Natural immunity beats the Pfizer and Moderna shots

This article features a large study that showed that natural immunity from previous COVID-19 infection provides better protection than the Pfizer and Moderna shots.

The medical journal Lancet published the retrospective study in November 2022.

Method

Unvaccinated people who recovered from COVID-19 (n=104,500 ) were compared to those who received the primary series (first and second shot) of the Pfizer BNT162b2.

Likewise, unvaccinated people that recovered from COVID (n=61,955) were compared with the same number of those who received the primary series of the Moderna mRNA-1273.

All groups were matched (1:1) by sex, 10-year age group, nationality, comorbidity count, and timing of primary infection or first-dose vaccination.

Data were collected from Jan 5, 2021 (date of second-dose vaccine roll-out) to May 12, 2022. The period covered all the variants from Wuhan to Omicron.

Findings

natural wins over Pfizer

More people jabbed with the Pfizer shot (almost double) became infected with COVID-19 than the unvaccinated.

7,123 SARS-CoV-2 infections were recorded in the BNT162b2-vaccinated cohort, and 3,583 reinfections were recorded in the matched natural infection cohort.

The overall adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for SARS-CoV-2 infection was 0·47 (95% CI 0·45–0·48) after previous natural infection versus BNT162b2 vaccination.

Natural Immunity Beats Moderna

Fewer unvaccinated people who relied on their natural immunity became infected with COVID-19 than those who received the Moderna shots.

4,282 SARS-CoV-2 infections were recorded in the mRNA-1273-vaccinated cohort, and 2,301 reinfections were recorded in the matched natural infection cohort.

The adjusted hazard ratio for SARS-CoV-2 infection was 0·51 (0·49–0·54) after previous natural infection versus mRNA-1273 vaccination.

Natural infection was associated with a lower incidence of COVID-19-related hospitalization and death.

Getting COVID-19 is one thing but getting hospitalized and dying from it is more serious. Again, natural immunity protected more people to a greater degree than both mRNA shots.

The overall adjusted Hazard Ratio for severe (acute care hospitalizations), critical (intensive care unit hospitalizations), or fatal COVID-19 cases was 0·24 (0·08–0·72) after previous natural infection versus BNT162b2 vaccination, and 0·24 (0·05–1·19) after previous natural infection versus mRNA-1273 vaccination.

Another finding is that severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 was rare in both the natural infection and vaccinated cohorts.

Conclusion

Previous natural infection was associated with a lower incidence of SARS-CoV-2 disease, regardless of the variant, than mRNA primary-series vaccination.

They added that vaccination remains the safest and most optimal tool for protecting against infection and COVID-19-related hospitalization and death, irrespective of previous infection status.

Comment:

I agree with the first but disagree with the second. Prevention by optimizing health and early treatment is better.

Qatar follows the CDC recommendations for the treatment of COVID-19. If medications like ivermectin and vitamin D were used, hospitalization and deaths would be lower.

Plus, I don’t like to have myocarditis or “suddenly die.”

Here are some articles I wrote about COVID-19 prevention and treatment.

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Reference:

Chemaitelly, H. Protection from previous natural infection compared with
mRNA vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 in Qatar: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet. VOLUME 3, ISSUE 12, E944-E955, DECEMBER 01, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-5247(22)00287-7

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