Natural immunity provides 'at least as high, if not higher' protection against COVID as mRNA vaccine, study reveals



Natural immunity provides "at least as high, if not higher" levels of protection against COVID-19 as two doses of an mRNA vaccine, according to a study published in The Lancet – one of the oldest and most respected medical journals in the world.

The research analyzed 65 studies from 19 different countries to determine the level of protection from past infection against "subsequent re-infection, symptomatic COVID-19 disease, and severe disease."

The study noted, "Our meta-analyses showed that protection from past infection and any symptomatic disease was high for ancestral, alpha, beta, and delta variants, but was substantially lower for the omicron BA.1 variant."

"Although protection from re-infection from all variants wanes over time, our analysis of the available data suggests that the level of protection afforded by previous infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by two-dose vaccination using high-quality mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech)," the authors of the study wrote.

"Furthermore, although protection from past infection wanes over time, the level of protection against re-infection, symptomatic disease, and severe disease appears to be at least as durable, if not more so, than that provided by two-dose vaccination with the mRNA vaccines for ancestral, alpha, delta, and omicron BA.1 variants, which is also seen from studies directly comparing natural immunity to vaccine-induced protection," the authors said.

"Protection from past infection against re-infection from pre-omicron variants was very high and remained high even after 40 weeks," the study found, adding that natural immunity diminished the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 by 88% for at least 10 months.

The authors added that there were "risks of severe morbidity and mortality associated with the initial infection."

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

"There's quite a long sustained protection against severe disease and death, almost 90% at 10 months," Murray said. "It is much better than I had expected, and that's a good thing for the world, right? Given that most of the world has had omicron. It means there's an awful lot of immunity out there."

Murray added, "The safest way to get immunity is vaccination."

The study advised, "The immunity conferred by past infection should be weighed alongside protection from vaccination when assessing future disease burden from COVID-19, providing guidance on when individuals should be vaccinated, and designing policies that mandate vaccination for workers or restrict access, on the basis of immune status, to settings where the risk of transmission is high, such as travel and high-occupancy indoor settings."

In May 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "The issue of vaccines actually, at least with regard to SARS-CoV-2, can do better than nature."

The next month, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) slammed Fauci and the CDC for not admitting the benefits of natural immunity.

"One of the biggest scandals during this whole pandemic is the coverup that's been committed by Dr. Fauci and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] — especially the CDC — about the effectiveness of immunity that's conferred after a natural infection, after you've recovered from [COVID], they've completely ignored that," Massie declared. "They want everybody to get vaccinated, even those who don't need [to be] vaccinated."

According to the CDC, only 16% of Americans are vaccinated with a COVID-19 booster shot.

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Rand Paul likens Anthony Fauci to 'mafia don,' shares old video of Fauci praising natural flu immunity as 'most potent vaccination'



The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has fallen more than 90% in a little over two months as coronavirus hospitalizations plummet to the lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic. However, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) isn't ready to let Dr. Anthony Fauci forget about his behavior during the pandemic, which he believes is similar to actions taken by a mafia boss.

On Friday night, Paul made an appearance on "The Ingraham Angle" to give his reaction to the explosive Vanity Fair report that claims Fauci and former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins strongly pushed back against anyone who went against the narrative that COVID-19 originated from a wet market in Wuhan, China. Vanity Fair reports that evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom was suppressed for thinking that COVID-19 originated in a lab and leaked out.

"This is more like what you'd see from a mafia don than from a government bureaucrat or scientist," Paul said of Fauci's behavior. "If you disagree with him, they come down on you hard, and they try to suppress anybody with a different opinion."

"It's really alarming, they will do anything," Paul told host Laura Ingraham.

Paul hypothesized that the top medical bureaucrats thought, "Let's do everything we can to try to suppress his opinion."

The Republican senator from Kentucky mentioned damning emails that surfaced in December that show Collins instructing Fauci to carry out a "quick and devastating" takedown of an open letter published in 2020 that argued that COVID-19 lockdowns were counterproductive. The letter known as the Great Barrington Declaration was authored by three epidemiologists: Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Harvard University, Sunetra Gupta, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Oxford University, and Jay Bhattacharya, MD, Ph.D., a professor and public health policy expert at Stanford University. Collins disparaged the three accomplished epidemiologists as "fringe" in an email.

Paul noted that the "three famous epidemiologists" had been suppressed.

