Does it matter how you acquire immunity against SARS-CoV-2?
I teamed up with @sciencewhizliz to dive deep into the many studies we have evaluating natural immunity (immunity acquired from primary infection), vaccine immunity, and hybrid immunity (immunity from both primary infection and vaccination)! It’s very comprehensive and I hope it helps you better understand this material. On slide 8 we outline several important considerations for immunity and public health policy.
What are the bottom lines?
- Natural immunity elicits a robust immune response (including memory) a large percentage of the time. Concerningly, several studies have shown that there is non-negligible amount of people who have a primary infection but don’t show any immune memory or circulating antibodies, which means no protection (short term or lasting). Natural immunity also exposes you to the many risks associated with primary infection (severe disease/hospitalization, death, or long COVID for even mild cases).
- Vaccine immunity elicits a more consistent immune response, so the worry of a vaccinated individual not mounting a lasting immune response is very small (with the exception of immunecompromised). The current vaccines show high effectiveness against both infection and severe disease. Finally, the safety profiles of the vaccines present significantly lower risk than primary infection.
- Hybrid immunity appears to be very robust. This means that if you have already had a primary infection and choose to get vaccinated, you are likely very protected. The vaccine immunity will boost and mature previous immunity. If you happen to be someone who had an infection but didn’t acquire immunity (you likely won’t know this unless you are involved in a study), the vaccine will compensate for that and give you the protection that you thought you had but you didn’t!
Overall, if you’re vaccinated you have the lowest risk and the highest protection regardless of previous infection status.
You totally missed innate immunity and mucosal immunity. Humoral immunity is only one facet of immunity–and not necessarily the most important facet.
40% of covid infections are totally asymptomatic and will never show antibodies.
Hi thank you for the comment. This post is describing the adaptive immune response as that is what was being compared. The innate response will not be impacted by prior exposure to the pathogen or by vaccination, which is why I didn’t discuss it here!