Little Risk Of Reinfection Than Vaccinated From COVID-19 Finds New Study

Last week, a study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggests that people who have already been infected and recovered from Covid-19, are naturally immune to Covid and at low risk of reinfection and contracting the disease again.

In Qatar, researchers examined a cohort of more than 353,000 people using a national database. This database has information about patients with polymerase-chain-reaction-confirmed infections.

They contracted Covid-19 between Feb 2020 and April 2020. Reinfections were counted if a person got infected three months after their first infection.

Researchers excluded approx 87,500 vaccinated people and found that those who recovered with Covid-19 are immune and had low risk of severe cases of the Covid-19 infection. Only 1,304 reinfections were counted. 

As per the study, the odds of severe disease were 0.1 times that of primary infection.  No death cases were found among those who got reinfected. 

This study was funded by Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar, Qatar’s Ministry of Public Health, the Hamad Medical Corp., and Sidra Medicine.

The researchers, Laith Abu-Raddad with Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar and Dr. Robert Bertolini with Qatar’s Ministry of Public Health, had previously assessed the effectiveness of natural immunity against reinfection as being 85 percent or greater.

“Accordingly, for a person who has already had a primary infection, the risk of having a severe reinfection is only approximately 1% of the risk of a previously uninfected person having a severe primary infection,” they said.

“It needs to be determined whether such protection against severe disease at reinfection lasts for a longer period, analogous to the immunity that develops against other seasonal ‘common-cold’ coronaviruses, which elicit short-term immunity against mild reinfection but longer-term immunity against more severe illness with reinfection.

If this were the case with SARS-CoV-2, the virus (or at least the variants studied to date) could adopt a more benign pattern of infection when it becomes endemic.”

“Important study showing how rare reinfection and COVID severe disease is after recovered COVID,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of California–San Francisco, wrote on Twitter.

Important study showing how rare reinfection and COVID severe disease is after recovered COVID. This analysis excluded those who got vaccines. Adds to our growing list https://t.co/MmT7O8LaoE

— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) November 27, 2021

She said that study depicts that recovered people have high immunity levels against reinfection and higher protection from death and severe cases.

Meanwhile, Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger and 10 other members of the House of Representatives have introduced the “Natural Immunity Is Real Act” as an alternative to vaccination.

According to researchers some people have hit Genetic Jackpot with Superhuman Immunity against COVID-19. They are also capable of fighting off present and future variants of COVID-19.

Studies show both hybrid immunity and superhuman immunity are ways in which our bodies may have extra fighting power against COVID-19.

The study shows that double vaccinated people were six to 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with the coronavirus. The study demonstrates the power of the human immune system.

While the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) insists vaccination is still the best course many are asking if they have better immunity after they’re infected with the virus and recover, than if they’re vaccinated.