LogFAQs > #954557901

monkmith posted...

to be safe? yes.

simply put the consensus is still up in the air about the antibody response strength for people that actually had the virus. because of the way the immune system works, its quite possible that the antibody response to a covid infection essentially took a shotgun approach and up-selected a bunch of antibodies with weak affinity for the virus or a short half life. means they might not be very good at stopping another infection before you get seriously ill, or that they might degrade within months.

as such it makes sense to get everyone a shot. if, after the first shot, you have a strong reaction theres a good chance you dont need the second, but it wont hurt you to get it.

Agree with this. Knowing what I've studied in virology and applying common sense I can say it's very likely that a natural infection will produce much stronger and longer lasting anti-bodies. You may likely however, still see some benefit from the vaccine because it will probably replicate the immunity of a slightly different variant altogether giving you a broader spectrum of immunity, if you will. Even if it's not an actual "variant" per say, a virus constantly changes as it spreads through the herd so it will still almost certainly be "different" enough from the strain you caught to see at least a trace of benefits, which can't be a bad thing.

This next bit I have to say is just educated-guess speculation: but I wouldn't be surprised if you make your body think it was infected twice; that by itself could very well could be a primer to significantly enhance the immunity just from a self-preservation POV. It might think hey, I got sick even with these heavy anti-bodies? I better work harder and double or even triple up the protection. Again, just speculation but common sense says it's quite plausible.