I think it's was on the lancet. The other one was published on science Magazin.
www.science.org
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells that correlate with anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike protein antibody titres in individuals who have recovered from COVID-19.
www.nature.com
The nature one is an older study from last year. The one on science is from August.
Ok, I read the summary of the first and the entire of the second, this isn't the ideal format but I the following are important points to note about these studies:
(1)Neither of these make a comparison between the level of immune response between individuals vaccinated for covid and those who caught it in the wild. So given this, I would hesitate for anyone to use these to conclude that vaccination is better or worse than a infection.
(2) Neither of them even make a statement that being exposed to it in the wild instead of being vaccinated will have any difference between the long term immune response. I have to stress the following, and I promise I'm being genuine.
Your immune system doesn't know what the difference is between a vaccine designed to mimick a virus, or the actual virus. It would be extremely odd for there to be a significant difference between the two.
(3) They do make comparisons with other
non-covid vaccines, however, those were specific vaccines chosen for their known short lifetimes.
If anything, my interpretation of the results presented in these papers are effectively consistent with the same results we have seen from vaccination. You see a bit of a drop off from vaccination effectiveness after a few months (which is why boosters are now being recommended half a year later), and they saw a similar decrease in relative antibodies over the few months after infection. However, even in people without booster vaccines, they still have far, far better results in then being exposed to any of the current strains of COVID even a year later, than someone who wasn't vaccinated.
What these papers do show, is a measured mechanism that suggests that both vaccinated people and people infected, can expect at least a moderately long term immune response should they be unlucky and become (re)infected. One blunt way to see this is that, despite vaccination campaigns starting some ten months ago now, results for those early vaccinated people are still significantly better than people in the same age range who weren't.
My professional opinion as a scientist is that neither of these studies provide anything to suggest in any sense that skipping a booster vaccine would be a good idea, and I can't see anything in either of them that suggest the scientists who did those studies would even consider that as good advice. If you got the first two shots, you're probably still in a significantly better position than you would be otherwise. I would still strongly recommend that anyone reading this gets a booster vaccination if and/or when it is offered to them. I will personally be there asap when I pass 6 months after my 2nd shot , as will every single person in my research group, and I've not yet met a person in the wider research groups I interact with that will be doing any different. I'm not going to demand you do so or anything, but I really do think it would be a mistake to take from these that somehow a immune response to a direct infection would be in any way better.
www.who.int
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