Posted on 05/13/2021 8:18:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ever since the beginning of the covid pandemic, one of the big topics of discussion has been whether infection results in lasting immunity. Since the advent of the vaccines, that has expanded in to a discussion about whether prior infection or vaccination provides a higher degree of immunity.
Back in December, I wrote about a study that showed that 90% of people who get covid still have antibodies six months out from infection. This was encouraging news. However, all it really did was show that most people keep their antibodies for a decent period of time after infection. It didn’t actually tell us anything about the probability of being re-infected.
Antibodies are a “surrogate” marker. We think they might tell us something useful, but we can’t really be sure. It’s kind of like looking at the share of a population that have high blood pressure instead of looking at the proportion that are having strokes. We really don’t know whether the presence of antibodies after infection means that someone is immune, or whether the absence of antibodies means that someone has lost their immunity. In fact, we still don’t really know whether antibodies play a meaningful role in fighting covid or not. Correlation isn’t always causation. Antibodies appear to be a good marker for prior infection, but that doesn’t mean that they have a causal role in preventing a re-infection.
So, what we really need is a study that looks at the degree to which people actually get re-infected, not more studies that look at antibodies. Once we have that, we can do a comparison with the results of the vaccine trials, and then we will finally have a reasonably good estimate of whether prior infection or vaccination provides a higher level of immunity, or if they are equivalent. That is now exactly what we have, thanks to a study that was recently published in The Lancet.
This was a cohort study carried out in the UK that recruited 25,661 NHS hospital workers and then followed them for an average seven months. The study was funded by the UK government. Participants were divided in to two cohorts, a covid positive cohort and a covid negative cohort. The purpose of the study was to see what proportion of people in each cohort went on to develop covid-19. The data were collected during the second half of 2020.
Everyone who had or had previously had a positive antibody test or PCR test for covid-19 at the beginning of the study was placed in to the covid positive cohort, and everyone else was placed in to the covid negative cohort. The covid positive cohort contained 8,278 participants at the beginning of the study, while the covid negative cohort contained 17,383.
Since this was a study of healthcare workers, more than 80% were female, and since it was carried out in the UK, more than 80% were white. The median age was 46 years and 75% had no underlying health conditions. In other words, the results primarily apply to relatively young healthy white women. It’s actually a good thing that the participants were relatively young and healthy, because we want to compare the results we get here with the results from the vaccine trials, and the participants in those trials were also young and healthy. The fact that the study mainly consisted of white women shouldn’t be that much of a problem, since there is no evidence to suggest that non-whites or men are different in their ability to develop immunity after getting covid as compared to white women.
Questionnaires were sent out to participants every two weeks asking about whether they had recently had any possibly covid-related symptoms, and they were also tested at regular intervals with both PCR tests and antibody tests. The goal was to PCR test all participants every two weeks, and antibody test them once a month. In other words, the participants weren’t just tested if they had symptoms. They were continuously screened for covid.
This means that the risk of missing a case was very low. Rather the opposite, in fact. It means that they found a large number of asymptomatic cases, or as we normally call them in medicine, healthy people. This could have been a problem in terms of allowing us to compare the results of this study with the vaccine trials, since the vaccine trials only counted people as cases if they both had a positive PCR test and also had at least one symptom suggestive of covid-19. Luckily, it isn’t a problem, because this study has gathered and presented data on the proportion of those with a positive PCR test or antibody test that actually had symptoms, and the proportion that didn’t. So we have all the data we need to do an apples to apples comparison with the vaccine trials.
Ok, let’s get to the results.
Over the course of 2,047,113 days of follow-up in the covid positive group, there were 78 cases of symptomatic covid-19 (by which we mean a positive test + at least one symptom).
Over the course of 2,971,436 days of follow-up in the covid negative group, there were 1,369 cases of symptomatic covid-19.
This works out to a relative risk reduction 0f 92%. For comparison, the Pfizer vaccine trial reported a reduction of 95%, the Moderna trial reported an reduction of 94%, the Astra-Zeneca trial reported a reduction of 70%, and the Johnson&Johnson trial reported a reduction of 67%.
