Katelyn Jetelina helps to explain the answer yes in her site, ‘Your Local Epidemiologist’. She says that the vaccines strengthen the immune response to the virus by giving effectively another dose of virus protection.
She also indicates that the vaccine appears to offer better protection against variants than natural infection. She goes on to suggest that this is why Israel recently changed its policy from not vaccinating people with SARS-CoV-2 infection to vaccinating them.
The change was based on research including samples taken from healthcare workers who had had SARS-CoV-2 infection before vaccination and after vaccination.
Researchers infected the blood samples with variants of the novel coronavirus and they found that vaccines were better at increasing the number of neutralising antibodies than those naturally infected.
In particular, she discusses that the vaccines appear to have provoked more neutralising antibodies against the South African and Brazilian variant rather than having had COVID-19 infection but no vaccination.
This highlights the need for all individuals to be vaccinated.
LGP, the leading London doctors’ clinic commends the Government on its vaccination programme and encourages all those applicable to be vaccinated.
Dr Paul Ettlinger
Founder, The London General Practice