I Was Stupid, Naturally, To Bring Up Natural Immunity

It’s just a simple song.

Passenger

“Why,” asked my friend and whip-smart colleague, “did you open your big, fat mouth about natural immunity?“

That’s not quite what he said — he’s far too gracious a man to be so blunt. But his meaning was clear, and uncomfortably close to the mark.

He was referring to comments I made to columnist Licia Corbella — published in today’s National Post — around the plague of unvaccinated people besieging Alberta’s hospitals.

This is what my colleague actually said: “Why did you bring up natural immunity in your discussion with Corbella? It was going so well until then. This comment will fuel more ‘get Covid’ parties.”

God forbid. I certainly hope not. The last thing we need is a repeat of what happened in Edson, Alberta, where precisely such a party landed multiple people in Edmonton intensive care units, deathly ill with Covid.

Yet glossing over the reality of natural immunity acquired by those who have been previously infected doesn’t serve us well, in my view.

It’s true that we don’t (yet) have good, standardized assays to measure that immunity.