Surviving Covid ‘as good as the vaccine’

PEOPLE who have previously contracted Covid have just as much protection as people who are fully vaccinated against the virus, a new study says.

In a report published by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), it found unvaccinated Britons who catch the Delta variant are less likely to test positive for a second time.

The study looked at more than 8000 positive coronavirus tests across Britain between May and August, when Delta was the dominant variant.

During this time, people who had previously recovered from Covid were around 71 per cent less likely to contract it a second time, the analysis found.

This represents about the same level of protection the study found was offered by two doses of the vaccines made by Pfizer and AstraZeneca, which have been prominently used in Europe’s inoculation drive.

However, the report also does not look at the negative effects of catching the virus, including long Covid which blights a significant number of adult sufferers.

The study, which has not been peer reviewed, is also yet to find exactly how long naturally-acquired and vaccine immunity lasts.

Protection from the jabs apthat pears to dip at around five months, which is why Britons over the age of 50 are being offered booster doses this autumn. But the duration of natural immunity remains somewhat of a mystery, made more complicated by the rise of new variants.

“There was no evidence the reduction in risk of infection from two vaccine doses differed from that of previous natural infection,” the report said.

The ONS also found that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine reduced the risk of contracting Covid-19 by around 73 per cent compared to 62 per cent for AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

But the ONS said it was not statistically significant and added that any slight difference may be due to the fact Pfizer’s vaccine was rolled out to the masses slightly later than AstraZeneca’s.

It comes as the UK recorded nearly 50,000 Covid cases on Monday, which is the country’s highest jump since July.

THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE THE REDUCTION IN RISK OF INFECTION FROM TWO VACCINE DOSES DIFFERED FROM PREVIOUS NATURAL INFECTION

UK NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE