It seems Fox and Republicans think they have natural immunity not only from COVID, but from lawsuits stemming from them giving advice to their viewers and constituents that will kill them. *Shrug*
On Sunday morning, South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace regurgitated this dangerous bile while talking to Jason Chaffetz on Fox:
MACE: One of the things the CDC has not done, and no policy-maker at the federal level has done so far is taken into account what natural immunity does, and that may be what we're seeing in Florida today. In some studies that I have read, natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection against future COVID infection than a vaccination. And so we need to take all of the science into account and not selectively choosing what science to follow when we are making policy decisions, and you're seeing, I believe, Governor DeSantis is seeing the fruit of that labor today.
The thing is, Mace is:
- lying, and
- completely wrong.
First of all, the CDC IS INDEED taking into account if a person has had COVID when recommending a vaccine.
Secondly, I don't know what studies she is reading, but places like — oh, I don't know —THE MAYO CLINIC, and The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health are saying the exact opposite about improvement of one's immunity with a vaccine, even if one has had the disease.
According to The Mayo Clinic:
[B]ecause it’s possible to get reinfected and COVID-19 can cause severe medical complications, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who have already had COVID-19 get a COVID-19 vaccine.
In addition, COVID-19 vaccination might offer better protection than getting sick with COVID-19. A recent study showed that unvaccinated people who already had COVID-19 are more than twice as likely as fully vaccinated people to get reinfected with COVID-19.
Furthermore, the CDC studied 7,000 people who recovered from COVID, and discovered that people are FIVE TIMES AS LIKELY to be reinfected if they don't get vaccinated.
According to CNBC:
[E]ven if you have lots of natural immunity, getting vaccinated significantly boosts your chances of staying healthy, according to data published last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency studied more than 7,000 people, and found that unvaccinated people who’d recovered from Covid were five times as likely to catch it again, compared to people who got two doses of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna.
So, I'm not sure what fruit from which labor Mace thinks DeSantis is bearing right now, but it ain't being borne from following science.
