UW virology head: Immunity from vaccines is better than natural immunity

Researchers, including Dr. Keith Jerome, head of the University of Washington’s Virology division, believe we’re getting toward a point where COVID-19 is endemic, meaning it will circulate all the time.

UW Virology head: ‘I hope we give science benefit of doubt’ in next pandemic

According to current projections from the UW, KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross noted that it looks like we’re anticipating a background level of COVID deaths at about 16 people per day.

“I think we are getting to where it’s going to be something we have to live with,” Jerome replied. “Look, there are things we can do. That is not destiny. Predictions are if we keep doing what we’re doing — and, remember, people can limit their own personal risks. So we’ve got to decide, do we want to stop doing anything and maybe see it be worse than that, or we want to try to stay on top of this and drive those numbers down?”

Natural immunity versus vaccine immunity

There’s been question as to whether vaccine mandates should account for natural immunity in people who have already been through COVID.

Dave says he’s heard from a couple listeners saying, “This makes no sense, I had COVID, I got through it, I have natural immunity. Why must I get vaccinated?”

Jerome says whether or not the mandates should take natural immunity into account is more of a “political and societal question.”

“I’ll tell you the scientific data, and the data is that the immunity from vaccines is better than the immunity you get from being infected,” he said. “It’s actually quite a bit better from vaccines. There was a study back in August done in Kentucky and it showed that if you had natural infection instead of vaccination, you’re almost 2.5 times as likely to get COVID, to get any infection.”

“A study just came out a couple of days ago, it was actually nationwide and really pretty impressive study and it showed that people who were relying on natural immunity actually were 5.5 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID,” he added. “This would be for their second bout of COVID, compared to people vaccinated who would be going in for their first. So 5.5 times more likely.”

That said, he still believes it’s more of a societal question.

“Maybe it’s somebody’s personal business that they end up in the hospital. But then who pays for that? It’s very expensive to go in and be in intensive care and be nursed through COVID. Maybe we all pay for that. Maybe we all get some sort of say here,” Dr. Jerome said.

Thankfully, he thinks if you were to come down with severe COVID today, there is likely an intensive care unit for you.

“That’s sort of the minimum bar for success when you essentially don’t have to be there because science has made an incredible set of vaccines in less than a year,” he said. “It’s kind of a shame that people are ending up in those ICUs who really don’t need to.”

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Everything is delta

At UW Virology, they sequence a big fraction of all the positive COVID tests in Washington, Jerome said.

“It’s not every single one, but it’s a lot of them,” he said. “It’s actually plenty to see if any of these variants, anything new starts to rise, or any of the variants we’re hearing about in other parts of the world.”

“So we’re really one of the leading centers in the country for that,” he added. “But what we’re seeing in all that sequencing is essentially everything is delta now. All the other ones have gone away. Delta just wins because delta is way more infectious. If you get sick with delta, you make way more virus. And the viruses that you make, every single one is better at infecting a new cell or a new person. So it’s no surprise that it really sort of won the the global virus competition to be what we’re seeing.”

There’s delta plus or AY 4.2 that you may have heard of, which has been found in the UK.

“It’s accounting for about 10% of what we’re seeing in the UK right now,” Dr. Jerome said. “We’ve certainly seen a little bit of that here, but only a few. And it looks like if that’s better than delta, it’s not much so.”

The good news is that nothing has outflanked the vaccines yet.

“Vaccines are still good against delta,” Jerome said. “And in fact, that last study I showed you saying that vaccination is better than natural infection, that was actually done mostly during the time of delta so it really is relevant to what we have today. But the vaccines work really well against delta. Delta is just more infectious. It didn’t evolve to escape immunity.”

Jerome is hoping that the virus has exploring its “possible sequence space,” that it has tried everything it can and “maybe it doesn’t have too many more tricks up its sleeve.”

“We can hope that, but we can’t be sure,” he said.

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