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Natural immunity, still strong and durable 20 months later (no boosters needed)

Handy!: A group at Johns Hopkins checked 295 people who had caught Covid before (and tested positive). Amazingly, all but two of them still had antibodies and there was “no indication” that the antibodies were declining.

Natural immunity doesn’t always work this well. There are plenty of diseases where protection wanes after six months, like RSV, or Norovirus, and many common cold coronaviruses.

Natural Immunity to COVID-19 Detected at 20 Months After Infection: Study

 Zachary Stieber, Epoch Times

Protection against the virus that causes COVID-19 among the recovered was detected by researchers at 20 months post-infection, adding to the body of evidence that such protection, known as natural immunity, is long-lasting.

Researchers found antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) in 99 percent of study participants who tested positive for COVID-19, with some having had the illness as long as 20 months prior.

The major takeaway is that natural immunity … is strong and durable,” [Dr Dorry] Segev told The Epoch Times in an email.

Dr. Dorry Segev, the director of the Epidemiology Research Group in Organ Transplantation at Johns Hopkins University.

There were three groups involved in the study. Of the 295 people who “thought they had had Covid” about half of them actually had. And of 246  who thought they “had never had Covid” 10% appear to have had an asymptomatic infection.

There have been many anecdotes of reinfections with Covid, which doesn’t gel easily with this study. Perhaps some antibodies are just not protective? Cross protection between variants may be a hit-and-miss thing.

These results just mean people still have antibodies to whatever strain they caught. That’s good, but it doesn’t mean they will be protected against other strains of Covid. Nor does this result necessarily apply to the very high risk, or old or immunocompromised, who weren’t in the study.

It is nonetheless, indisputably better than immunity generated by vaccines.

So why don’t  we do more testing for natural antibodies?

These antibody tests exist and are called Serology Point-of-Care Tests. But The Australian TGA tells us that these are illegal to supply to Australian citizens direct. They are only available through their doctors, and maybe not even then (doctors argue they are too busy)?

“It is illegal to supply or advertise these COVID-19 serology point-of-care tests as self-tests or home use tests in Australia.”

Note: Some states and territories have prohibited or restricted use of serology point-of-care tests. Please visit the relevant government website for further information.

It’s not that the tests can physically hurt people, but they might give them dangerous ideas — like maybe that they don’t need to be vaccinated?

It would have been an easy way to see if Novak Djokovic had immunity. Better than a court case.

REFERENCE

Alejo et al (2022) Prevalence and Durability of SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies Among Unvaccinated US Adults by History of COVID-19, JAMA. Published online February 3, 2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.1393

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