A new peer-reviewed study suggests the natural immunity of an unvaccinated person offers more robust protection against re-infection than those who received the vaccine before being infected — and offers about the same level of protection as those with ‘hybrid’ immunity.

Accounting for more than 5.7 million people in their study, researchers Goldberg, Yair, et al. concluded in The New England Journal of Medicine that:

“…Protection was higher than that conferred after the same time had elapsed since receipt of a second dose of vaccine among previously uninfected persons.” [Emphasis added]

The researchers compared infection rates among three groups: (1) previously infected, unvaccinated; (2) previously infected, vaccinated, and (3) vaccinated persons with no previous infection. This allowed them to “assess the level of protection afforded by hybrid immunity as compared with that afforded by natural immunity or immunity conferred by vaccination.” 

The infection rate for the recovered, unvaccinated group – at 4 to 6 months after infection – is 10.5 per 100,000, which rises to 30.2 at 12 months.

Conversely, the infection rate for the uninfected, vaccinated group – from 4 to 6 months after vaccination – is 69 per 100,000. This is more than twice as high as the infection rate from group 1 in half the time.

Also, the ‘hybrid immunity’ group – meaning recovered and vaccinated – produced similar results as the unvaccinated, recovered group. Indeed, the difference is negligible at 4-6 months and 6-8 months post-infection.  

In other words, the so-called ‘hybrid protection,’ which experts said for months was ‘the best’ type of protection, looks no different than protection from natural immunity for unvaccinated persons.

With that said, waning immunity was found in all three cohorts.

This study verifies another previously covered by The Counter Signal that found that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines offer no long-term protection against COVID-19, particularly with the Omicron variant.

And to this point, Canada’s recent data dump reveals the boosted account for the majority of COVID deaths.