Natural immunity for the win yet again

Researchers find people who have recovered from Covid have similar spike protein antibody levels whether they were infected 20 days or 20 months ago.

A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds more good news for unvaccinated people who have already had and recovered from Covid.

Anti-spike protein antibodies following Covid infection and recovery seem to persist indefinitely in unvaccinated people, researchers found. People tested 20 months after coronavirus infection had slightly higher levels of antibodies on average than those just after infection.

The key chart: the flat yellow line shows that people with natural immunity seem to have the same level of antibodies no matter when they were infected.

SOURCE: Figure 1

In contrast, spike protein antibodies in uninfected people who have received mRNA vaccines are known to decline at a rate of up to 40 percent a month.

The authors also found that 99 percent of the 295 unvaccinated people they tested who had a confirmed Covid infection had measurable anti-spike proteins. Nearly all of them also had antibodies to another part of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, the nucleocapsid. People who are vaccinated do not have those nucleocapsid antibodies.

The study provides evidence at the cellular level supporting the epidemiological data showing that people who have recovered from Covid have far better protection from future infection than vaccinated people.

What remains unclear is how long-term immunity in people who have been vaccinated, lost their artificial immunity, and become infected will compare to those who were infected and recovered without being vaccinated.