It is week 3 since the return of normal commerce and culture to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is wonderful to freely socialize, shake hands, and gasp, even hug family and friends that have been absent for so long.

In fact, the only place where I have to wear a mask is during work, at our VA hospital where the Federal Government still requires face covering.

There are some sad sequelae from the pandemic. For instance, in my case, I had close friends who avoided contact with me for the entire pandemic. Hopefully, this was because of my job, which involved caring for Covid-stricken veterans. Last November, I was infected and recovered. Recently it became clear that these friends still shun me, even though they are vaccinated. They claim it is because I am not.

I have written before about this. When vaccines were first available, doses were limited, I felt ethically, that since I had been infected and very likely was immune, I ought to hold back until more vulnerable people had been immunized. Now with vaccines widely available, I continue to hesitate. Because of this, some people choose to keep their distance.

My reasons for not being vaccinated basically fall into 2 categories:

#1. At least for now, I don’t believe it’s necessary for recovered patient’s to be immunized.

#2. I have concerns over the technology of the new vaccines and the reports of scary side effects, including roughly 11,000 vaccine-linked deaths reported in the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System (VAERS).

I have been watching the literature closely regarding the question of the post-recovery immunity of COVID-19 patients. Early on, there were several studies looking at antibody levels post-recovery. The consensus seems to be that antibody levels are quite high immediately post-infection. There was a point where they appeared to fall which was an early concern, but it now appears that they plateau at a healthy level. So far, since the first infections were seen, this continues to be true.

 A recent study out of New York University looked at the characteristics of the immune response in recovered patients, versus those who are vaccinated. It concluded that “Both the natural infection and mRNA vaccination-induced robust innate and adaptive responses but the authors noticed material differences in the two cohorts”. It was noted that the Pfizer vaccine activated fewer portions of the immune system, whereas natural immunity had a broader response.

Getting any of the vaccines basically exposes you to one small protein on the virus, the “S” or spike protein. This makes up a small percentage of the antibody “targets” on the virus. It does currently confer immunity.  Should the spike protein mutate sufficiently ( which does happen), then these mRNA vaccines could well be rendered ineffective. Natural immunity exposes your body to the whole virus. This includes many more antibody targets creating redundancy to protect from new strains.

In April 2021 researchers from the Israel Institute of Technology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Sheba Medical Center studied the effectiveness of immunity derived from the Pfizer vaccine, versus natural immunity in recovered patients. They found that in terms of percentage effectiveness they were essentially equal in terms of recurrence and hospitalization. They tried to compare deaths, but there were no deaths in the natural immunity arm of the study.

Even more convincing was COVID 19 data from May 2021, to the present, compiled by the Israeli Health Ministry to analyze their most recent outbreak (delta variant). It also compared those who were vaccinated to unvaccinated patients who had recovered from Covid. The data suggests that in Israel you were 6.7 times more likely to be reinfected if you were merely vaccinated, versus recovered from infection. From this data, Israel is trying to decide whether another round of boosters will be necessary.

Even the NIH appears to support post-recovery immunity. In this article from their website, they describe a study done in the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California that was actually funded by Dr. Fauci’s own agency, the NIAID. Here’s a quote from the article dated 1/21/2021 “our studies showed that natural infection induced a strong response, and this study now shows that the responses last,” Weiskopf says. “We are hopeful that a similar pattern of responses lasting over time will also emerge for the vaccine-induced responses.”

Of course, I am also aware of the availability of cheap, available and effective anti-Covid therapy in the form of ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine. I have had a rather dramatic reversal of my own Covid symptoms last November after taking the latter medication.

Given all of this evidence, and the controversies surrounding the vaccine, I have elected to pass for now. If natural immunity is shown to wane in the future, I would of course be vaccinated, especially as I’m aware that there are several conventional inactivated-virus type immunizations in the pipeline.

This is not meant to be a rant against vaccination. What I wish to get across, is that the products currently offered are not completely benign and still not FDA approved. The decision to be vaccinated should be based on your risks of serious illness, versus the risk of vaccine complications. A 75-year-old obese diabetic should certainly get the “jabs”. An 18-year-old healthy college student… probably not.

As I have written in the past, I feel it’s important for people to do their own research before acquiescing to the government’s recommendations. There is a larger agenda here, one that likely involves unhealthy relationships between government health officials, and big Pharma.

I’ll keep my own counsel for now.

As always I would Be honored if you’d share.

Header Image: Elizabeth’s View( Samsung Galaxy S 20 5G UW)