So, on the face of it, prior infection is equivalent to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in terms of the level of protection offered, and much better than the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and J&J vaccine. In light of this, it seems completely unnecessary for people who have had covid to get the vaccine. In fact, if the goal of governments is to get their populations to herd immunity as quickly as possible, it would make more sense to tell people who have had confirmed covid-19 that they don’t need to get vaccinated. Vaccinating people who have already had covid-19 means delaying vaccination of people who haven’t had it, which means delaying the onset of herd immunity.
There is one potential problem with taking the 92% number at face value, especially in relation to the results from the vaccine trials, and that is that this is an observational study, not a randomized trial, so there is significant scope for confounding. For example, it could easily be the case that the people who had already had covid at the beginning of the study were the people who were at highest risk of exposure. Maybe they were disproportionately front-line workers, caring for covid patients. In that case, they would be disproportionately more like to get exposed to covid again over the course of the study than the people in the covid negative group. If that was the case, it would make the risk reduction seem smaller than it really is.
Conversely, it might be the case that those who were covid positive at the start of the study were disproportionately working in areas that were hard hit during the first wave, and that therefore had already built up a high level of population immunity by the time the second wave came around. These areas would then be only mildly hit during the second wave. That would mean that those participants who were negative at the start of the study would disproportionately be working in areas that hadn’t been hit very hard in the first wave, and that would therefore likely be hit harder in the second wave. If that was the case, then the covid negative group would end up being more exposed to covid during the study than the covid positive group, which would make the risk reduction seem bigger than it is.
The researchers attempted to correct for confounders to the extent that they were able, and came up with a modified risk reduction of 93%. But correcting for confounding is really a kind of guessing game. It isn’t a very reliable technique. And for all the confounders that are known and that can be corrected for, there are plenty more that aren’t known and can’t be corrected for.
That being said, a 92% or 93% risk reduction is a huge reduction, not far off the difference in lung cancer rates seen between smokers and non-smokers, so even with unknown confounders pushing the results up or down, it is clear that prior infection provides a high degree of immunity.
Remember, a few years ago the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said that 95% of published medical research is wrong. He blamed this shocking fact on the relentless drive to publish, and the motivation to constantly publish new, novel findings in order to get attention and receive more research funding.
I think “science” has become so corrupted by politics and self-interest that we’d be better off consulting the Magic 8-ball for answers.
Makes perfect sense.
What could your immune system possibly hope to learn from a vaccine, that it did not learn from the actual virus?
Like vaccines are some sort of magical wand....vaccines merely gives your immune system some training for war, where the actual virus is war.
I’ll take seasoned combat troops.
I’ve been using that lancet article for awhile.
I think natural immunity is even higher.
How many of the 78 people who got it “a second time” never got it the first time?
There are many false positives— especially early in the pandemic.
If ten of the 78 people had false positives then natural immunity is much stronger than vaccine immunity.
What link please.
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https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/04/24/covid-prior-infection-vs-vaccination/
Relevant findings extract:
“…Ok, let’s get to the results.
Over the course of 2,047,113 days of follow-up in the covid positive group, there were 78 cases of symptomatic covid-19 (by which we mean a positive test + at least one symptom).
Over the course of 2,971,436 days of follow-up in the covid negative group, there were 1,369 cases of symptomatic covid-19.
This works out to a relative risk reduction 0f 92%. For comparison, the Pfizer vaccine trial reported a reduction of 95%, the Moderna trial reported an reduction of 94%, the Astra-Zeneca trial reported a reduction of 70%, and the Johnson&Johnson trial reported a reduction of 67%.
So, on the face of it, prior infection is equivalent to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in terms of the level of protection offered, and much better than the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and J&J vaccine. In light of this, it seems completely unnecessary for people who have had covid to get the vaccine.…”
It is 0% risk reduction for not getting that "prior infection." Getting infected will allow you to build immunity but the point of vaccination is to not get infected in the first place and stop the virus from spreading.
And the more a virus spreads, the more variants can emerge. that is why it is best to give it fewer places to go and replicate.
I’ve also stated that I’ll pit my natural acquired immunity against any person having got the shot, in an infectious environment of SARS-CoV-2 or any variant, winner take all.
