Indy Myopain

Johns Hopkins Physician on The Power of Natural COVID Immunity  

85 percent are immune…

The news about the U.S. COVID pandemic is even better than you’ve heard. Some 80% to 85% of American adults are immune to the virus: More than 64% have received at least one vaccine dose and, of those who haven’t, roughly half have natural immunity from prior infection. There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.

 Only around 10% of Americans have had confirmed positive Covid tests, but four to six times as many have likely had the infection. A February study in Nature used antibody screenings in late summer 2020 to estimate there had been seven times as many actual cases as confirmed cases. A similar study, by the University of Albany and New York State Department of Health, revealed that by the end of March 2020—the first month of New York’s pandemic—23% of the city’s population had antibodies. That share necessarily increased as the pandemic spread.

 Natural immunity is durable. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported last month that 11 months after a mild infection immune cells were still capable of producing protective antibodies. The authors concluded that prior Covid infection induces a “robust” and “long-lived humoral immune response,” leading some scientists to suggest that natural immunity is probably lifelong. Because infection began months earlier than vaccination, we have more follow-up data on the duration of natural immunity than on vaccinated immunity. Click here for the Rest of the Story!