Covid Disinformation Update: Mainstream Media Uses Lancet Study On Protection From Previous Infection To Falsely Claim Equivalence Of Vaccination

As do the study authors

FACT CHECK: Mostly false. Here’s why.

The Sky News headline reads:

The headline claim is that the study demonstrates that previous infection is as good as vaccination for preventing serious illness. This is false as you will see below.

But then Sky News goes on to make an even more wildly exaggerated claim:

Previous COVID infection boosts long-term immunity and lowers the risk of hospitalisation and death at the same level as vaccination, new peer-reviewed research shows.

The ‘vaccines’ provide ZERO long term immunity; in fact, they demonstrably make an individual more likely to get infected or re-infected vs. those who have not been ‘vaccinated’, especially with the various Omicron sub-variants. Numerous studies and actual data show that this is now the case and has been the case ever since the mass vaccination campaigns were launched in earnest. The author then claims:

It suggests the level and length of protection against reinfection, symptoms and severe illness is at least on a par with that provided by two doses of mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna.

The study did not demonstrate this, at all. The claim is blatantly false. You have to actually read the study to discover why. The UK Evening Standard makes the same false claim, almost word for word:

It suggests that protection against reinfection, symptoms and severe illness is at least on a par with that provided by two doses of mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer.

Both media outlets then promote vaccination as the ‘safer’ way to acquire the same level of immunity from infection and serious illness. This too is blatantly false. Young people, children especially, are at statistically zero risk of serious disease from SARS-CoV-2 infection, but they are at significantly elevated risk of death and serious injury from ‘vaccination’ with these highly dangerous experimental gene technologies. The risks of vaccination far outweigh the alleged benefits, in younger age groups especially, but also in older age healthy individuals. It may indeed be the case that this applies to all age groups, so lethal and dangerous have these products turned out to be.

Sky quotes the authors, who apparently are happy to egregiously misinform the public as regards to the actual findings of their own study:

Lead author Dr Stephen Lim stressed that vaccines are still the safest way to protect yourself, as "acquiring natural immunity must be weighed against the risks of severe illness and death associated with the initial infection".

Co-author Dr Caroline Stein added: "Vaccines continue to be important for everyone in order to protect high-risk populations such as those who are over 60 years of age and those with comorbidities.

So, even though their study shows only that protection from infection, serious illness and death in unvaccinated individuals is both robust and durable (see below), the authors choose to use their interviews with the press to promote ‘vaccination’ as the safer alternative for everyone. What a fucking disgrace this is (pardon my language). How much were they paid to play down the results of their own study?

The Evening Standard also quotes these two authors:

However, researchers stressed that jabs remain the safest way to protect against a Covid infection.

“Vaccination is the safest way to acquire immunity, whereas acquiring natural immunity must be weighed against the risks of severe illness and death associated with the initial infection,” said lead author Dr Stephen Lim.

Co-author Dr Caroline Stein added: “Vaccines continue to be important for everyone in order to protect high-risk populations such as those who are over 60 years of age and those with comorbidities.

Can you actually believe this? I’m having a Victor Meldrew moment here.

Stein is still promoting the ‘get vaccinated to protect granny’ meme, long ago discredited by the actual data and science. The muscle injected ‘vaccines’ do not, cannot, by design, protect against infection from an airborne respiratory virus, whereas infection-acquired immunity, which uniquely stimulates the production of antibodies in the nasal passages, does! This was known right from the beginning, almost certainly before the jabs were rolled out to an unsuspecting populace. In that respect, naturally acquired immunity is superior to ‘vaccination’. I wrote about it here:

Boosters - Who Needs Them? Plus, Why The mRNA/DNA 'Vaccines' Do NOT Protect Against Infection.

I can only conclude that Caroline Stein is wilfully and maliciously spreading misinformation in order to try to justify the continuation of mass Covid vaccination. The media is complicit. If they didn’t check the facts by actually reading the study, and doing some basic research, then they bloody well should have, before peddling misinformation and lies which puts lives at risk.

What The Lancet Study Actually Says

Methods

In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we did a living systematic review,²⁵ and report here on data published from inception up to Sept 31, 2022, for studies that reported results on protection from past COVID-19 infection. We searched peer-reviewed publications, reports, preprints, medRxiv, and news articles. We routinely searched PubMed, Web of Science, medRxiv, SSRN, and the bibliographies of the included papers using the following keywords: “COVID-19”, “SARS-CoV-2”, “natural immunity”, “previous infection”, “past infection”, “protection”, and “reinfection”. The search was not limited to any language.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Any study with results for the protective effect of COVID-19 natural immunity in individuals who were non-vaccinated in comparison with those who were non-vaccinated and COVID-19 naive were included in our analysis. We also included studies that included individuals who were vaccinated but controlled for vaccination status. We included retrospective and prospective cohort studies, and test-negative case-control studies. Any study that included results only for the protective effectiveness of natural immunity in combination with vaccination (ie, hybrid immunity) was excluded from the analysis.

