Growing Number of Experts Call on US Government to Recognize Natural Immunity

CDC vaccination schedule should incorporate prior infection, experts say

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A growing number of experts are urging the U.S. government to formally recognize natural immunity, or the protection given by recovering from COVID-19.

More experts are arguing that the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionโ€™s (CDC) recommended vaccination schedule should feature fewer dosesโ€”or none at allโ€”for people who have contracted COVID-19 and survived.

โ€œNatural infection should count as two doses,โ€ Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Childrenโ€™s Hospital of Philadelphia, and an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration on vaccines, told The Epoch Times.

Offit and two former FDA officials stated in a recent op-ed that โ€œrequiring people who have been infected to get three shots is overkill at bestโ€”a waste of valuable dosesโ€”and an unnecessary risk at worst (given that vaccines have side effects, albeit rare ones).โ€

Under current CDC guidance, all Americans 12 and older are advised to get three doses of the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. The CDC defines fully vaccinated as people who get two shots of the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab.

The CDCโ€™s guidance isnโ€™t binding but is cited by companies and jurisdictions when imposing vaccine mandates. Many mandates force workers or residents to get fully vaccinated; others require a booster on top of the primary series because of waning protection. Few have exemptions for natural immunity.

Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute,ย wrote in a separate op-edย that the increasing number of studies showing how strong and long-lasting natural immunity is should prompt the CDC to redefine fully vaccinated in two ways: People who have gotten a primary series and not been infected should need a third dose, while those with prior infection should only need one shot.

Recent research on the matter includes a study funded by Johnson & Johnson and the U.S. government that found that previous infection alone provided 90 percent protection against moderate to severe COVID-19โ€”the vaccine only provided 56 percent protectionโ€”and a paper backed by the CDC that found natural immunity was more protective than vaccination against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.

Some experts, such as Offit, push for whatโ€™s known as hybrid immunity. They point to papers that suggest that people who have been infected and go on to get a single vaccine dose are better protected than those with prior infection who remain unvaccinated, including a Cleveland Clinic study published earlier in February.

Dr. David Boulware, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, agrees.

Byย Zachary Stieber

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