It is curious that in these times when all the Homo sapiens in the world face a new virus no one takes into account those who have overcome the attack of the virus with the oldest tool that the Earth or the Article has given to the human being: intrinsic immunity. Do we have nothing to learn from them to inherit, to look, to widen?

With the arrival of the winter of 2021 we realized that the new generation vaccines were not as vaccines as it was thought (“The effectiveness of the vaccine is reduced to 59% four months after the second dose”, says La Vanguardia in the largest letter on the first page on 18 November) and to those who put us two banners offer us the third, that is, they will oblige us in fifteen days, who knows. The vaccine is said to quickly lose power. And, I wonder, how does immunity go to those who reached COVID-19 unlike us and surpassed it with the forces of nature?

These, if not inserted, are the most leper in lepers. Neither the vaccine defenders nor the opponents will defend it. Or, at least, so far no one has mentioned them. And we should mention them. At least on two sides.

Own Health: Do people who have passed COVID-19 have more or less risk of getting diseases than most of those who have accepted vaccination? All this, with all the consequences it has for them and others: higher or lower risk of hospitalization, more or less expensive for the health system, etc.

From the point of view of social health: Who, in the face of a new wave of covid-19, is at greater risk of infection for society, those who have passed COVID-19 without a vaccine or who have been vaccinated? Who transmits more or less the virus?

I brought here this article (Politics is derailing a crucial debate over the immunity you get from recovering from Covid-19) published on October 19 in the public health news magazine Stat. The signatory is Lev Facher. Lev Facher is from Washington reporting to the web magazine Stat on health policy and science. Since its inception in 2016, Stat has written extensively on the US Government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the opioid crisis and the impact of the pharmaceutical industry on the Capitol.

Politics wakes up the decisive debate about the immunity involved in overcoming Covid-19

Lev Facher

There is little debate among scientists about this: People with COVID-19 have developed at least one level of protection against infection in the future.

But the latest debate on COVID-19 in the United States is in the exact scope of its support and its duration. Last month [the article is dated October 19, 2021] university workers, professional athletes and conservative parliamentarians have argued that they should be exempt from ever more demanding incorporation orders because, scientifically speaking, they do not need vaccines: they already protect the immune responses of their bodies.

However, this debate is really different from other political conflicts that have opened the battle against coronavirus. Very different from what happens in the predisposing arguments about hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, the concept of natural immunity is based on rational foundations and data. However, as in other discussions, this has also become a clash between parties, revealing how American politics has unleashed a scientific process that needs many nuances until it can't.

“It’s hard to know what the data is going to be, and it’s hard to know what the shooting has ended,” said Wendy Parmet, a law professor at Northeastern University, who has a lot of writing about the legality of government-established quarantines and forced vaccinations. “As the people on the right scream, the people on the left say no. We are immersed in this vicious, terrible and poisoned circle.”

There is still no scientific consensus about the strength or duration of natural immunity acquired by a person who has been cured of COVID-19, or to what extent it varies from person to person.

In August, a study by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) showed that vaccination following Covide infection provides greater protection than that caused by the coronavirus infection alone. According to the data, the risk of re-infection of unvaccinated people who have passed COVID-19 is twice as high as that of those who have been fully vaccinated after the disease. That led Rochelle Walensky, director of CDCP, to plead with the Americans: “If you’ve already passed Covid-19, please, we encourage you to include yourself.”

However, researchers are becoming increasingly aware that the protection afforded by natural immunity can become strong.

In August, a study carried out in Israel showed the following: Curates after COVID-19 again show symptoms of contamination 27 times less than people who have been fully vaccinated, although experts warned that this data was not entirely definitive, as it was possible not to take into account external factors, for example, health problems that each person could already have.

One of the basic principles of immunology is that the appearance of a contagious disease protects the body against the survival of the same disease in the future, said Marcus Plescia, chief physician of U.S. National and Regional Health Officials. People who believe that vaccines are useless must be taken seriously – he said – because COVID-19 has been captured and cured and not treated as conspiracionists.

“The thing to analyze is really reasonable, so I think we should act correctly with those who cannot understand why they have to get vaccinated if they have already had a proven Covid-19. I believe, of course, that the wisest thing to fail is to integrate people, even if they have already passed Covida.”

However, so far, neither employers nor the government have exempted those affected from the obligation to vaccinate themselves against their diseases. And more generally, the lack of consideration of natural immunity has put right-wing politicians in jeopardy.

Senator Rand Paul was one of the first major parliamentarians who captured the coronavirus in 2020 and refused to get vaccinated, arguing that natural immunity does not need any goal. For long weeks, Ohio Republican parliamentarians advocated that they be excluded from orders to incorporate a proposal, even though it eventually did not become law. And Texas governor candidate Allen West recently hardened his anti-vaccine speech, arguing, even at the hospital, that it was useless to get vaccinated for the immunity he had just acquired.

The Biden administration and public health officials across the country have not wanted to enter the debate on natural immunity. Quite alternately, as the promotion of vaccination continues, these demands have been ignored or neglected.

For Plescia, however, the fact that instead of facing the issue is unknown means missing an opportunity to rebuild the trust that has been lost during the pandemic. “In this there is an opportunity to go beyond the clashes,” he said. “Both sides must take this issue seriously.”

Apart from science, it may be unfeasible to articulate a policy that allows the sick people of Covide to be expelled from the vaccination order. On the one hand, the broader evidence indicates that the three licensed vaccines EE.UU. are safe and effective, so policy makers have few powerful reasons to make it easier for Americans to opt out of vaccination.

On the other hand, proof that you have been infected can be difficult, given the limitations of access to safe and almost certain antibody tests that many people who became sick with COVID-19 were never diagnosed with a test. And people who can show that they have antibodies, or who can show that they have previously received a positive test, could not tell to what extent their immune system is strong, or to what extent it has weakened.

According to Parmet, that is precisely why most laws are articulated as such a broad network: clearly, it is not practical for governments or it is not worth writing all the exceptions, especially when there is no violent reason.

“Most laws catch you more than you should,” he said. “Laws do not include all exceptions. Children have to go to school even if geniuses are born, even if they know everything. Laws can’t be perfect, and they can’t be perfect at the beginning of a pandemic.”