Vaccinating people with antibodies

[waltzingparrot]

Wouldn't we have got through the vaccination programme, and be able to open up society quicker if people that have had Covid and have antibodies get vaccinated after those that don't?

Natural immunity and vaccinations work differently. A quick google will give you the answer you need. Which is no.

A couple of interesting pre prints suggest that a single dose of the mRNA vaccine may offer sufficient protection for people with prior infection (and also that side effects may be more noticeable).
www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-two-preprints-looking-at-a-single-dose-of-mrna-vaccines-in-those-who-have-previously-been-infected-with-sars-cov-2/

I think the time taken to do antibody tests would probably have slowed this down considerably.

Yes, it would have to be based on previous positive pcr test rather than antibody. But even then, not sure if any benefits would outweigh the logistics issues and the rollout is occurring at a good pace anyway.

@CoffeeandCroissant

Yes, it would have to be based on previous positive pcr test rather than antibody. But even then, not sure if any benefits would outweigh the logistics issues and the rollout is occurring at a good pace anyway.

I agree that this would be easier but it's possibly a bit risky as I'm sure not all people who had positive swab tests were then reliably testing positive on the antibody tests. These are probably the reasons why it's just far easier to jab the risk groups

Having had covid before appears to provide a similar level of protection to the better vaccines (around 90%). See here ({{https://www.vox.com/22230667/covid-immunity-natural-infection-symptoms-asymptomatic]]) which reports on a study of medical workers.

I think I read that Israel is not including people who have tested positive in their vaccination programme initially.

So it would probably be a reasonable approach but maybe not worth it logistically as people have said.

The government have massively downplayed the possibility of natural immunity in order to control people's behaviour.