NBC: Study finds COVID natural immunity as good as vaccine

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FLV) – According to a new research study, natural immunity acquired from a COVID-19 infection may be as protective as the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Immunity acquired from a Covid infection provides strong, lasting protection against the most severe outcomes of the illness, according to research published Thursday in The Lancet — protection, experts say, that’s on par with what’s provided through two doses of an mRNA vaccine,” an NBC report said.

The report said infection-acquired immunity “cut the risk of hospitalization and death from a COVID-19 reinfection by 88% for at least 10 months.”

“This is really good news, in the sense that protection against severe disease and death after infection is really quite sustained at 10 months,” said the senior study author, Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. 

The study compared the risk of developing COVID-19 again in people who had recovered from infections to people who hadn’t been infected through September 2022.

The research identified 65 studies from 19 different countries for the study, which was the largest to-date.

NBC said experts “stress that vaccination is the preferable route to immunity, given the risks of COVID, particularly in unvaccinated people.”

“The problem of saying ‘I’m gonna get infected to get immunity’ is you might be one of those people that end up in the hospital or die,” Murray said. “Why would you take the risk when you can get immunity through vaccination quite safely?”

Florida Surgeon General has touted natural immunity and healthy-living. He recently called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to increase transparency surrounding potential dangers and side effects of the vaccine.

“We have never seen this type of response following previous mass vaccination efforts pushed by the federal government,” Ladapo said.

In Florida alone, Ladapo said it includes a 1,700% increase in reports from Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after the release of the vaccine compared to an increase of 400% in vaccine administration for the same period in Florida alone. He then noted that the reporting of life-threatening conditions increased 4,400%.

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is a national early warning system to detect possible safety problems in U.S. licensed vaccines and is co-managed by the CDC and FDA. It accepts and analyzes reports of adverse events (possible side effects) after a person has received a vaccination. Anyone can report an adverse event to VAERS.