Evidence For Lasting Natural Immunity Against COVID Infection Is Strong, Say Multiple Scientists

By Arjun Walia | The Pulse

Scientists have been “at war” during this pandemic. Like with so many other global issues today, contradicting evidence and expert opinion on COVID has plagued this pandemic. That’s OK – it’s normal, healthy, and should be promoted within the mainstream, but it’s not. Instead, scientists who oppose what government health authorities say and the information they put out has been subjected to censorship and ridicule.

One opposing argument that doesn’t seem to be attracting the attention it deserves is the concept of natural immunity from COVID and how long it can last. Evidence suggesting that natural immunity is quite robust has not received much attention and has not really been “promoted” within the mainstream.

A recent statement by three renowned professors in the field explains,

“As scientists, we have been stunned and disheartened to witness many strange scientific claims made during this pandemic, often by scientists. None is more surprising that the false assertion made in the John Snow Memorandum – and signed by current CDC Director, Rochelle Wolensky – that “there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection.” – Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford, Dr. Sunetra Gupta from Oxford, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff from Harvard

This sentiment has been shared throughout the pandemic. Ali Ellebedy, PhD, associate professor of pathology & immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis expressed the following in May after publishing a study. The study showed that months after recovering from mild cases of COVID-19, the people studied still had immune cells in their body pumping out antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19.

“Last fall, there were reports that antibodies wane quickly after infection with the virus that causes COVID-19, and mainstream media interpreted that to mean that immunity was not long-lived…But that’s a misinterpretation of the data. It’s normal for antibody levels to go down after acute infection, but they don’t go down to zero; they plateau. Here, we found antibody-producing cells in people 11 months after first symptoms. These cells will live and produce antibodies for the rest of people’s lives. That’s strong evidence for long-lasting immunity.” – Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis Press Release

Again, this is just one out of countless studies that have looked into it, and there are many that show and point towards long last immunity that can be gained from natural infection. More science is presented later in this article.

The concept of “herd immunity” is actually modelled from the behaviour of natural wild type viruses.

“It is now well-established that natural immunity develops upon infection with SARS-CoV-2 in a manner analogous to other coronaviruses…It offers anti-disease immunity against severe disease and death that is likely permanent. Among the illions that have revered from COVID19, exceedingly few have become sick again.

Propagated by the media, the idea that infection does not confer effective immunity has made its way into decisions by governments, public health agencies, and private institutions, harming pandemic health policy.

Though vaccines are vital tools in fighting infectious diseases – including COVID – we should be mindful of the uses to which they are put and remember natural immunity in our policymaking.  In an environment of worldwide vaccine scarcity, vaccinating those who have been sick with COVID-19 is not only unnecessary but immoral.” – Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff

Privileges for the vaccinated are returning, while the unvaccinated and those previously infected are discriminated against. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) changed their definition of herd immunity to something achieved through vaccination rather than a combination of natural immunity and vaccines. They did so in the Fall, and only after a public backlash did they change it back in January to reflect reality.

Like other viruses, COVID has probably infected well over a billion people, so natural immunity is also doing its work. These scientists do not believe in the push to vaccinate everybody as fast as possible, especially in children where inadequate safety testing has been done.

After all, how dangerous is COVID for children? Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has killed more children than COVID in the UK. In Sweden, out of more than 1 million school children who were living with no lockdowns, social distancing and mask mandates during the “first wave,” zero died from COVID.

An analysis of millions of coronavirus test results in Denmark found that people who had prior infection were still protected 6 months after the initial infection. Another study also found that individuals who recovered from the coronavirus developed “robust” levels of B cells and T cells (necessary for fighting off the virus) and “these cells may persist in the body for a very, very long time.”

A study published in March 2021 suggests that the majority of healthy adults in British Columbia, Canada, have immunity from COVID-19 despite the fact that some of them have never been infected with it.

Just as with the vaccine, if you’ve been infected with a variant it may not be as severe compared to someone who hasn’t been infected.

Dr. Daniela Weiskopf, Dr. Alessandro Sette, and Dr. Shane Crotty from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology analysed immune cells and antibodies from almost 200 people who had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and recovered.  The researchers found durable immune responses in the majority of people studied. Antibodies against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which the virus uses to get inside cells, were found in 98% of participants one month after symptom onset. As seen in previous studies, the number of antibodies ranged widely between individuals. But, promisingly, their levels remained fairly stable over time, declining only modestly at 6 to 8 months after infection.

Virus-specific B cells increased over time. People had more memory B cells six months after symptom onset than at one month afterwards. Although the number of these cells appeared to reach a plateau after a few months, levels didn’t decline over the period studied.

Levels of T cells for the virus also remained high after infection. Six months after symptom onset, 92% of participants had CD4+ T cells that recognized the virus. These cells help coordinate the immune response. About half the participants had CD8+ T cells, which kill cells that are infected by the virus.

A recent study published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection explains:

Presence of cross-reactive SARSCoV2 specific Tcells in never exposed patients suggests cellular immunity induced by other coronaviruses. Tcell responses against SARSC0V2 also detected in recovered COVID patients with no detectable antibodies…Cellular immunity is of paramount importance in containing SARSCoV2 infection…and could be maintained independently of antibody responses. Previously infected people develop much stronger Tcell responses against spike protein peptides in comparison to infection-naive people after mRNA vaccine.

Furthermore, if somebody “tests” positive for COVID again doesn’t mean they are infectious. In a letter to the editor published in the Journal of Infection, researchers explain that more than half of all “positive” PCR tests are likely to have been people who are not even infectious. You can read more about that and PCR testing, here.

How does natural immunity compare to vaccine immunity? Will the immunity from the vaccine wane? Will people be required to eventually get booster shots, and more after that?

At the end of the day, with all of this information combined with the fact that lockdowns have had catastrophic consequences and may have killed more people than COVID itself, it’s time to start acknowledging that trusting natural infection is trusting science. We have to start dealing with COVID as we do with all of the other viruses we already dealt with and deal with other than COVID every single year. Make recommendations, encourage people, but don’t force them.

This article (Evidence For Lasting Natural Immunity Against COVID Infection Is Strong, Say Multiple Scientists) was originally published on The Pulse and is published under a Creative Commons license.