Research shows both coronavirus infection and vaccination offers immunity that can protect people from getting sick again. But by how much and for how long remains unclear — a scientific gap that only time could fill.
Regardless of how immunity is acquired, there’s no telling whose bodies will or won’t create effective antibodies, and why they last longer for some than others; doctors speculate age or certain medical conditions might play a role.
While people can gain immunity from both infection and vaccination, antibodies created from both routes target different parts of the virus, which leads to variations in the quality of protection.
It’s like a coin flip: risk contracting COVID-19 — and potentially becoming a long-hauler — or getting vaccinated. Some argue the final outcome is similar, but one is far more dangerous than the other.
Here’s what the latest data show about immunity from prior infection and vaccines.
Natural immunity from coronavirus infection
There are certain illnesses in which infection can offer more protection than a vaccine.
For example, coming down with measles or mumps is said to confer lifelong immunity to the virus, but some people who get the vaccine may still get infected, although the shots still limit and prevent the spread of outbreaks.
But if the novel coronavirus is anything like others in the coronavirus family, like the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), then permanent protection after infection is unlikely.
Studies offer some positive clues, however.
Research published in February found that coronavirus patients gained “substantial immune memory” that involved all four major parts of the immune system: memory B cells, antibodies, memory CD4+ T cells and memory CD8+ T cells.
This protection lasted about six months after infection in most people, but for some, it remained for up to eight months, suggesting it could last even longer in some cases.
Separate research posted in April showed a history of COVID-19 among U.K. patients was associated with an 84% lower risk of reinfection for about seven months after testing positive.
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nother non-peer reviewed study published in June found that over five months, 1,359 American health care workers who previously had COVID-19 and didn’t get vaccinated stayed clear of reinfection.
The Cleveland Clinic researchers said, in the context of a short supply of vaccines globally, “a practical and useful message would be to consider symptomatic COVID-19 to be as good as having received a vaccine,” adding that people who’ve had the coronavirus “are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.”
While scientists cannot predict who will develop natural immunity, evidence shows people who had severe COVID-19 are more likely to develop a stronger immune response than those who had milder forms of the disease.
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