I think it is due to politics that you don't hear this discussed; seemingly, nuance makes it more difficult to convey a message. The number of people who are known to have been infected is not insignificant, and the number who have been infected but it isn't known is much higher. (I thought estimated were that at least 4x as many people have had Covid as show up in the published results).
There is every reason to expect that natural immunity (derived from a previous infection) is better (than that conferred by a vaccine), simply because the immune system will recognize the entire virus and not just the spike cell.
This pre-print paper (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...) concludes:
"This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant."
If having pre-delta covid made it more likely that your immune system could face delta, then I think it would stand true for other variants, too.
There is every reason to expect that natural immunity (derived from a previous infection) is better (than that conferred by a vaccine), simply because the immune system will recognize the entire virus and not just the spike cell.
This pre-print paper (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...) concludes:
"This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant."
If having pre-delta covid made it more likely that your immune system could face delta, then I think it would stand true for other variants, too.