Thread by @ToddZywicki

GMU's mandatory vaccination policy recognizes any vaccine approved by the World Health Organization. But not natural immunity. Which probably makes you wonder--what does the WHO think about natural immunity?

Well it turns out that the WHO has a "Scientific Brief" from May 10, 2021 entitled "COVID-19 natural immunity": who.int/publications/i…

"Within 4 weeks following infection, 90-99% of individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus develop detectable neutralizing antibodies."

" Available scientific data suggests that in most people
immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months)." (Now longer)

"Studies aimed to detect immunological memory including the assessment of cellular immunity by testing for the presence of memory B cells, and CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, observed robust immunity at 6 months post-infection in 95% of subjects under study..."

"which included individuals with asymptomatic, mild, moderate and severe infections."

"For other human coronaviruses (hCoV), hCoV-OC43, hCoV-229E, hCoV-NL63 and hCoV-HKU-1, which cause
the common cold, antibodies last for at least a year after infection..."

"while antibodies to more closely related MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-1, which cause, respectively, middle east respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome, can be detected for years."

Conclusions: "Current evidence points to most individuals developing strong protective immune responses following natural infection with SARSCoV-2."

"To conclude, available tests and current knowledge do not tell us about the duration of immunity and protection against reinfection, but recent evidence suggests that natural infection may provide similar protection against symptomatic disease as vaccination...."

As for the conclusion, new data from Israel indicate that vaccine protection from infection wanes almost completely within 6 months while natural immunity now has been found to be robust for the entire duration of follow-up periods, now closing in on a year.