According to a recent study published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost everyone in the United States has some form of protection against COVID-19.
The new CDC study looked at blood donations from 142,748 people age 16 and older between July and September 2022. Researchers found that 96.4 percent of donors tested positive for antibodies to COVID-19, which which indicated a previous infection, vaccination, or both.
Comparing the data with previous periods, the study revealed an increase in the percentage of people with antibodies. The number rose from 93.5% between January and March 2022 to 68.4% in mid-2021. Of those who had antibodies, about 26 percent had antibodies from vaccination alone, 22.6 percent only had antibodies from a previous infection, and 47.7 percent had antibodies from both vaccination and a previous infection.
This follows up with exclusive reports here that nearly everyone in the United States had been exposed to Covid-19 by December 2022. Nucleocapsid antibodies (as opposed to spike antibodies) result from exposure to the SARS-CoV- 2. Based on November 2022 data, nucleocapsid antibodies in the United States ranged from 63% (Puerto Rico) to 97% (Utah). The XBB sub-variants of the Omicron variant predominate in the US today.
The study also noted that infection-induced immunity was more common among unvaccinated individuals in the cohort. The presence of antibodies, whether acquired through infection or vaccination, likely contributes to lower rates of severe illness and death from COVID-19 compared to the early stages of the pandemic.
While the CDC continues to express unwavering support for Covid mRNA vaccines for all Americans, regardless of infection, age, health status, or prior comorbidities, the benefits of immunity The natural course of previous infection with Covid-19 has been proven without any debt and is consistent with the medical experience of viral pandemics over the centuries.
The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in June 2022 showing that natural immunity is more effective than vaccinated immunity alone.
The study concluded that “protection from natural immunity was superior to that conferred after the same time elapsed since receiving a second dose of vaccine among previously uninfected individuals.”
Johns Hopkins University found in a landmark study published in January 2022 that 99% of unvaccinated people who had Covid infections gained robust “natural immunity” that did not wane for at least 650 days.
Israel’s Ministry of Health recently reported that there were zero deaths among people aged 18-49 with no underlying medical conditions. A December 2021 Natural Immunology study showed that children have an even more robust natural immune response than adults.
“SARS-CoV-2 infection is generally mild or asymptomatic in children, but the biological basis for this finding is unclear,” the study authors state in the abstract. “Here we compare antibody and cellular immunity in children (aged 3-11 years) and adults. Antibody responses against spike protein were high in children and seroconversion increased responses against beta- seasonal coronaviruses by cross-recognition of the S2 domain. Neutralization of viral variants was comparable between children and adults.”
“Specific T-cell responses were more than doubled in children and were also detected in many seronegative children, indicating pre-existing cross-reactive responses to seasonal coronaviruses,” the study states. “Importantly, children retained antibody and cellular responses 6 months after infection, while a relative decline occurred in adults. Spike-specific responses were also broadly stable beyond the 12 months”.
“Therefore, children generate robust, cross-reactive and sustained immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 with a focused specificity for the spike protein,” the study notes. “These findings provide insight into the relative clinical protection that occurs in most children and may help guide the design of pediatric vaccination regimens.”
Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, wrote a powerful article on “the high cost of underestimating natural immunity to Covid.”
“Public health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they were not fully vaccinated,” writes Dr. Makary. “But after two years of accumulating data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear. By firing staff with natural immunity, employers got rid of those less likely to infect others. It’s time to reinstate these employees with apologies.”
“For most of last year, many of us asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release their data on reinfection rates, but the agency refused,” he added. “Finally, last week, the CDC released data from New York and California, which showed that natural immunity was 2.8 times more effective at preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times more effective at prevent Covid infection compared to vaccination.”
“However, the CDC crafted the report to fit their narrative, with the conclusion that vaccination remains the safest strategy,” he continued. “This conclusion was based on the finding that hybrid immunity, the combination of prior infection and vaccination, was associated with a slightly lower risk of testing positive for Covid. But those with hybrid immunity had a low rate of hospitalization similar (3 per 10,000) to those who had only natural immunity. In other words, vaccinating people who had already had Covid did not significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization.”
“Similarly, the National Institutes of Health have repeatedly dismissed natural immunity on the grounds that its duration is unknown, and then failed to conduct studies to answer the question,” noted Dr. Makary. “Because of NIH’s inaction, my colleagues at Johns Hopkins and I conducted the study.”
“We found that among 295 unvaccinated people who previously had Covid, 99% of them had antibodies present up to almost two years after infection,” he said. “We also found that natural immunity developed from earlier variants reduced the risk of infection with the Omicron variant. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the two-dose Moderna vaccine against infection (non-severe disease) drops to 61% against Delta and 16% against Omicron at six months, according to a recent study by Kaiser Southern California. Overall, Pfizer’s Covid vaccines have been less effective than Moderna’s.”
“The CDC study and ours confirm what more than 100 studies of natural immunity have found: the immune system works,” he concluded. “The largest of these studies, from Israel, found that natural immunity was 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic disease.”
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