Through vaccination or infection, doctors predict Florida will hit herd immunity to COVID-19

[Pinback]

39. So, bottom line from a public health perspective is still 1) "Get vaccinated." AND

2) "Don't abandon protective measures such as masking and social distancing, even if you are vaccinated."

Thanks for the information. I'm not up on the status of booster vaccine development, but presumably there is at least an awareness that going beyond Receptor Binding Domain protection would be desirable.

The second link in your post, from "the same blogger" (i.e., the Director of the NIH! ) has a useful analogy:

The researchers liken the spike protein to an umbrella, with the RBD at the tip of the “canopy.” While some antibodies do bind RBD at the tip, many others apparently target the protein’s canopy, known as the N-terminal domain (NTD).

As a layperson, I appreciate this kind of translation into easily digestible examples (as long as the simplification is accurate).

Of course, there's also the issue of possible long-haul symptoms from a COVID infection, which are not produced by vaccination. So, even though outcomes of either scenario are difficult to predict, relying on natural immunity alone seems to be much more problematic than getting vaccinated.