Except it was widely reported that natural immunity lasted 3 to 6 months and that the vaccines would last 2 years (at least Moderna), and the nuances there I think would be lost on a lay person. I even had an immunologist explain to me in detail why the immunity from the vaccine would be way stronger than acquired immunity. It doesn't really build confidence in science if, while we're finding new things, everyone pretends that the conclusion du jour was always obvious.
I think we're in agreement here -- I did not mean to imply that a lay person following the claims bandied about in the mass media this year would have been under this impression. In fact, six months ago a claim like this would have been likely to be labeled misinformation on Twitter. I'm just saying that for the Covid vaccines to have provided better immunity than recovery from infection would have been very divergent from what is observed for the vast majority of other pathogens.
Okay but when I was asking questions about why we didn't expect booster shots from the mRNA vaccines, that is the opposite of what and immunologist at my local hospital told me. So I'm not sure it is obvious.
