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Interestingly, the mRNA vaccines produce superior immunity compared to getting infected, due mainly to the two dose regimen. For similarly long-lasting natural

by ghc 5y ago

Interestingly, the mRNA vaccines produce superior immunity compared to getting infected, due mainly to the two dose regimen. For similarly long-lasting natural immunity you'd probably need to get infected with covid twice.

petertodd 5y ago
Do you have a source for that?
- ghc 5y ago
  My wife is an immunologist who works on this at BioNTech. She explained it to me that this is expected and the data matches it. She explained why as well but there's a big gap in my undergrad-level understanding of bio and her phd + years of experience in the field, so it went way over my head I'm afraid.
jjk166 5y ago
There's also the benefit that with the mRNA vaccines (and the adenovirus vaccines as well), your body is developing antibodies specifically for the spike protein, which is highly conserved. Your body's immune response to actual covid may, just by chance, focus on a less strongly conserved target.
- selcuka 5y ago
  I was under the impression that it's the other way around; spike protein is not conserved between variants [1]: https://theconversation.com/new-coronavirus-variant-what-is-the-spike-protein-and-why-are-mutations-on-it-important-152463 https://theconversation.com/new-coronavirus-variant-what-is-...
  - garmaine 5y ago
    If you track each and every mutation as a variant, then here are thousands of them. Changes in the spike protein have the largest effect though, so we track those specifically, and clusters of changes to the spike protein are what get official designation as variants. Because that’s what we care about.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    That article is explaining that it's particularly worrying that some variants do have changes to the spike protein, not that this is common (it isn't). Mutation causes random changes, the selection process eliminates those that render the mutated version less fit. The focus on the spike is because most random changes to the spike also make it useless, the virus becomes impotent. Such mutations won't thrive of course, and so we hardly see them at all, but they are happening. In contrast, many random changes elsewhere might not prevent the virus from working. They might say, make it less able to survive outside a body, which would give it a disadvantage against variants that don't have that change, but if they also mean the immune system of a previous host doesn't recognise them, that's a big advantage to counteract that. We see lots of these variants because they "work", but since the spike is the same existing vaccines ought to be effective. So this is why it made sense to focus on the spike, even though as this article shows it isn't a magical panacea.
o-__-o 5y ago
What about the probability from having had a very bad infection?

by ghc 5y ago

petertodd 5y ago

Do you have a source for that?

ghc 5y ago
My wife is an immunologist who works on this at BioNTech. She explained it to me that this is expected and the data matches it. She explained why as well but there's a big gap in my undergrad-level understanding of bio and her phd + years of experience in the field, so it went way over my head I'm afraid.

jjk166 5y ago

There's also the benefit that with the mRNA vaccines (and the adenovirus vaccines as well), your body is developing antibodies specifically for the spike protein, which is highly conserved. Your body's immune response to actual covid may, just by chance, focus on a less strongly conserved target.

selcuka 5y ago
I was under the impression that it's the other way around; spike protein is not conserved between variants [1]: https://theconversation.com/new-coronavirus-variant-what-is-the-spike-protein-and-why-are-mutations-on-it-important-152463 https://theconversation.com/new-coronavirus-variant-what-is-...
- garmaine 5y ago
  If you track each and every mutation as a variant, then here are thousands of them. Changes in the spike protein have the largest effect though, so we track those specifically, and clusters of changes to the spike protein are what get official designation as variants. Because that’s what we care about.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  That article is explaining that it's particularly worrying that some variants do have changes to the spike protein, not that this is common (it isn't). Mutation causes random changes, the selection process eliminates those that render the mutated version less fit. The focus on the spike is because most random changes to the spike also make it useless, the virus becomes impotent. Such mutations won't thrive of course, and so we hardly see them at all, but they are happening. In contrast, many random changes elsewhere might not prevent the virus from working. They might say, make it less able to survive outside a body, which would give it a disadvantage against variants that don't have that change, but if they also mean the immune system of a previous host doesn't recognise them, that's a big advantage to counteract that. We see lots of these variants because they "work", but since the spike is the same existing vaccines ought to be effective. So this is why it made sense to focus on the spike, even though as this article shows it isn't a magical panacea.

o-__-o 5y ago

What about the probability from having had a very bad infection?