"But one of the interesting things about this exposé is it also shows the harm of what government contractors do," Paul continued. "We knew they did this in other areas, but we didn't know it was happening in science."

Paul also shared a video on Twitter of Fauci touting immunity as superior to a vaccine when it comes to the flu.

In 2004, Fauci was on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" program, when a 67-year-old caller from Minnesota asked the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases if she should get a flu shot if she already had the flu.

Fauci responded, "Well it's very difficult to figure out just on that base of information, what's gone on with the caller. There are some people who have bad reactions to, in vaccination, even if it's a killed vaccination. It is possible since the flu vaccine virus is grown in eggs, then you may have an allergy to one of those components, and what you were feeling was actually an allergic reaction."

Host Peter Slen asked if the woman should get a vaccination against the flu, to which Fauci replied, "Well no."

"If she got the flu for fourteen days, she's as protected as anybody can be, because the best vaccination is to get infected yourself," Fauci stressed. "If she really has the flu, if she really has the flu, she definitely doesn’t need a flu vaccine."

Fauci declared that the woman "doesn't need" the vaccination since "the most potent vaccination is getting infected yourself."

Of the resurfaced footage, Paul wrote: "Hmmm…Once upon a time Anthony Fauci could tell the truth…What happened?"

Hmmm\u2026Once upon a time Anthony Fauci could tell the truth\u2026What happened?https://twitter.com/claytravis/status/1509607256714878981\u00a0\u2026
— Rand Paul (@Rand Paul) 1648760110

Last month, Paul declared that he believes that over 95% of Americans have either "antibodies to the virus or antibodies to the vaccine," which he credits for why COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are down.

"That’s why we are doing better with this," Paul said. "We have developed immunity either from having the disease or being vaccinated, and that’s why we are doing better, in addition to the fact that the virus has mutated to a less virulent or less deadly form."

Paul then called Fauci a "menace."

"But he won't admit it because he’s so caught up in putting stickers on your floor, putting masks on your face, putting goggles on you," Paul exclaimed. "The guy is a menace, and he has not been right really about anything since the start of this."

CDC study finds over 80% of US adults have some immunity to COVID, notes prior infection offers similar protection as vaccine



A recent survey of blood donations has found that more than 80% of Americans over the age of 16 have some level of immunity to COVID-19 — a figure that could have massive implications on the country's public health policy moving forward.

The survey, conducted by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found that twice as many people have been infected by the pathogen than have been officially counted, CNN reported. As of Thursday, more than 39 million Americans have tested positive for the virus.

According to CNN, the CDC team, led by Dr. Jefferson Jones embarked on the study to "determine how close the US might be to some kind of herd immunity." Though the news outlet was sure to mention the researchers "do not claim to have any kind of handle on that yet."

They accomplished the task by testing about 1.4 million blood samples provided by 17 different blood collection organizations from all 50 states.

Upon studying the samples, the team found that between July 2020 and May 2021, the percentage of blood samples that carried SARS-CoV-2 spike antibodies increased from 3.5% to 83.3% over that time period.

Based on a sample of blood donations in the United States from July 2020 through May 2021, estimated #SARSCoV2 sero… https://t.co/OyWffTBmRL
— JAMA (@JAMA_current) 1630598403.0

The researchers highlighted the prominent role widespread vaccine efforts have played in raising the percentage. Though they also noted that prior infection provides similar protection against the virus.

"Several large studies have shown that among individuals who are seropositive from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19 incidence is reduced by 80% to 95%, similar to vaccine efficacy estimates," they wrote.

The researchers acknowledged their study has "several limitations," however, including that all of the testing occurred prior to the Delta variant's full emergence in the U.S.

Of note, a recent study out of Israel found that unvaccinated individuals with prior infection were 13 times less likely to contract the Delta variant than vaccinated individuals without prior infection.

Likewise, the study focused only on the presence of antibodies in the blood samples and didn't measure other immune responses, including those involving memory T-cells.

"Additional research is needed on the association between combined seroprevalence, protection, and herd immunity," the researchers wrote.

"The study will continue until at least December 2021, and results will be made available on the CDC's website," they added.

Rep. Thomas Massie slams Fauci and CDC for COVID-19 'coverup': 'One of the biggest scandals during this whole pandemic'



Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) shut down a reporter who demanded to know the congressman's vaccination status during a press conference. Massie also blasting Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for an alleged "coverup" of natural immunity.

