3 ms·

>Yes, I know there are variants. But I've seen no science saying that it is likely or expected that the vaccine won't work against covid-19 variants. Absolutel

>Yes, I know there are variants. But I've seen no science saying that it is likely or expected that the vaccine won't work against covid-19 variants. Absolutely it is the case that even in the extremely limited time that Covid has existed it's already built tolerance to some vaccine mechanisims - for example the Novavax vaccine is something like 89% effective normally, but drops to 50% effective against variant B.1.351. [1] Any vaccine that relies on the covid-19 spike protein (all of them) is best case less effective and worst case useless if a small change to that spike protein is made. In a long enough timeline such a random mutation will happen. Most of them will not result in viable viruses but eventually one of them will. It's just a matter of statistics. >"Infectious disease expert Dr. Lisa Barrett told CTV News Channel on Sunday that viruses often mutate, but some viruses do it more than others. This language is a little bit weasley in that it implies that COVID-19 varies at a relatively slow rate. This is a widespread but incorrect assumption. Covid-19 mutates at a rate of ~10^-3 nucleotide substitutions per site per year, which is comparable to ebola or other RNA viruses [0] >We now have the best evidence yet that everyone develops long-term coronavirus immunity after infection — and it's not just about antibodies" This is saying that after you get the virus and your antibodies fade you have some residual resistance in the form of T-cells that stay in your immune system. Those T-cells are virus-specific. T-cells have all kinds of different mechanisms to detect infected cells in your body but, for example, it can detect viral peptides emitted by the cell. Where do viral peptides come from? The virus protein spike! The same thing that, when mutated, reduces or eliminates vaccine effectiveness. As far as whether this is current happening and what it means- researchers have modified other viruses to use the COVID-19 protein spike and then gave the virus suitable conditions to replicate and mutate. The result was a covid-19 spike protein that had resistance to both monoclonal antibodies and antibodies taken from patients[2].This isn't some academic exercise, this is something that is literally happening in the real world right now. Even worse on further inspection those same researchers realized these spike protein modifications were *already present* in the wild, they just weren't present in large numbers yet. [0] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 [1] https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/variants-vaccines https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/varian... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6

mikem170 6y ago
Thanks for the links! I made a first pass through them, and will look at them more. I appreciate the extra data. There's a lot of details to mull over, some of it seemingly conflicting. For example, your linked article [0] mentions "Currently available vaccines will likely offer protection against prevailing variants of SARS-CoV-2", but also says "The risk of immune escape is hard to predict long term" You linked article [1] says "it takes about eight times as many of the antibodies produced by the Moderna vaccine to neutralize the B.1.351 variant" but also says "so there is enough antibody still to neutralize the virus." And your linked article [2] says "coronaviruses change more slowly than most other RNA viruses" and "other genome data have emphasized this stability" and "sluggish mutation rate" and "if a mutation did help the virus to spread faster, it probably happened earlier, when the virus first jumped into humans" and "no signs of natural selection for any of the variants" and “probably the virus binds to ACE2 about as well as it needs to right now" and "these strains remain constant, more or less". At one point in [2] it is mentioned "I wouldn’t be surprised if this virus is maintained as a more common, cold-causing coronavirus". I've heard that mentioned as a likely outcome in other places [3]. The above article wrapped up with "Worrisome mutations could also become more common if antibody therapies aren’t used wisely", "Vaccines arouse less concern on this score because, like the body’s natural immune response, they tend to elicit a range of antibodies." This reminded me of this doctor [4], who was warning about the dangers of the covid vaccination campaign setting us up for a much worse disaster by pressuring the widely circulating virus to evolve into something much more dangerous. The statement above near the end of article [2] seems to indicate that vaccines are not as likely to cause this as are antibody therapies. I'm not sure what you were trying to get at with t-cells. I keep reading things that say t-cells from prior coronaviruses infections confer some protection against covid-19, even from other coronaviruses. Here's another link [5]. Are you saying that is not so? When it comes to the fear of immunity-evading coronavirus mutations I seem to keep hearing scientists say it is possible, but not likely. I think that is an important distinction to make. [0] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 [1] https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/variants-vaccines https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/varian... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 [3] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor... [4] https://www.deblauwetijger.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Geert-vanden-Bossche.pdf https://www.deblauwetijger.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Ge... [5] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/t-cells-found-covid-19-patients-bode-well-long-term-immunity https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/t-cells-found-covid-...

mikem170 6y ago

Thanks for the links! I made a first pass through them, and will look at them more. I appreciate the extra data. There's a lot of details to mull over, some of it seemingly conflicting. For example, your linked article [0] mentions "Currently available vaccines will likely offer protection against prevailing variants of SARS-CoV-2", but also says "The risk of immune escape is hard to predict long term" You linked article [1] says "it takes about eight times as many of the antibodies produced by the Moderna vaccine to neutralize the B.1.351 variant" but also says "so there is enough antibody still to neutralize the virus." And your linked article [2] says "coronaviruses change more slowly than most other RNA viruses" and "other genome data have emphasized this stability" and "sluggish mutation rate" and "if a mutation did help the virus to spread faster, it probably happened earlier, when the virus first jumped into humans" and "no signs of natural selection for any of the variants" and “probably the virus binds to ACE2 about as well as it needs to right now" and "these strains remain constant, more or less". At one point in [2] it is mentioned "I wouldn’t be surprised if this virus is maintained as a more common, cold-causing coronavirus". I've heard that mentioned as a likely outcome in other places [3]. The above article wrapped up with "Worrisome mutations could also become more common if antibody therapies aren’t used wisely", "Vaccines arouse less concern on this score because, like the body’s natural immune response, they tend to elicit a range of antibodies." This reminded me of this doctor [4], who was warning about the dangers of the covid vaccination campaign setting us up for a much worse disaster by pressuring the widely circulating virus to evolve into something much more dangerous. The statement above near the end of article [2] seems to indicate that vaccines are not as likely to cause this as are antibody therapies. I'm not sure what you were trying to get at with t-cells. I keep reading things that say t-cells from prior coronaviruses infections confer some protection against covid-19, even from other coronaviruses. Here's another link [5]. Are you saying that is not so? When it comes to the fear of immunity-evading coronavirus mutations I seem to keep hearing scientists say it is possible, but not likely. I think that is an important distinction to make. [0] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 [1] https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/variants-vaccines https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/varian... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 [3] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor... [4] https://www.deblauwetijger.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Geert-vanden-Bossche.pdf https://www.deblauwetijger.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Ge... [5] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/t-cells-found-covid-19-patients-bode-well-long-term-immunity https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/t-cells-found-covid-...