‘Natural immunity’ to COVID-19 must be included in political discussions

Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is also a member of the Pfizer board of directors, noted that “natural immunity” acquired from a previous infection with COVID-19 should be included in virus-related policy and mandate discussions.

“The rest of the evidence shows that natural immunity confers long-lasting protection,” Gottlieb said in an August 30 interview, referring to a new landmark Israeli prepublication study that found a previous infection with COVID- 19 provides more protection against the virus than any of them. vaccines. “It is fair to conclude this.”

Although Gottlieb has said he will “be careful” to conclude whether natural immunity offers better protection against transmission of the virus, officials “should start incorporating it into our political discussions.”

“Natural infection confers robust and long-lasting immunity,” he said, citing the Israeli study and others.

However, whether natural immunity or vaccines are better than each other “doesn’t matter” when it comes to political discussions, Gottlieb said.

Last week, researchers at Maccabi Healthcare and Tel Aviv University said people who recovered from COVID-19 had superior protection against the Delta variant of the CCP virus compared to those who received the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, the most commonly used vaccine in Israel.

“This analysis demonstrated that natural immunity provides longer lasting and stronger protection against infections, symptomatic illnesses and hospitalizations due to the Delta variant,” the study read, noting that the results came from the “largest observational study of the real world” in the world.

The study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, noted the results for a period between June 1 and August 14 of this year.

When the researchers compared cases of previous infection that occurred between March 2020 and February 2021 with vaccinations that occurred between January and February 2021, they found that the vaccinated cohort was 5.96 times more likely to contract the Delta variant and 7, 13 times more at risk of disease symptoms compared to those previously infected.

People vaccinated were at greater risk of COVID-19-related hospitalizations compared to those who had been previously infected, the authors noted. They also noted that being 60 or older increased the risk of infection and hospitalization.

The authors said they only looked at protection against the Delta variant, and only the Pfizer vaccine and not other vaccines or booster shots.

Mimi Nguyen-Ly contributed to this report.