ccjersey - 11/24/2021 08:22

Your pharmacist friend is saying stuff he doesn’t know to be true.

Until there’s been a lot of booster doses given we won’t know how long they’ll protect.....and against what. By that I mean what variant may be circulating at that time.

With other diseases, after booster doses (look up children’s vaccination schedule if you’re not familiar already), protection is stronger AND longer lasting for a higher % of the population of vaccinated people. There’s no reason to expect that COVID boosters will only last 3 months. It’s more likely that they’ll provide a much longer duration of protection.

Take the original vaccine series in trials. They all protected against disease very well though the J&J had some trouble in South Africa when the Beta was circulating. So we’re good to go, get the vac and go back to normal......... not so fast....

Fast forward about 6 months and we have Delta variant becoming the predominant strain across the country. Almost a different disease in how transmissible it is. Luckily, good antibody levels still seem to protect against severe disease.....mostly.

So how do you insure that you have good antibody levels? Easiest way is to get vaccinated if you haven’t already, or get a booster if you have. Hardest way is to get the virus and take your chances on how it will affect you. How lucky do you feel?

The problem with natural immunity is it has been studied and shown to be extremely variable. And we see the results of that when people get reinfected. Across the population of vaccinated people, the level of antibodies seems to be more consistent than after natural infection. And the vaccine doesn’t bring with it the risk of severe COVID.

Best of all, you can go to the local drug store and in 20 minutes you have it done and you know it is going to reliably protect you as well as anything available.

So, why doesn’t previous infection “count” here?

Its protection is variable,

it’s messy to provide documentation confirming it......lots of folks didn’t get tested, I’m one of them.

Some of the people who want to go that route instead of vaccination are going to be unlucky and get severe disease thus prolonging the effects of the pandemic here in this country.