Fully vaccinated people who catch Covid, as well as those who had the disease prior to the jabs, get rewarded with the best immune responses, a new study has found.
Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) researchers took samples from 104 people, double-jabbed with the Pfizer vaccine. Forty-two of them had never tested positive for Covid, 31 were vaccinated after an infection, and 31 had “breakthrough” infections following the vaccination.
After the scientists exposed the volunteers’ blood samples to the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants of Covid-19, they discovered that the combination of vaccine and natural immunity creates antibodies “at least 10 times more potent – than immunity generated by vaccination alone.”
As a result, the scientists concluded that “additional antigen exposure from natural infection substantially boosts the quantity, quality, and breadth” of immune response to the disease, “regardless of whether it occurs before or after vaccination.”
“In either case, you will get a really, really robust immune response – amazingly high,” co-senior author Fikadu Tafesse, who is an assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine, said.
Moreover, the study, published on Tuesday in Science Immunology magazine, claims that “while age negatively correlates with antibody response after vaccination alone, no correlation with age was found in breakthrough or hybrid immune groups.”
Tafesse noted that the likelihood of getting infected after vaccination is still high due to the wide spread of the virus, but with the jabs “we’ll get a milder case and end up with this super immunity.”
The new findings suggest that “each new breakthrough infection potentially brings the pandemic closer to the end.”