Following on from my blog article two weeks ago, I believe that two of the most under-asked questions with the COVID-19 vaccine role out are: (i) what should we do with the millions of people who have already had infection and recovered? (ii) How long will immunity from the vaccine last?

We all hope that the COVID-19 vaccines are a staggering success and lead us out of this mess we are in. But the above questions remain up in the air. The current advice from Dr Fauci is to wait at least 90 days after recovering from COVID, before being vaccinated. I am not sure where this number came from or what science it is based on, but I have a strong feeling that Dr Fauci may have plucked it out of thin air. Nobody yet knows from the data, with any degree of certainty, how long immunity from natural infection lasts for.  Again, the logical question follows: if the medical establishment is dispensing this advice, given that no vaccine provides more immunity for any illness than a natural recovery (per my scientific understanding)—does this not therefore imply that the vaccine will only last a few months? This is a huge question, and also means that initial vaccine doses may be being “wasted” on millions of people who don’t yet need them—if we are giving them to those who have already have immunity from illness within the last several months.

I had a thought the other day: one of the first people to have been vaccinated against COVID-19 back in December, aptly named William Shakespeare in the United Kingdom—could only potentially be 4 weeks away from needing a repeat vaccination!

I am throwing out this question to all my readers: How long do you think average vaccination immunity will last?

• 1-6 months?
• 6-12 months?
• More than a year?

Preferably a science-based answer, feel free to message me your thoughts. The vaccine trials only had around 3 months of data. The answer to this has enormous consequences. Could we be in a situation where we are taking vaccines every few months? This will involve an even more massive medical coordination effort. It will also require enormous resources and cost, as these therapeutics don’t come cheap. Pfizer’s vaccine for instance, according to one article, costs around $15 to manufacture, and is sold at $40 (the company is estimated to make a $15 billion profit from the vaccine in 2021). If this becomes a yearly or more shot for everyone, costs will spiral quickly. The medical community and governments, need to be planning for what comes next.

Suneel Dhand is a physician, writer, and YouTuber. He is Founder at MedStoic Lifestyle Medicine and DocsDox . Follow him on YouTube and Instagram