‘Comprehensive immunity’ gained by infection and vaccination is the best immunity: Epidemiologist

流行病學家：通過感染和疫苗接種獲得的“完全免疫”是最好的免疫

Epidemiologist predicts the pandemic will peak in Taiwan around July, and people should be able to live normally from then


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The best immunity against the COVID-19 pandemic is “comprehensive immunity,” which is gained by an infection following vaccination against the disease, Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica, said on Wednesday (May 18).

Ho mentioned “comprehensive immunity” while speaking about lessons learned from COVID-19 prevention strategies in other countries during Wednesday’s Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Central Standing Committee meeting, CNA reported.

She said “comprehensive immunity” refers to the highly effective and long-lasting immunity created in an individual's body after having been vaccinated against an epidemic following an infection. Even if the process is reversed, with the vaccination preceding the infection, the same effect still exists, she added.

However, she said she does not encourage the public to get infected with COVID-19, but instead encourages people to get fully vaccinated and make themselves more healthy, so they don’t have to be afraid of the virus.

She said she believes the pandemic will peak in Taiwan around July, and people should be able to live a normal life if the infection numbers continue to decrease by then.

As the spread of the Omicron variant is inevitable, the efficacy right after getting the second and third doses of COVID-19 vaccines is about 70% at most, and that efficacy will gradually decline by the month. By the time people in Taiwan finish taking the more than 10 million booster doses, the average protection of the vaccines is estimated to go down to between 30-40%, which means 60-70% of people will still get infected, she said.

The good thing about Omicron is that the variant is not very toxic, causing mostly mild or no symptoms in infected cases, she said. COVID-19 will not disappear as it might resurge in winter when the virus might evolve into new variants. The comprehensive immunity gained from the vaccinations of a large majority of the population and asymptomatic infections among a great mass of people is the best immunity against the disease, she went on to say.

She encouraged people who smoke to quickly quit, people who are overweight to begin exercising, and people who eat unhealthy, high-sugar and high-calorie foods, to change to a whole food diet. Only those who live a healthy lifestyle can fend off various diseases and keep at it for a long time, she added.

When asked whether the second booster shots are necessary for ordinary people, Ho said the fourth shots should be put on hold to observe what variants will come along in the winter before giving the go-ahead. If the country is doing well in terms of comprehensive immunity, the fourth shots might be unnecessary, and therefore more research should be done in this regard, she said.