This is the second month that we received an antibody test. As I mentioned last month, in February, my youngest son was sent home after having a close contact with someone who was diagnosed with COVID. The school’s policy is to send home any unvaccinated child to quarantine for 5 days if they had not had COVID within 90 days. Vaccinated children who were in close contact with a child with COVID do not have to quarantine for 5 days, but rather can wear a mask in school.
I love spending time with my sons, so having him home for an afternoon was not the issue. It was, rather, the assumption built into the school’s health policy that 1) vaccine mediated immunity is better than natural immunity, 2) if you have antibodies from natural immunity, you lose them in 90 days, and 3) not having antibodies means that you have lost your natural immunity. All of these assumptions are incorrect.
Let’s first discuss natural immunity vs. vaccine mediated immunity. This CDC paper from October 2021 clearly shows that people with natural immunity have better hazard rate than people who received immunity from the COVID vaccine.
The hazard rate is basically a calculation of risk at a specific instant in time of being diagnosed with COVID over a seven-day period or being hospitalized over a 14-day period.
The hazard rate was lower among unvaccinated people with natural immunity compared to those with a vaccination but no natural immunity.
Dr. John Campbell out of the UK discusses this paper, as well as others, in his YouTube video entitled “Superior Natural Immunity,” which I would recommend for those who are wanting a deeper dive into this topic.
The second issue mentioned above – that you lose your antibodies in 90 days, is a topic I discussed in this blog article. The fact is, you don’t lose your antibodies in 90 days. And I am getting my family’s antibody levels tested to see exactly how long they do last.
The third issue surrounds the question: “What is immunity?” Journalists not trained in science or immunology have led to the disinformation that once your antibody titers are low, your immunity is gone. The fact is, antibodies are only one part of your immune system. This blog article also discusses the amazing memory your immune system has and the rapid proliferation of immune cells, including antibodies, once a virus is re-introduced to the body.
So, what were our antibody levels? In February, the lab that did our antibody tests used the DiaSorin Liaison method, expressing our antibody levels at less than 13 AU/mL. You can see our results here.
In March, we went to LabCorp to have them measured, which utilizes the Roche Elecsys method to find the IgG antibodies to the spike protein receptor binding domain of the COVID virus. My levels were 213.9 U/mL and my youngest son’s levels were 133.9 U/mL. My oldest son’s results have not yet returned.
While these two tests are different with two different units and are difficult to compare, the fact remains that we still have antibodies. Stay tuned for our April result!
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