Paul Misleads on Natural Infection and COVID-19 Vaccines

In a tweet, Sen. Rand Paul misleadingly suggested that immunity from “[n]aturally acquired” COVID-19 was better than that from a vaccine. But it’s not known how immunity from the two sources compares — and the entire point of a vaccine is to offer immunity without the risk of getting sick.

Paul made his claim in a Nov. 17 tweet in which he listed interim efficacy figures from two ongoing vaccine clinical trials and then provided his own calculation of the “effectiveness” of natural infection with the coronavirus.

Great news!
– Pfizer vaccine 90% effective
– Moderna vaccine 94.5% effective – Naturally acquired COVID-19  99.9982% percent effective*

 * (estimating 200 reinfections out of 11 million Americans, which is likely an overestimation of actual reinfections)

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) November 17, 2020

In a follow-up tweet, the Kentucky Republican shared a link to a New York Times article about a new unpublished study that found evidence of some immunity to the coronavirus in most people for at least six months.