5 ms·

Notable commentary: > The findings of the authors suggest that infection and the development of an antibody response provides protection similar to or even bet

Notable commentary: > The findings of the authors suggest that infection and the development of an antibody response provides protection similar to or even better than currently used SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00782-0/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... In case you wanted to know - several hypotheses float around on what provides more protection an actual infection or the vaccine.

anonymouse008 6y ago
My intuitive and 0-observation question is how in the world can a reduced function protein give you a better immune response than the full-featured, infect anywhere there's an ACE receptor, c19 infection? ('A Request for Submissions' I guess should be the title of this question)
- nashequilibrium 6y ago
  Still a lot of work to be done, what I do know is, I have a family member who went to a friends party and got infected, he was sick for a few weeks and recovered without hospitalization. A few months later, the genius decided to go to a Casino near Reno NV and got infected a 2nd time and was just as sick.
  - spookthesunset 6y ago
    I look forward to returning to a time when catching a respiratory virus is an act of nature and not a moral failing.
    - sparker72678 6y ago
      Agreed. I also hope that some stigma of knowingly going out into the world while sick persists. Probably won’t, though.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      Pre-pandemic I had a habit of chucking visibly sick people out of the classroom. No one needs whatever bug they are spreading, not me, not their classmates. This attitude of presentee-ism needed to die even then. We hope it's dead now.
      - Arete314159 6y ago
        I once had a teacher in school who got mad at me for daring to take a sick day. As a moral tale, he explained that he taught class even when he had a slight cough, which turned into pneumonia. This was to show how dedicated he was. Whereas I, a high schooler, was thinking, "Doesn't that mean you SHOULD have taken a sick day, so you wouldn't have progressed to pneumonia?" If we get anything positive out of Covid, I hope it's as you say, the cult of soldiering on while infecting others has stopped.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - jokethrowaway 6y ago
        Presentee-ism needs to die full stop. There is no reason to force another human being to attend your lesson if they can pass your exam / go to work if they can deliver the same results somewhere else. (I'm not advocating for forcing employers and school to give people flexibility through legislation, I'd just want to see a voluntary cultural shift)
    - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
      Leveraging a historical perspective (not a judgement about "good" or "bad" or "should" or "shouldn't", just an observation), the world really might not return to accepting a respiratory virus as an act of nature. For example, dumping fecal matter into streams was the norm (still the norm in many places today). Arguably it was and is still considered "an act of nature". However, the modern appetite for such behavior is considered unethical/immoral (unless left with no other options). This story regarding personal and group health vs personal freedom and choice (or ignorance through accidents/neglect) repeats many times in history. Arguably each article of clothing was at one time a unique and major health/wellness conversation within the culture, and either won out or that clothing was lost to time. Similarly in home plumbing (a home without running water is considered immoral), contributing towards smoke/smog in cities is considered immoral, etc. It seems likely that both masks, and accidentally getting a respiratory virus (including the cold/flu - given its death toll) could flip into the immoral bucket forever regardless of the impact to "personal freedoms". I'm not smart enough to know which way it will go or which way it should go. Which ever way it ends up falling, I hope we come out with a healthier society for our bodies, but also for our psyches.
      - glofish 6y ago
        the difference of course is that it that, unlike handwashing or dumping fecal matter in the water, there is still no scientific evidence that masks actually work (for reducing infections when worn on the street by a population where most people are not infected) no seriously - I wish I were kidding!
        nick_kline 6y ago
        I feel like that's misleading. The key thing you said is outside - inside there is plenty of research about various aspects of the protective value of masks in stopping droplets and comparisons of various masks. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-research-confirms-critical-role-of-masks-in-preventing-covid-19-infection/ https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-re...
