Almost a year after this virus, it has become clear that after up to a third of people in this country have already contracted it, according to some estimates, we can do nothing to stop it through non-pharmaceutical interventions. Still, as long as the government and the media continue to push the vaccine (and masks, of course) with religious fervor, they act as if the natural infection confers little or no immunity. In fact, as with any virus, it probably confers more immunity than a vaccine.
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by British scientists tracked the antibody levels of 12,541 healthcare workers at Oxford University hospitals for six months. A total of 1,265 tested positive for antibodies at some point in the study period, of which 68% report having had SARS-CoV-2-associated symptoms. They specifically observed the period of the second wave of infection to see if health workers, who are disproportionately exposed to the virus relative to other people, would be re-infected.
The result? Not a single symptomatic reinfection and only two people who had previously tested positive for antibodies ended up testing positive for PCR for an asymptomatic reinfection.
The important fact to remember is that immunity does not necessarily mean that you cannot have the presence of the virus detected in your body afterwards. What this usually means is that anyone who is infected, especially if they had at least a moderate case of it, will not suffer any significant or severe symptoms from reinfection. This is likely to be true for most viruses (whether immunity is transmitted through an infection or a vaccine), but we do not test 1 million people a day to detect other viruses. If we did, we would probably discover rare but measurable cases of asymptomatic “reinfection”.
Earlier this week, Texas Congresswoman Kay Granger tested positive for the virus despite having the first round of the Pfizer vaccine. He experienced no symptoms. It is true that he had not yet been given the second shot, but just as these findings should not be alarming with regard to a vaccine, they should not be alarming with regard to natural immunity. In any case, this study shows a higher rate of immunity transmitted to people with natural infection than that tested so far of the vaccine. But the government refuses to even entertain the idea of natural immunity from what has, however, become an almost inevitable transmission of the virus.
These results coincide with another recent British study by researchers at the University of Newcastle published last week in the Journal of Infection. During the first wave of the virus, from March 10 to July 6, they detected 1,038 confirmed infections (using a mixture of antibody tests and PCR) among a group of 11,103 health workers.
During the second wave of the fall, they re-tested 128 of the health workers who had previously confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and 2,115 who had not. Although the sample size in this study is smaller, they found no new infection among previously infected people. At the same time, they observed an infection rate of 13.7% among the group of people who were not previously infected.
None of the 1,038 health workers who had confirmed previous infections experienced symptoms during the second wave. In those previously infected, there was an average of 173 days from the date of the first confirmed positive result to the end point of the confirmed analysis period with a negative test, which would again show approximately six months of immunity and counting.
It will obviously take longer to study the issue of long-term immunity, especially for those who only have the virus asymptomatically or who have it asymptomatically again, but the idea that someone can have a serious case twice does not it is grounded at this point and is very unlikely.
So far, the assumption is that since the antibodies appear to decrease after three months and are non-existent for other infected people, there is no immunity. However, there is strong evidence that the body produces memory T cells that transmit long-term immunity long after antibodies are depleted. Yes, it will take longer to definitively prove this fact, but why do our political leaders continue to make negative assumptions that always seem to challenge the known precedents of immunobiology, while promoting draconian and devastating policies based on these unproven and increasingly unlikely assumptions?
“Oh, asymptomatic individuals are driving the spread, even though they usually don’t, so we have to assume everyone is sick and quarantining the world.”
“Oh, this virus doesn’t transmit immunity, so we have to do it forever.”
“Oh, the masks stop the spread of respiratory viruses, despite the universal belief that they didn’t and even though they couldn’t stop the spread for 9 months.”
Why should we conclude with certainty that these premises are incorrect, rather than having to prove that their premises are correct? What has happened to the innocent until their guilt is proven? They rely on social conditioning that ensures that a repeated lie often becomes a reality regardless of science.