Doctors say betting on your natural immunity is a gamble with Covid-19.
two antibodies produced from coven 19 infection offer more protection than those from vaccines it’s a question people have asked over and over again i know i’ve asked it news 12’s joe lee poole talks to local doctors about natural immunity versus vaccine immunity in tonight’s top local story if you’ve had the covid 19 virus does your natural immunity serve as a replacement for the vaccine the answer is no and health officials say relying on natural infection is like playing a game of russian roulette local physicians help explain what experts know so far health experts explain that immunity from natural infection is lasting longer than first estimated but the amount of actual protection can vary leaving some people vulnerable to re-infection we do know that if you have had a natural infection and you do not get vaccinated you’re about two and a half times more likely to be reinfected with covid than if you’ve had a previous infection and are vaccinated doctors say depending on one’s natural immunity after infection is risky business especially when the outcomes are so unclear you don’t know up front if you’re going to do well or not so clearly if you have escaped the disease oh you know chancing it it is a big gamble if you know that you’re going to have a mild infection that’s okay but nobody knows that up front there’s no way of predicting that the other part is we don’t have a good task to tell you that your immunity is lasting in fact doctors say that if you’ve had the virus recovered and then received the vaccine the results are an extremely strong immunity so when should someone who’s recovered from the virus get vaccinated the uh the recommendation from the cdc has over time been 10 to 90 days so essentially as soon as you’re out of your isolation period you would become eligible for the vaccine and certainly you would want to get it by three months after you had natural infection my my advice is that if you’ve been previously infected you’re likely to benefit from getting a a vaccine and there’s really no downside to doing so health experts want to remind residents that even though the pandemic seems like it’s gone on forever it hasn’t and they’re continuously learning more and more every day reporting in chattanooga jolie poole news 12 now
