Experts Call for Govt. to Recognize Natural Immunity When Creating Vax Standards

A rising number of specialists are pressing the US government to acknowledge natural immunity, the protection that comes with recovering from COVID-19.

QUICK FACTS:

• An increasing number of experts are pushing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to recognize COVID-19 infection immunity in their vaccination schedule.
• The Epoch Times reported that experts have requested that the CDC recommend fewer doses or none at all for people who have survived the actual COVID-19 infection.
• A recent op-ed by two former Food and Drug Administration officials published in The Washington Post called three shots for those who have been infected “overkill at best.”
• The group cited research that indicated the unvaccinated who become infected have “substantial protection” against future hospitalizations.

“Natural infection should count as two doses,” said Dr. Paul Offit.

A growing number of experts are urging the US government to formally recognize #NaturalImmunity, or the protection granted after recovering from #COVID19. https://t.co/WHd4NRmo0y

— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) February 23, 2022

SUBHEADING 2:

• “[R]equiring people who have been infected to get three shots is overkill at best — a waste of valuable doses — and an unnecessary risk at worst (given that vaccines have side effects, albeit rare ones),” the experts said in the op-ed. “The research has long suggested that even unvaccinated people who become infected acquire substantial protection against both symptomatic disease and future hospitalization for covid-19.
• “For example, in one major study of over 30 million people in California and New York, posted last month to the CDC’s website, unvaccinated people with a previous infection — as of the week beginning Oct. 3 — were 29 times (California) and 14.7 times (New York) less likely to be infected than an unvaccinated person with no previous infection. Hospitalization rates showed a similar pattern.”
• “In fact, the research shows that ‘hybrid immunity,’ meaning immunity achieved by a combination of vaccination and infection, is stronger than immunity from vaccination alone, regardless of whether infection or vaccination came first.”

BACKGROUND:

• Current CDC guidance recommends three doses of the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for Americans 12 and older, Epoch Times notes.
• But organization defines those who get two shots of those vaccines or a single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab as “fully vaccinated.”