Unvaccinated people are twice as likely to be re-infected with the Covid-19 virus than fully vaccinated people, according to a study published by US health officials on Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study is based on 246 adults in Kentucky who were re-infected with the virus between May and June of this year after first becoming infected in 2020. They were compared to 492 “cases”. control ”people, based on their sex, age and date on which they tested positive.
According to the study results, unvaccinated people were 2.34 times more likely to be re-infected compared to people fully vaccinated with sera from Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson.
According to the CDC, the main federal public health agency in the United States, the study findings confirm that “any eligible person can be vaccinated against Covid-19, regardless of their previous status of SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the virus that causes Covid-19. Some American politicians, including Republican Senator Rand Paul, have said they do not intend to get vaccinated due to their natural immunity gained after contracting the coronavirus.
Researchers are still struggling to understand the exact duration of acquired immunity after infection, and this could be altered by the emergence of new variants, according to the study. Laboratory studies have shown that blood samples taken from people infected with the original strain of Wuhan virus had a weak immune response to the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa.
However, one of the limitations of this study is that it was conducted before the appearance of the Delta variant, which is now the dominant strain of the virus in the United States.