You are correct, but that doesn't mean it's anecdotal. At this point we don't know whether natural immunity is 'better' than vaccine induced immunity, and it could go either way. There are many disease (including viral ones!) for which the vaccines are orders of magnitude more effective [1].
The simple reason being that the vaccines have the spike protein as a marker - the part of the virus that we expect is least likely to change significantly.
What we do know is that the current Delta variant, which is a fitness escape but also partly an immune escape, has infected a number of people that had the vanilla variant.
> You are correct, but that doesn't mean it's anecdotal. At this point we don't know whether natural immunity is 'better' than vaccine induced immunity, and it could go either way.
There is this study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01377-8 saying that natural immunity seems to be slightly worse than Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, but better than AstraZeneca or Johnson vaccine.
If you're exposed to a pathogen, you'll get infected. Immunity makes it so that your body recognizes the attacker and fights it.
Vaccines and prior infection train the adaptive immune system to recognize pathogens so that the body can begin fighting the infection sooner. Some people's immune systems work less well than others, or due to situational factors, a person is more susceptible to infection and they become sick. People with immunity generally do far better at fighting the infection, being less ill and recovering faster.
Nothing is perfect. Vaccines are better than getting sick or doing nothing.
