Natural Covid infection produces a stronger secondary immune response than the vaccine, a study has claimed.
Important components of the body’s immune response called memory B cells continue to evolve and get stronger for at least several months, producing highly potent antibodies that can neutralise new variants of the virus.
By comparison, vaccine-induced memory B cells are less robust, evolving for only a few weeks and never ‘learning’ to protect against variants.
Covid vaccines do induce more antibodies than the immune system does after a coronavirus infection.
But the immune system response to infection appears to outshine its response to vaccines when it comes to memory B cells.
If the effect is replicated in children who are unlikely to develop Covid symptoms, it raises the prospect that they could be better protected by natural immunity than vaccination.