This makes it clear that non-vaccinated individuals with previous infections were compared with non-vaccinated individuals who were not previously infected. The same was done for vaccinated cohorts, but vaccination was controlled for. They did not study the effect of hybrid immunity, where individuals were supposedly protected by both vaccination and prior infection. So, vaccination was not a feature of this study. Therefore it’s hard to see how any conclusions about the effectiveness of vaccination vs natural infection in preventing infection and serious illness can be drawn from this study, when the effect of vaccine acquired immunity was specifically excluded from the study by either including unvaccinated people only or controlling for vaccination status.

Here is what their study actually demonstrated, in the author’s own words:

Our systematic review and meta-analysis provides a comprehensive assessment of the scientific literature on the protection against subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic disease, and severe disease (hospitalisation or death) afforded by previous infection by variant and by time since the initial infection. Our results show that high levels of protection—on average greater than 85%—are present for ancestral, alpha, delta, and beta variants across all three outcomes (infection, any symptomatic disease, and severe disease). The analysis shows the substantially reduced level of protection against re-infection or any symptomatic disease to less than 55% for the omicron variant, but that protection against severe disease from the omicron variant appears to be maintained at a high level.

The final words in bold appear to be the basis of the headline by Sky, but they do not explain why Sky claims the equivalent protection from the vaccines. Here is the kicker, in the actual study:

Our findings show that immunity from COVID-19 infection confers substantial protection against infection from pre-omicron variants. By comparison, protection against re-infection from the omicron BA.1 variant was substantially reduced and wanes rapidly over time. Protection against severe disease, although based on scarce data, was maintained at a relatively high level up to 1 year after the initial infection for all variants. Our analysis suggests that the level of protection from past infection by variant and over time is at least equivalent if not greater than that provided by two-dose mRNA vaccines.

It’s all in the choice of language you see. The study shows that naturally acquired immunity is real and effective. The authors then go on to suggest that it’s as good as, if not superior to, vaccine-acquired immunity. The MSM left these tiny details out, or didn’t make them very clear; the fact that it was only a suggestion by the authors that infection acquired immunity was as good as vaccine-acquired immunity, not something based on the actual study itself, and the fact that the authors themselves admitted that natural immunity might be better than getting jabbed. It is confirmed by the authors that they are merely guessing at the effectiveness of vaccination compared to natural immunity:

Furthermore, although protection from past infection wanes over time, the level of protection against re-infection, symptomatic disease, and severe disease appears to be at least as durable, if not more so, than that provided by two-dose vaccination with the mRNA vaccines for ancestral, alpha, delta, and omicron BA.1 variants (Nassereldine H et al, unpublished), which is also seen from studies directly comparing natural immunity to vaccine-induced protection.

They cite ‘other studies’ directly comparing natural to vaccine-induced immunity, but it is important to note that these ‘other studies’ were not part of their review and meta-analysis. They winged it basically, and they got it wrong, because it’s now proven that the ‘vaccines’ do not protect against infection and transmission and they do very little, if anything, to protect against hospitalisation and death. They also got it wrong on ‘safely’ acquired vaccine-induced immunity. I quote Dr Peter McCullough on his recent Substack:

The COVID-19 vaccines have failed to stop the infection, do not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among fully vaccinated individuals, and have not been shown to reduce hospitalization or death in prospective, randomized, double blind placebo-controlled trials. The consent form for COVID-19 vaccines indicates the only benefit occurred in the past with previous strains.

Randomized trials by Pfizer, Moderna, Janssen, AstraZeneca, Novavax, and the killed virus vaccines all failed to show that vaccination prevents infection and thus reduces death during the trial observation period. It is not realistic to ignore the impact of natural immunity, early therapeutics, improvements in in-hospital care, and the clear evidence for recurrent infections. Thus “critical realism” destroys the simple SEIR model used by Watson. I agree with Klement and Walach; the SEIR model is invalid and Watson et al have falsely concluded there was a population mortality benefit with mass indiscriminate vaccination. The preponderance of evidence is that the effect is in the opposite direction with more infections, COVID-19 deaths, vaccine injuries, disabilities, and fatal syndromes with the vaccination campaign.

Modeling Study Makes False Conclusions on COVID-19 Vaccination

So, yet more press reporting of a study which actually shows the benefits of infection acquired immunity but then seeks to play down that fact - in collusion with the actual authors of the study - by promoting ‘safe and effective’ vaccination instead, which is neither safe, nor effective. When the facts are inconvenient, you can rely upon the MSM and the ‘experts’ to deliberately undermine those facts by spreading disinformation and lies.