A meta-analysis published by the Lancet on Thursday found that prior Covid-19 infection offers nearly as much protection as vaccines against severe illness and death from the virus in the future.
According to the findings, "the analysis of the available data suggests that the level of protection afforded by previous infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by two-dose vaccination using high-quality mRNA vaccines." Researchers looked at sixty-five studies from nineteen countries and concluded that the aforementioned findings held true for all variants.
While the study made it clear that prior infection offered substantial protection against severe illness and death for all variants, there were discrepancies between variants when it came to general re-infection.
"Protection from past infection against re-infection from pre-omicron variants was very high and remained high even after 40 weeks," the authors wrote, however "protection was substantially lower for the omicron BA.1 variant and declined more rapidly over time than protection against previous variants."
Researchers urged policymakers to abide by their findings that "immunity conferred by past infection should be weighed alongside protection from vaccination."
They suggested that contrary to what many governments have done thus far, "protection afforded by past infection should be considered in guidelines for when people should receive vaccine doses, including boosters."
Throughout the pandemic, studies went back and forth purporting to prove that prior infection was or wasn't as effective as vaccination, with elected officials consistently calling on the public to get vaccinated regardless of their history with the virus.
"If you have had Covid-19 before, please still get vaccinated," Centres for Disease Control director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in 2021 at the height of the Delta variant. "Getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and others around you."
As NBC News reports, experts are still warning that prior infection should not be preferred over receiving the vaccine.
"The problem of saying 'I'm gonna get infected to get immunity' is you might be one of those people that end up in the hospital or die," the University of Washington's Dr. Christopher Murray argued. "Why would you take the risk when you can get immunity through vaccination?"
The Lancet study was funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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