        6y ago
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      I do hope the moralizations get cut back but also that adults and children stay the fuck home when sick and we can ditch this perfect attendance play through the pain attitude towards minor infectious diseases.
  - petertodd 6y ago
    Did he actually get tested for covid both times? There's plenty of other illnesses that'll make you plenty sick. I personally took a few weeks to recover fully after the flu a few years back.
    - FearlessNebula 6y ago
      > took a few weeks to recover fully after the flu "But it's just a flu" The number of idiots who think the flu alone (let alone COVID) is a mild thing...
    - nashequilibrium 6y ago
      Yes, he had to for work reasons.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sparker72678 6y ago
  Total load, and immune stimulation can be different between infection and vaccine, as unintuitive as that might be. And many viruses, SARS-Cov-2 included, have immune response suppression effects that the vaccine does not. More study is needed, both those are possibilities.
  - anonymouse008 6y ago
    Surely, I guess that's kind of the point right? You hope to 'smoke out' a response with much more load of a milder substance, rather than send dangerous amounts of fully active c19. The question I have is, I get that the 'spike proteins' are important, but isn't that just the entry mechanism, and not the complete picture of a c19 infection pathway - i.e. the nature of the c-storm and how effectively the Krebs cycle destroys itself because of what happens after c19 enters the cell? The above is a terrible memory dump of the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj2vB_VITXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj2vB_VITXQ
- gpm 6y ago
  Being sick, especially recently, makes you less healthy and more susceptible to all kinds of viruses?
- glofish 6y ago
  the way I understood it, against a living virus there are different types of responses, some more effective than others, the duration and effectiveness of the protection may depend on which response your body mounted whereas with the vaccine there is more control over which response is being triggered
- dougmwne 6y ago
  The spike protein "springs" into an elongated configuration to help it latch onto a cell wall. Several of the vaccines have purposefully modified the protein used in the vaccine to keep it in it's unsprung form. The idea is that you want the antibody response to be focused on the unsprung protein so that you can prevent it from attaching and springing in the first place. From what I understand, the vaccine researchers have tested several variations of the spike protein in animal models to try to select one that will yield the best antibodies. The immune system is quite complex, but in theory it would be possible to design a protein that resulted in better antibodies than a wild infection. An analogy is it's like showing your immune system a lock and asking it to come up with a key that opens the lock. A different lock might produce a universal key that opens many locks.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  AIDS. Some infections never result in practical immunity. Ebola. Some diseases are so lethal that survival of infection isnt a real option. In these cases any reduced function protien would be better than infection.
  - taneq 6y ago
    This is kind of assuming that a vaccine is in fact possible with these diseases...
    - AgentOrange1234 6y ago
      I think we have it for Ebola, at least? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_vaccine
      - taneq 6y ago
        Huh, TIL. Only in the past year or two, though, so I don't feel too bad about it. Yay, science!
    - pajko 6y ago
      HIV vaccine is in the works: https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/141892/novel-hiv-vaccine-approach-shows-promise-in-landmark-first-in-human-trial/ https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/141892/nov...
- apendleton 6y ago
  As you say, sars-cov2 viruses come with all sorts of epitopes that could conceivably generate immune responses, and the sense I get is that with real infections, there's an element of chance as to which ones generate responses, and they're also not all created equal in terms of which ones tend to be conserved vs. vary a lot among strains. The choice of the spike protein for the vaccine was specifically to generate responses to epitopes that are thought to be highly conserved (though not perfectly, given e.g. B1351), whereas with natural infection you might generate a response that successfully clears your current infection but might be less protective against the next version you encounter. (Though at 84%, maybe that effect is weaker than some speculated it might be?)

