Is Getting Infected With Covid-19 as Good as Getting Vaccinated Against It?

A study on 20,000 healthcare workers in the UK who had been infected with Covid-19, suggests they get 83% protection against contracting the disease (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/14/recovering-from-covid-gives-similar-level-of-protection-to-vaccine). This is superficially as good as the best protections offered by current vaccines. One should note, however, that, although reinfection is unlikely (although not unknown), there is no certainty that recovered individuals cannot still spread the virus to other folk. It is also unknown, whether the protection lasts beyond 20 weeks (the current duration of the study). It is advised, however, that people who have been infected by Covid-19, should still get vaccinated. Vaccines have been designed to cover a range of viral variants. So, infection-acquired immunity (the famous 'herd immunity') is far from being a complete replacement for an effective mass vaccination programme. It would be interesting to determine whether vaccinated people, who have never been clinically infected by Covid-19, are less likely to transmit the disease than are the recovered cohort.