The protection provided by COVID-19, which was caught and defeated during the first wave of the global pandemic, seems to be greater than the two doses of vaccine BioNTech and Pfizer.
Real-world data comparing natural immunity to the protection provided through coronavirus vaccines showed that people who received both Pfizers two-stick shots were nearly six times more likely than others to get a delta infection. They also had seven times more chances of developing symptoms and being admitted to hospital than those who had already recovered from COVID.
Researchers in Israel also found that the paper is in direct contradiction to previous reports that vaccines protect people from the virus just as well as those who have been infected.
Researchers stressed that the COVID survivors protection shield deteriorates over time. They also noted that those who have been previously ill and who then received one shot of the Pfizer vaccine were more protected from reinfection than those who had the virus but didn't get it.
The researchers concluded that natural immunity provides longer-lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic diseases, and hospitalizations due to the delta variant.
This study was done in Israel, which has one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world. Researchers analyzed the medical records of thousands of patients and charted their illnesses, symptoms, hospitalizations, and other events between June and August 14, when the Delta virus began to spread across the country.
Bloomberg reported that the effectiveness of the booster is only now being distributed throughout the country. The protection it provides is also still not known.
This data was uploaded as a preprint article to medRxiv and has not yet been reviewed by any other researchers.
