We are just as well protected against Covid when we are previously infected with the virus and when we are vaccinated, concludes today one of the largest studies on this issue that is critical to the management of the epidemic.

“Even if an infection provides protection that wanes over time, the level of this protection (…) appears to be as durable as, even more than, that provided by vaccination,” concludes the published paper. in The Lancet journal.

The comparison this is based on Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccines, which are among the most effective against Covid and are at the forefront of the vaccination campaigns of numerous Western countries.

The subject is not new and many studies have already attempted to compare them risks someone getting Covid again, depending on whether they have been vaccinated or already infected.

But the paper published by the Lancet is unprecedented in scope: it brings together around 60 pre-existing studies, going back years and mainly considering the appearance in late 2021 of the Omicron variant.

This result does not mean that it does not matter whether someone is vaccinated or infected to acquire a first immunity: it is indeed much more dangerous to get sick, especially for the elderly.

In any case this study gives a more accurate picture of what one can expect in the population from the development of a “hybrid” immunity, to the extent that more and more people will have been both vaccinated and sickened at least once.

“In the long run most infections will occur in persons well protected from the more severe forms of the disease after previous infection, vaccination, or both,” researchers who were not involved in the study stressed in their commentary also published by the Lancet.

These results therefore allow us to hope that future waves of Covid will translate into low levels of hospitalizations, they conclude.