That said there are conflicting studies: “This report details the findings of a case-control evaluation of the association between vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in Kentucky during May–June 2021 among persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 in 2020. Kentucky residents who were not vaccinated had 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with those who were fully vaccinated (odds ratio [OR] = 2.34; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.58–3.47).” https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
The nuances are complicated. False positives are a real concern for people avoiding vaccination. People that survive the first infection without vaccination are a meaningfully different population than the vaccinated population. Similarly people that get vaccinated after infection have received vaccination more recently etc.
But also, it was just methodologically flawed -- they didn't bother to correct for the bias that people who were vaccinated after infection in early 2021 were probably behaving differently than those who had not been vaccinated at that time.
If you're going to cite an old MMWR article as "evidence" against the now overwhelming pile of papers demonstrating that the immune system works pretty much as we expect from immmunology 101, don't forget that in early 2022 they released this much better, much larger (N=1.1M people) cohort study, which dramatically showed the opposite of what you're claiming. Prior infection obviously provided robust protection against Delta, on par with the vaccines:
Shocker. Why did we have to learn this again? How were the policies that diverged from the immunology 101-based position justified? This should be our starting point and we should not base policies on the opposite conclusion without good evidence to the contrary.
Saying a study is garbage when you disagree with the results is not how evidence based medicine works. Unless there was actual fraud or gross incompetence, every study should provide something of value.
Hypothetically, if vaccination provides enhanced short term protection for people after catching COVID which also provides short term protection then recommending waiting X months after getting COVID to get vaccinated is one option. Alternatively, if post COVID vaccination did absolutely nothing then you could recommend skipping it, ignoring false positives.
1) in retrospect it was obviously incorrect, and
2) even at the time, a reasonable scientist could have concluded that it was flawed
I don't generally call papers "flaming garbage", but some are so egregiously, transparently awful -- at the time of publication -- that saying otherwise is dishonest. That MMWR study was one.
Your only complaint relevant at the time of publication was people that where vaccinated acted differently, that’s also true of the study you linked. It wasn’t double blinded making it “hot garbage” by your logic. Presumably the only reason you linked it was it didn’t contradict your assumptions, even though it failed to address the actual question of how useful post COVID vaccination is.
Except we care about real world outcomes so a double blind study would be less relevant making your original complaint pointless.