How long Covid infection-induced immunity lasts? Gita Gopinath shares data
Premium- Gopinath shares data put out by Ashish K Jha, MD and dean, Brown Public Health, US, which tries to answer if infection-induced immunity is enough
First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath has shared an “interesting" Twitter thread on Covid infection-induced immunity among people who are getting infected with Covid again.
In a Twitter post, sharing a threat by Ashish K Jha, MD and dean, Brown Public Health, US, she said: “Is infection-induced immunity enough? What can we tell from evidence on those unvaccinated, a large fraction of whom were previously infected? A very interesting Thread from @ashishkjha sheds light on this important question."
The Twitter thread shares crucial data on Covid infections, which seems to suggest that there's a dramatically higher Covid-related hospitalisation rate among "unvaccinated folks".
“But one key point often not discussed? Around 60%-70% of unvaccinated adults have already been previously infected, which tells us a lot about infection-induced immunity," said Jha.
He also said that there are large gaps in Covid hospitalisations between vaccinated and unvaccinated. “But unvaccinated are not immunologically naïve. At this point, probably 2/3 have been previously infected. And yet, we still see 50X differences in hospitalisations between vaccinated and unvaccinated," he added.
As per Jha, one possibility is that hospitalisations are happening in the dwindling group of unvaccinated who haven't been previously infected. “Means true benefit of the vaccines is even higher (by a lot). But much more likely, it means infection-induced immunity is not holding up," he added.
Jha said at best, three months after infection, certainly 6 months after infection, immunity starts to break down. “Which is why we are seeing a lot of unvaccinated people get reinfected, sick, and end up in the hospital," he said.
If infection-induced immunity was as good as vaccines, the countries would see a large gap in population-level hospitalisation rates between vaxxed and unvaxxed.
Jha said that data seems to show that infection-induced immunity is real. However, it'll only help in preventing future infections or hospitalisations for a maximum of 90 days.
He also maintained that infection-induced immunity is helpful but it really doesn't "seem to last that long". “…you could just get vaccinated and avoid all the heartache and misery of having to get infected over and over again," he added.
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