by Megan Redshaw at The Defender
A new preprint study by the Cleveland Clinic found people previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 were less likely to be reinfected than fully vaccinated individuals who never had the virus — suggesting the vaccine is of no benefit to people who already had COVID.
The Cleveland Clinic recently studied the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination among people with a history of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and those without. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the necessity of COVID vaccination in persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.
The study, available on medRxiv, provides insight into how the immune system protects the body once a COVID infection is confirmed, the Cleveland Clinic said.
The clinic studied 52,238 employees. Of those, 49,659 never had the virus and 2,579 had COVID and recovered. Of the 2,579 who previously were infected, 1,359, or 53%, remained unvaccinated, compared with 41%, or 22,777 who were vaccinated.
The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among three groups — those previously infected who remained unvaccinated; those previously infected who were vaccinated; and those previously uninfected who were vaccinated — compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated.
Of all infections during the study period, 99.3% occurred in participants who were not infected previously and remained unvaccinated. In contrast, 0.7% of infections occurred in participants who were not previously infected but were currently vaccinated.
Significantly, not one of the 1,359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study, according to the Cleveland Clinic…
Continue Reading