Aletho News

The big question: Why should someone who has had Covid need the vaccine?

By Kathy Gyngell | TCW Defending Freedom | August 10, 2021

LAST week TCW Defending Freedom writer Frederick Edward tweeted this eminently reasonable question: If the purpose of vaccination is to give antibodies, then why should he, as someone who’s already had Covid, have the vaccine?

Of course there is no rational or reasonable explanation. Nor is it explicable why, given the levels of testing to which the government is subjecting the population, it does not add antibody testing to the mix.

It is unreasonable and Todd Zywicki, an American law professor, is determined to demonstrate this. In an article for the Wall Street Journal he explains why he is suing his employer, the highly rated George Mason University in Virginia, a state institution which is mandating Covid vaccines. In sum, it is that since he already has natural immunity, there can be no justification for a coercive violation of his bodily autonomy. 

He explains that although vaccination is unnecessary and potentially risky, the only other options open to him are to teach remotely or to seek a medical exemption that would require him to wear a mask, remain socially distanced from faculty or students during, say, office hours, and submit to weekly testing. In which case, he writes:

‘It would be impossible for me to perform my duties to the best of my ability under such conditions. The administration has threatened those who don’t submit with disciplinary action, including termination of employment. This week the public-interest lawyers at the New Civil Liberties Alliance filed suit on my behalf, challenging the university’s mandatory vaccination requirement for those with naturally acquired immunity. This coercive mandate violates my constitutional right to bodily integrity for no compelling reason.’

He cites clinical studies from Israel, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, England and elsewhere that ‘have demonstrated beyond a doubt that natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 provides robust and durable protection against reinfection comparable to or better than that provided by the most effective vaccines’ and goes on to question the approval of vaccines with less efficacy than natural immunity, referencing the World Health Organisation conclusion: ‘Current evidence points to most individuals developing strong protective immune responses following natural infection with SARS-CoV-2.’

Even more interesting is the centering of his case around the danger of vaccination to those who have previously contracted and recovered from Covid:

‘It isn’t merely unnecessary for me to get the shot. It’s potentially dangerous. Covid-recovered individuals have been mostly excluded from the vaccine clinical trials, rendering any claims about the purported safety for this group largely speculative. Moreover, clinical evidence has suggested that Covid survivors suffer more frequent and more serious side effects from vaccination than those who have never been infected.

‘The onslaught of the Delta variant in recent weeks has reinforced the lessons about the robust protection afforded by natural immunity. Unlike the current vaccines, which are designed to target the spike protein of the virus, natural immunity recognizes the entire complement of SARS-CoV-2 proteins and thus protects against a greater array of variants.

‘Thus even as vaccine breakthrough infections multiply around the world, natural immunity is robust to the Delta and other variants. With respect to the Gamma variant, a recent analysis of an outbreak among a small group of mine workers in French Guiana found that 60 per cent of fully vaccinated miners suffered breakthrough infections compared with zero among those with natural immunity.

‘And whereas the vaccine’s protection may wane faster than expected, the latest estimates on the durability of natural immunity stretch to at least 11 months, the duration of most follow-up studies. Some 16 months after contracting Covid I am still testing positive for antibodies. In fact, researchers have discovered that the antibodies produced by natural infection continue to evolve to generate “increasingly broad and potent antibodies that are resistant to mutations” compared with the more static “antibodies elicited by vaccination”.’

We will follow his case with interest.

The new assumption that only by vaccination can herd immunity can be achieved is a false one – it is not science. It needs to be challenged in the courts here too.

August 9, 2021 - Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States