Free Republic

Three years into the Covid-19 pandemic, few Americans are rolling up their sleeves to get a Covid vaccine. Only 15.7% of U.S. adults had received the newest Covid shots from Pfizer , Moderna and Novavax as of Nov. 18, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those jabs, some of which won approval in mid-September, are designed to target the omicron subvariant XBB.1.5. “Here’s the bottom line: COVID-19 vaccine uptake is lower than we’d like to see, and most people will be without the added protection that can reduce the severity of COVID-19,” the...

People who caught Covid-19 before they were vaccinated had a weaker immune response to the shots than those who never had the virus, potentially leaving them less protected against reinfection, new research shows. Co-funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study released Monday challenges older research that suggested a prior Covid infection enhanced a vaccinated individual’s immune response — a phenomenon known as hybrid immunity, which some scientists believe provides the best protection against reinfection. In the study, researchers from Stanford University analyzed how immune cells found in the blood called CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells respond...