A fascinating paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association hints the answer may be yes
alexberenson.substack.com
But the researchers hardly commented on their MOST interesting finding:
Vaccinated individuals with prior infection 6 months or more before dose 1 had statistically significantly lower risk for breakthrough infection than those vaccinated less than 6 months before dose 1 (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.62 [95% CI, 0.42-0.92]; P = .02 for BNT162b2 and 0.40 [95% CI, 0.18-0.91]; P = .03 for mRNA-1273 vaccination).
What does this mean?
The scientists divided people with natural immunity into two groups. One group had been infected and recovered well before they received their mRNA shots (at least six months). The other had been infected sooner.
They found that people who had been infected more than six months before being vaccinated had were much less likely to be reinfected as those vaccinated sooner.
So? Why should we care?
Other scientists have found that natural immunity from Sars-Cov-2 continues to strengthen for at least six months after Covid infection and recovery - perhaps more than a year
The Qatar paper at least suggests that the vaccines may hinder that evolution of memory B-cells. In other words, they may actually damage the body’s ability to build broad protection against reinfection.
Otherwise, why would people who received the vaccines SOONER after infection and recovery be more likely to be reinfected than those who received them later?
And why would the Qatar study find a SMALLER gap in infection rates (6x) between combination immunity and vaccine-only immunity than the Israel study did between pure natural immunity and vaccine-only immunity (13x)?
These are not rhetorical questions, by the way. All thoughts welcome.
