I was completely vaccinated and had a COVID. Do you need a booster?

Federal health officials are urging Americans to boost their immunity before winter vacation by taking COVID-19 booster shots. However, not everyone has the same defenses when it comes to keeping viruses away.

More than 47 million people are already infected with the coronavirus in the United States, at least according to officially recorded numbers. In reality, it’s probably millions more.

Some undetermined shares of those people have also been vaccinated. That is, they now have what scientists call hybrid immunity. This is what happens when your immune system essentially does both a rehearsal of clothing to fend off the virus (thanks to the vaccine) and a real performance thanks to the virus.

So, if you already have a symptomatic case of COVID-19, do you really need a booster?

It’s probably not a shock that scientists aren’t completely convinced yet. Boosters haven’t been available for most Americans for so long, and research is needed to understand how much boosters are needed for everyone, not to mention infected and vaccinated people.

However, scientists said in all explanations that people with hybrid immunity were vaccinated who had never been vaccinated with COVID-19 or vaccinated with COVID-19 but not vaccinated. I presume that they already have better immunity than people.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that your immune system is likely to be stronger, so you’re much less likely to get sick, especially with delta variants,” he said. Dr. Duein Wesman, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School Immunoscientist.

Think of it as playing an instrument

Think about your immune system and the coronavirus, just as you would learn a musical instrument. Once you practice, you’ll remember the song the next day, but if you stop, it’s probably not a year later. “The same principles apply to the immune system,” says Wesemann. “You will spend more time and more effort to keep what you have seen several times.”

And if you get infected and vaccinated, it’s already a lot of habits.

Just because you have this stronger immunity does not mean that getting a booster is a bad idea.This is especially true if you already have a predisposition to develop severe COVID-19, he says. John Welly, Director, Institute of Immunology, University of Pennsylvania.

All of this is still under study, but Cherry says there is no reason to think that it is dangerous for people with hybrid immunity to get additional shots.

“The safety profile is fairly similar between primary vaccination and booster immunization and does not appear to differ significantly depending on whether or not you had a COVID before,” he says.

Our best situation about the power of hybrid immunity comes from studying infected and subsequently vaccinated people. Scientists even explained As “superhuman immunity”.

“Something like that already looks like it’s getting boosters pretty dramatically,” says Wheely. “They are probably the lowest on my priority list of people who need booster shots.”

Studies have shown that people with this type of hybrid immunity produce more antibodies and that the reaction is not only more stable, but also very robust throughout the mutant. I studied the immune response For those who have been infected and subsequently vaccinated.

What if a person has a breakthrough infection?

But what about the level of protection of a person against the opposite scenario? What if a fully vaccinated person later becomes infected with a breakthrough infection? “At this point, you probably have good immunity,” says Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Group.

Perhaps the brand’s hybrid immunity is comparable to that found in people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have been vaccinated, but there may be subtle differences in the details of the immune response, Wherry. Says. “But these things, which can be different, may not be important for a particular person to prevent the next infection.”

All of this needs to be studied to reach a more definitive answer. Until then, takeaway is the same regardless of how hybrid immunity was reached. Otherwise there is no urgency to get a booster for healthy, low-risk people. But if the risk is high due to the underlying condition, or if you live or work with someone, it can be a good additional layer of protection for you and the people around you. There is sex.

“There are potential benefits of providing greater immunity and the risk is small,” says Wesemann. “I would probably recommend it to a group of individuals who thought it was high risk.”

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