New Jersey state Sen. Joe Pennacchio announced on Wednesday he would introduce new legislation that would treat recovered COVID-19 patients the same as those who have been vaccinated.
The introduction of the bill addresses public concerns with President Joe Biden’s recent decision to force vaccines on many Americans, as well as concerns with governments and private businesses mandating vaccine passports for their workers and the public to participate in recreation and other daily activities, Pennacchio said in the statement.
“The science strongly suggests that people who have recovered from prior COVID-19 infections have a natural immunity that may offer a sufficient amount of protection to make additional vaccinations unnecessary,” Pennacchio said. “My new legislation would offer those with natural immunity as a result of infection the same rights and protections as those who have been vaccinated under any vaccine mandate or passport scheme that may be implemented.”
“Unlike circulating antibodies, which peak soon after vaccination or infection only to fade a few months later, memory B cells can stick around to prevent severe disease for decades. And they evolve over time, learning to produce successively more potent ‘memory antibodies’ that are better at neutralizing the virus and more capable of adapting to variants, “the report said.
Michel Nussenzweig, professor and researcher at The Rockefeller University, cautioned in the report against natural infection: “While a natural infection may induce maturation of antibodies with broader activity than a vaccine does—a natural infection can also kill you. … A vaccine won’t do that and, in fact, protects against the risk of serious illness or death from infection.”
CDC Guidelines
However, the CDC stated that “data from this report are insufficient to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines” against the CCP virus, including the Delta variant, during this outbreak.
“As population-level vaccination coverage increases, vaccinated persons are likely to represent a larger proportion of COVID-19 cases,” the CDC said.
“That’s something that we’re going to have to discuss regarding the durability of the response. The one thing that paper from Israel didn’t tell you is whether or not—as high as the protection is with natural infection—what’s the durability compared to the durability of a vaccine? So it is conceivable that you got infected, you’re protected, but you may not be protected for an indefinite period of time,” said.