While advocating that Americans get the coronavirus vaccine, Massie also touted the effectiveness of natural immunity, adding that the critical voices in U.S. health have downplayed "natural protection" to those who had already been infected with COVID-19.

"One of the biggest scandals during this whole pandemic is the coverup that's been committed by Dr. Fauci and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] — especially the CDC — about the effectiveness of immunity that's conferred after a natural infection, after you've recovered from [COVID], they've completely ignored that," Massie said during a news conference earlier this week. "They want everybody to get vaccinated, even those who don't need [to be] vaccinated."

Massie said to "follow the science," and cited the Moderna trials that he said showed "no benefit of the vaccine to those who recovered from infection." He then noted that the trials of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine "showed there was no benefit to those who had recovered from infection."

"I'm not saying go out and get the virus instead of getting the vaccine. The vaccine can save lives, it's certain," Massie stated. "But there's no need…to get the vaccine if you've already recovered from COVID. There's no need to expose yourself to that danger."

Massie referred to a five-month study from the Cleveland Clinic on 52,238 employees, which found that "none of the previously infected employees who remained unvaccinated were re-infected over the duration of the study."

The CDC website states: "Getting COVID-19 may offer some natural protection, known as immunity. Current evidence suggests that reinfection with the virus that causes COVID-19 is uncommon in the 90 days after initial infection. However, experts don't know for sure how long this protection lasts, and the risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 far outweighs any benefits of natural immunity."

A reporter asked Massie if he had been vaccinated, to which he barked back, "Well, first of all, it's none of your business, but I'm gonna tell you."

"I'm not vaccinated, and until there's some science—by the way I have a master's of science degree from MIT, I'm not a virologist but I can read data," the congressman, who earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said. "Everybody just needs to read. Don't put your head in the sand. Look at the data."

"I'm not gonna get the vaccine until there's data that shows that it will improve upon the immunity that's been conferred to me as a result of a natural infection that I had," Massie explained.

#nunya, the full clip. https://t.co/tjTBdjZCfn

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) 1623970522.0

In August 2020, Massie announced that he had recovered from COVID-19 and tested positive for antibodies, which prompted him to donate plasma.

Massie made his comments during a press conference about the House Republican-sponsored Fire Fauci Act, which reduces the salary of Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and calls for an examination of his correspondences and expenditures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci is the highest-paid federal government employee, reportedly raking in $417,608 in 2019.

New study suggests immunity to coronavirus may last years — even decades — after infection



A new study of individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 suggests that immunity against the virus may last several years or even decades after infection.

What are the details?

The study, which was conducted by a group of researchers primarily based out of La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California, analyzed blood samples from 185 survivors ages 19 to 81 to see if immune cells persisted in the body several months after infection.

What they found was encouraging: Eight months after contracting the virus, most survivors still possessed enough immune cells to fight reinfection. The slow rate of decline specifically among memory B-cells and T-cells hinted that these cells, which help fight disease, may persist in the human body for quite a long time.

"That amount of memory would likely prevent the vast majority of people from getting hospitalized disease, severe disease, for many years," Shane Crotty, a co-leader of the study, told the New York Times.

The Times noted that the new data squares with other recent findings from researchers at the University of Washington and in Nature Medicine that demonstrate that the body launches a long-lasting response to the virus.

Though not yet peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, the study is, according to the Times, "the most comprehensive and long-ranging study of immune memory to the coronavirus to date."

Why does it matter?

If verified, the study will certainly bring a sigh of relief to experts who feared that the disease would be resistant to long-term immune response. If that were the case, the prospects of using a vaccine to control the pandemic would be greatly complicated.

Those fears were amplified by a recent study carried out by scientists at King's College London, which focused specifically on the presence of antibodies post-infection. It found that antibodies peaked three weeks after COVID-19 symptoms appeared and then faded away altogether in some cases.

But the new study broadened the search beyond just antibodies to include memory B-cells and two types of T-cells, and the results painted a much more hopeful picture.

Sterilizing immunity, or when antibodies in the blood block the virus and stop a second infection, "doesn't happen very often — that is not the norm," noted Alessandro Sette, an immunologist at the La Jolla and co-leader of the study.

More often, people do in fact become infected a second time with a particular pathogen, but the immune system recognizes the invader and quickly destroys it. That's why it is more important to look at every component of the body's immune response.

"If you just look at only one, you can really be missing the full picture," Crotty said.