A new study suggests that vaccines are “better than nature” at producing virus-fighting antibodies, federal health officials said Wednesday — as they announced the US has hit a promising “new low” of daily COVID-19 deaths.
During a White House coronavirus briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed to a new study showing that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines protect against the virus better than recovering from a natural infection.
Two doses of the jabs produce up to 10 times more antibodies than a person who caught the virus naturally, according to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory study cited by Fauci.
“We can … do better than nature,” Fauci said. “That’s one interesting and important concept.”
The vaccines also likely provide better protection against certain variants of the virus, Fauci said.
Meanwhile, the seven-day daily average of coronavirus fatalities in the US fell to 404 per day — down from 876 reported on April 28 — while infection and hospitalization rates also plunged, according to CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
“The seven-day average of daily deaths have declined to a new low,” Walensky said. “Every day, with daily cases continuing to fall, we are hopeful about these really encouraging trends.”
She added, “We are not out of the woods yet but we could be very close.”
Walensky cited a new CDC study that projects promising “long-term trajectories” — including a “sharp decline” of infections by July.
Overall, officials said coronavirus cases dropped to a seven-day average of 32,460 and that hospitalizations fell to 3,915 — a decrease of 12 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
Around 44.7 percent of the US population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
