The CDC shared new data on natural COVID immunity.
: those who were unvaccinated and never had COVID, those who were unvaccinated but did get COVID, those who were vaccinated and never had COVID, and those who got both the vaccine and COVID.
They found that people who had survived a previous COVID infection and been vaccinated appeared to have higher immunity against the virus than those who had been vaccinated alone. But before you run to try to get the virus in search of a boost in natural COVID immunity, vaccination is still the safest path to protecting yourself, the CDC researchers emphasized.
Here’s why: The data in this study was collected between May and mid-November—before the highly-contagious omicron variant surfaced in the U.S. and before many people had access to. That means health experts don’t have enough information to say how the natural COVID immunity you might gain from an infection would stand up against omicron and other, potentially more serious, variants of the virus.
Waning vaccine immunity might have something to do with that, as CNN notes. The rise of the delta variant coincided with what was potentially a slump in immunity for many vaccinated people—months after the initial dose of the vaccine but before the booster. The study did not analyze the timing of vaccination so we don’t know how the booster might affect the findings.
And let’s not forget that getting COVID is a dangerous path to immunity, while the vaccine has been proven to be generally safe and effective. (Like any vaccine, there can be side effects, and in some rare cases, people have experienced more serious