I’ll bet my life on it; thus far, no one else dares (and studies re natural immunity vs. variants are nonexistent).
Gee: I wonder why. /s
Thanks.
Better than I’d hoped.
You parrot a bald-faced lefty lie. Curious, but so goes the hypocrisy of Conservative Covidiots. Studies are ongoing, interspersed with prodigious propaganda, oddly ignoring the prior-infected such as me...the point of citation in my comment.
Your position is well-established, Ms Propagandist, as is your dumbass reply; on the list you go.
Looks good! I normally avoid CNN, but the Red Cross gave the data for the following to CNN. It’s possible that about “20% of blood donations from unvaccinated people had Covid-19 antibodies.” That would imply that we are up to about 70% of the population with antibodies, minus those who had both the infection and vaccinations (whatever that would be).
Covid-19 antibodies present in about 1 in 5 blood donations from unvaccinated people, according to data from the American Red Cross
CNN
By John Bonifield and Deidre McPhillips, CNN
March 16, 2021
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/15/health/red-cross-blood-donations-covid-antibodies/index.html
“I think “science” has become so corrupted by politics and self-interest that we’d be better off consulting the Magic 8-ball for answers.”
Ask and ye shall receive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv2_qiCGiSA
Oops. Oh, I see—total days for the group. I had a brain cramp. :)
I also have been take (1000mg of C ** 5000IU of D3 ** 50mg of Zinc ** 500mg of Quercetin) daily since April of 2020.
I think your vaccine risk is higher than for someone who has not had covid. I don’t have concrete evidence, just logic. Your bodies immune response already triggers on covid. Introducing spike protein MRNA to cause your body to develop a response seems to me would trigger a higher level of response since you already trigger on it. Kind of like repeated exposure to a minor allergen can cause major allergic reaction. I think vaccinating the naturally immune is a risky proposition.
On top of that your body took a literal Ginsu to the covid virus and developed immunity to hundreds, if not thousands of fragments of the covid virus. The vaccine just targets one variant of the spike protein. Logically your immunity should cover many more variants than the vaccine.
What is still unsaid is that the mRNA vaxx doesn’t target COVID immunity.
It causes the recipient to create massive amounts of the spike proteins analogous to the spike proteins on the virus payload.
This in turn, triggers an immune response against the proteins and they are pushed into the blood stream and “filtered out” by the liver/kidney.
This is, in many ways, a type of allergy response.
Think of it this way, pollen is a “spiked protein” that irritates the mucous membranes, causing histamines to be generated in large amounts.
The result is:
1. You become immune (allergic?) to YOUR OWN spike proteins, NOT the COVID payload.
2. Your body sheds the spike proteins via waste mechanisms.
People who come in contact with you during this “shedding” period ARE NOT immune to your proteins.
If they are vaxxed, they are immune to \their own\ proteins and /may/ exhibit adverse reactions as they take up spike proteins they are not immune to.
This is also seen in various allergies among the population where some are allergic to pollen but not grass-dust while some are not allergic to anything.
Those with “recovery immunity” do not have a “protein immunity” and can fight off the payload when present with natural system armor such as T-Cells antigens.
Unless one is infected and recovers from the double mutant India virus, whichi has two types of receptors, there would be no copmplete immunity either way.
Soon we will have double and triple mutants, from which there is no immunity.
The development lag will work so that vaccine boosters will not be able to keep up to the mutation cycle.
THAT’S WHY WE NEED TO USE IVERMECTIN THERAPY AS A WAY TO SURVIVE UNTIL BOOSTERS ARE AVAILABLE.
So far Public health agencies around the world cannot chew gum and walk at the same time.
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East Virginia Medical School’s covid treatment protocols include IVM. They have recently joined FLCCC re. covid treatment protocols
Everyone should read these protocols because they work. https://covid19criticalcare.com/
One of the most evil things I’ve seen in my lifetime is the blacklisting of covid treatments that work by the political and media elites.
https://c19legacy.com/
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Sources:
https://dir.indiamart.com/search.mp?ss=Ivermectin&prdsrc=1
And 3,679,270 nights!
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