Pfizer Board Member: ‘Natural Immunity’ Against COVID-19 Needs to Be Included in Policy Discussions

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is also a Pfizer board member, noted that “natural immunity” gained from a prior COVID-19 infection needs to be included in discussions about virus-related policies and mandates.

“The balance of the evidence demonstrates that natural immunity confers a durable protection,” Gottlieb said during an Aug. 30 interview, referring to a landmark new preprint Israeli study that found that prior COVID-19 infection confers more protection against the virus than any of the vaccines. “It’s fair to conclude that.”

Although Gottlieb said he would “be careful” about concluding whether natural immunity provides better protection against transmitting the virus, officials “should start assimilating that into our policy discussions.”

“Natural infection confers robust and durable immunity,” he said, citing the Israeli study and others.

However, whether natural immunity or vaccines are better than one another “isn’t that material” when it comes to policy discussions, Gottlieb said.

Last week, researchers from Maccabi Healthcare and Tel Aviv University said that individuals who had recovered from COVID-19 had superior protection against the Delta variant of the CCP virus compared to those who received the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, the most commonly used shot in Israel. – READ MORE