anonymouse008 6y ago

My intuitive and 0-observation question is how in the world can a reduced function protein give you a better immune response than the full-featured, infect anywhere there's an ACE receptor, c19 infection? ('A Request for Submissions' I guess should be the title of this question)

nashequilibrium 6y ago
Still a lot of work to be done, what I do know is, I have a family member who went to a friends party and got infected, he was sick for a few weeks and recovered without hospitalization. A few months later, the genius decided to go to a Casino near Reno NV and got infected a 2nd time and was just as sick.
- spookthesunset 6y ago
  I look forward to returning to a time when catching a respiratory virus is an act of nature and not a moral failing.
  - sparker72678 6y ago
    Agreed. I also hope that some stigma of knowingly going out into the world while sick persists. Probably won’t, though.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    Pre-pandemic I had a habit of chucking visibly sick people out of the classroom. No one needs whatever bug they are spreading, not me, not their classmates. This attitude of presentee-ism needed to die even then. We hope it's dead now.
    - Arete314159 6y ago
      I once had a teacher in school who got mad at me for daring to take a sick day. As a moral tale, he explained that he taught class even when he had a slight cough, which turned into pneumonia. This was to show how dedicated he was. Whereas I, a high schooler, was thinking, "Doesn't that mean you SHOULD have taken a sick day, so you wouldn't have progressed to pneumonia?" If we get anything positive out of Covid, I hope it's as you say, the cult of soldiering on while infecting others has stopped.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jokethrowaway 6y ago
      Presentee-ism needs to die full stop. There is no reason to force another human being to attend your lesson if they can pass your exam / go to work if they can deliver the same results somewhere else. (I'm not advocating for forcing employers and school to give people flexibility through legislation, I'd just want to see a voluntary cultural shift)
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    Leveraging a historical perspective (not a judgement about "good" or "bad" or "should" or "shouldn't", just an observation), the world really might not return to accepting a respiratory virus as an act of nature. For example, dumping fecal matter into streams was the norm (still the norm in many places today). Arguably it was and is still considered "an act of nature". However, the modern appetite for such behavior is considered unethical/immoral (unless left with no other options). This story regarding personal and group health vs personal freedom and choice (or ignorance through accidents/neglect) repeats many times in history. Arguably each article of clothing was at one time a unique and major health/wellness conversation within the culture, and either won out or that clothing was lost to time. Similarly in home plumbing (a home without running water is considered immoral), contributing towards smoke/smog in cities is considered immoral, etc. It seems likely that both masks, and accidentally getting a respiratory virus (including the cold/flu - given its death toll) could flip into the immoral bucket forever regardless of the impact to "personal freedoms". I'm not smart enough to know which way it will go or which way it should go. Which ever way it ends up falling, I hope we come out with a healthier society for our bodies, but also for our psyches.
    - glofish 6y ago
      the difference of course is that it that, unlike handwashing or dumping fecal matter in the water, there is still no scientific evidence that masks actually work (for reducing infections when worn on the street by a population where most people are not infected) no seriously - I wish I were kidding!
      - nick_kline 6y ago
        I feel like that's misleading. The key thing you said is outside - inside there is plenty of research about various aspects of the protective value of masks in stopping droplets and comparisons of various masks. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-research-confirms-critical-role-of-masks-in-preventing-covid-19-infection/ https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-re...
        6y ago
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    I do hope the moralizations get cut back but also that adults and children stay the fuck home when sick and we can ditch this perfect attendance play through the pain attitude towards minor infectious diseases.
- petertodd 6y ago
  Did he actually get tested for covid both times? There's plenty of other illnesses that'll make you plenty sick. I personally took a few weeks to recover fully after the flu a few years back.
  - FearlessNebula 6y ago
    > took a few weeks to recover fully after the flu "But it's just a flu" The number of idiots who think the flu alone (let alone COVID) is a mild thing...
  - nashequilibrium 6y ago
    Yes, he had to for work reasons.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sparker72678 6y ago
Total load, and immune stimulation can be different between infection and vaccine, as unintuitive as that might be. And many viruses, SARS-Cov-2 included, have immune response suppression effects that the vaccine does not. More study is needed, both those are possibilities.
- anonymouse008 6y ago
  Surely, I guess that's kind of the point right? You hope to 'smoke out' a response with much more load of a milder substance, rather than send dangerous amounts of fully active c19. The question I have is, I get that the 'spike proteins' are important, but isn't that just the entry mechanism, and not the complete picture of a c19 infection pathway - i.e. the nature of the c-storm and how effectively the Krebs cycle destroys itself because of what happens after c19 enters the cell? The above is a terrible memory dump of the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj2vB_VITXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj2vB_VITXQ
gpm 6y ago
Being sick, especially recently, makes you less healthy and more susceptible to all kinds of viruses?
glofish 6y ago
the way I understood it, against a living virus there are different types of responses, some more effective than others, the duration and effectiveness of the protection may depend on which response your body mounted whereas with the vaccine there is more control over which response is being triggered
dougmwne 6y ago
The spike protein "springs" into an elongated configuration to help it latch onto a cell wall. Several of the vaccines have purposefully modified the protein used in the vaccine to keep it in it's unsprung form. The idea is that you want the antibody response to be focused on the unsprung protein so that you can prevent it from attaching and springing in the first place. From what I understand, the vaccine researchers have tested several variations of the spike protein in animal models to try to select one that will yield the best antibodies. The immune system is quite complex, but in theory it would be possible to design a protein that resulted in better antibodies than a wild infection. An analogy is it's like showing your immune system a lock and asking it to come up with a key that opens the lock. A different lock might produce a universal key that opens many locks.
sandworm101 6y ago
AIDS. Some infections never result in practical immunity. Ebola. Some diseases are so lethal that survival of infection isnt a real option. In these cases any reduced function protien would be better than infection.
- taneq 6y ago
  This is kind of assuming that a vaccine is in fact possible with these diseases...
  - AgentOrange1234 6y ago
    I think we have it for Ebola, at least? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_vaccine
    - taneq 6y ago
      Huh, TIL. Only in the past year or two, though, so I don't feel too bad about it. Yay, science!
  - pajko 6y ago
    HIV vaccine is in the works: https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/141892/novel-hiv-vaccine-approach-shows-promise-in-landmark-first-in-human-trial/ https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/141892/nov...
apendleton 6y ago
As you say, sars-cov2 viruses come with all sorts of epitopes that could conceivably generate immune responses, and the sense I get is that with real infections, there's an element of chance as to which ones generate responses, and they're also not all created equal in terms of which ones tend to be conserved vs. vary a lot among strains. The choice of the spike protein for the vaccine was specifically to generate responses to epitopes that are thought to be highly conserved (though not perfectly, given e.g. B1351), whereas with natural infection you might generate a response that successfully clears your current infection but might be less protective against the next version you encounter. (Though at 84%, maybe that effect is weaker than some speculated it might be?)