And Just Like That, Natural Immunity Is No Longer a Conspiracy Theory

And Just Like That, Natural Immunity Is No Longer a Conspiracy Theory

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D. 

Natural immunity to disease is, or at least was, a well-known concept in medicine.

By disease, I mean viral infections. One can’t develop natural immunity to diseases like diabetes or heart failure. Many of us remember “chicken pox parties” where when one kid was infectious, he or she was invited over to play with your kids, so they all got infected and then they did not have to worry about getting chicken pox again, due to natural immunity.

The CDC defines it as follows: “Natural immunity is acquired from exposure to the disease organism through infection with the actual disease.” Contrast this to: “Vaccine-induced immunity is acquired through the introduction of a killed or weakened form of the disease organism through vaccination.”

Both can be effective depending on the virus, assuming exposure doesn’t kill you, and the type of vaccine, assuming one exists for that virus. As the CDC describes, “If an immune person comes into contact with that disease in the future, their immune system will recognize it and immediately produce the antibodies needed to fight it. Active immunity is long-lasting, and sometimes life-long.”

Yet with the COVID pandemic, this basic and longstanding medical concept became a right-wing, Q-Anon conspiracy theory.

Far-left Mother Jones described it, “Anti-vaxxers have a dangerous theory called ‘natural immunity.’ Now it’s going mainstream.”

The CDC: “Getting a COVID-19 vaccination is a safer and more dependable way to build immunity to COVID-19 than getting sick with COVID-19.

The Mayo Clinic: “It’s recommended that people who have already had COVID-19 get a COVID-19 vaccine.”

USA Today was also quite certain: “Fact check: COVID-19 vaccines provide safer, more consistent immunity than infection.”

Anyone saying otherwise was accused of spreading mis- or disinformation. For physicians this could manifest as a threat of or loss of medical license or employment.

For example, Dr. Peter McCullough, prominent cardiologist, and outspoken challenger of government COVID policies had his Texas medical license threatened.

Denial of natural immunity was the basis of vaccine mandates which deprived millions of Americans of “the right to choose” or “my body my choice.” Countless individuals with proven natural immunity based on antibody testing lost their jobs since the government mantra was that vaccine immunity was the only path forward and natural immunity was a dangerous conspiracy theory.

Those serving in the military, playing professional sports, or attending college had to make a potentially life-changing choice between natural and vaccine immunity and losing their job or education. For those suffering a vaccine-adverse event, such as myocarditis, stroke, or even sudden death, this was a fatal choice.

Lo and behold, The Lancet changed their tune a few weeks ago with a paper, specifically a meta-analysis reviewing 65 studies from 19 countries showing that previous infection with COVID provided better and longer lasting protection than vaccination. This is not to say vaccines provide no protection, but that natural immunity is more effective.

From the paper: “Protection from past infection against re-infection from pre-omicron variants was very high and remained high even after 40 weeks.” Immunity may last far longer. A 2020 study published in Nature found that after the 2003 SARS epidemic, a virus similar to COVID, infected patients had immunity 17 years later.

This was the length of surveillance meaning that immunity could last far longer, even a lifetime. For this SARS coronavirus, previous infection provided long term protection against reinfection. Or as Nature headlined: “Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime.”

“Protection was substantially lower for the omicron BA.1 variant and declined more rapidly over time than protection against previous variants.” But their graphs still showed better protection from previous infection than vaccination.

Also, “Protection from severe disease was high for all variants.” This was the argument for vaccination that it would keep you out of the hospital and ICU, although natural immunity did just fine in this regard.

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