Sarah Palin cites Israeli study showing the power of natural immunity to explain why she didn’t get COVID-19 jab

Sarah Palin recently revealed that she has not been vaccinated against COVID-19 because of her belief in science.

In an appearance on Fox News’ Gutfeld, the former governor of Alaska explained why she feels that her previous COVID-19 infection provides sufficient protection.

“The Fauci-ism of the day, back then, was if you’ve had COVID — I’ve had COVID — well, then, Mother Nature was creating an immunity,” she said. “And even today they say you’re 27 percent more immune—”

She added: “I believe in the science, and I have not taken the shot.”

Another guest, Dr. Drew Pinsky, a doctor of internal medicine, backed up Palin’s stance, clarifying that a recent Israeli study showed that people with a previous infection were 27 times – rather than 27 percent – less likely than those who have been vaccinated to contract the Delta variant.

Palin ran alongside John McCain in the 2008 presidential election as the Republican vice-presidential nominee and would have become the nation’s first female vice president had he won the election. She announced this spring that she and some members of her family had tested positive for COVID-19.

At the time, she encouraged people to wear masks, saying: “Through it all, I view wearing that cumbersome mask indoors in a crowd as not only allowing the newfound luxury of being incognito, but trust it’s better than doing nothing to slow the spread.”

She also encouraged people to adopt a healthy lifestyle to boost their immunity against COVID-19 and other diseases, stating: “But please be vigilant, don’t be frightened, and I advise reprioritizing some personal time and resources to ensure as healthy a lifestyle as you can create so when viruses do hit, you have at least some armor to fight it.”

Israeli studies illustrate the immense reach of natural immunity

The studies cited by Palin and Pinsky on Gutfeld showed that natural immunity acquired by contracting a coronavirus infection gave Israelis longer-lasting protection against the virus’s Delta variant than the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine that was administered to the Israeli population earlier in the year.

A study carried out by Maccabi Healthcare Service compared 46,000-plus individuals who caught the virus at some point in the pandemic to a similar number of people who were fully vaccinated. They discovered that people who had two doses of the vaccine had a sixfold higher chance of becoming infected with the Delta variant than patients who had not been vaccinated but had previously been infected.

In the two groups, 748 breakthrough infections were found, with 640 of these noted in the vaccinated group, while the previously infected group that depended on natural immunity only saw 108 infections. The people who were relying solely on the vaccine for protection not only had a sevenfold higher chance of symptomatic infection, but they also experienced a 6.7-fold greater chance of being hospitalized.

In addition, a sample of more than 16,000 Israelis who were infected during the virus’s third wave in the country this January and February was compared to a group of the same number of people who had been vaccinated during that time frame. The contrast between people’s outcomes in these two groups was even stronger, with Delta having a 27-fold higher chance of breaking through the protection from the vaccine and causing symptoms than breaking through the natural immunity some people had acquired during the same period and causing symptoms.

The wide time frame and a large data sample gives the results a lot of credibility, and Israel has long been viewed by the rest of the world as an indicator of how the virus and vaccine protection work given the significant vaccination campaign that took place in the country well ahead of most other places.

Sources for this article include:

NewsPunch.com

NBCNews.com