4 ms·

I’m personally sceptical of putting too much faith in this, we’ve already seen a number of variants. Over my lifetime? Who knows what mutations we’ll see.

Closi 5y ago
Hopefully the mutations will slow over time - the mutations at the moment may be the 'easy' ones.
- Sharlin 5y ago
  The various non-novel corona- and rhinoviruses that cause common cold don't seem to have had any problems playing catch with the human immune system for who knows how many thousand years. SARS-CoV-2 is probably more likely than not to just become a new member of the family of "domestic" human pathogens that we learn to live with.
  - threatripper 5y ago
    "learning to live with it" includes filtering out those who can't learn fast enough.
roywiggins 5y ago
The vaccine manufacturers are already gearing up for booster shots, so we won't have to trust it in the long term- new strains can be met with new vaccines.
- HighlandSpring 5y ago
  In that case won't it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    No. It was suspected from the beginning that booster shots would be necessary. There are just so many variants and the infection has spread to so many people that it was unrealistic to expect a single round would eliminate the virus. There's a very real risk of covid vaccines being necessary every year.
nickthemagicman 5y ago
The common consensus among scientists now is that the vaccine works against most if not all variants as well.
- afavour 5y ago
  The vaccine, yes. But I'm not sure there's such consensus around homegrown antibodies.
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    The vaccine elicits homegrown anti-bodies. It's the same anti-bodies.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      I don't doubt that at all but would love to see the evidence! I'm wondering how they show that, maybe DNA sequencing of T-cell receptor sequence? Or is it only through reactivity if specific proteins? Off to search about T-cell repertoire data...
      - nickthemagicman 5y ago
        A good start is researching how vaccines work.
        epistasis 5y ago
        Aha, I think you may have been in error in your post, then. Vaccines can be targeted to many different parts of a virus, usually different parts of the surface protein. Different vaccines for the same virus may result in entirely different antibodies. Even the same vaccine may result in different antibodies in different people. The process of antibody creation is random, and involves recombination of specific DNA chunks. And it's different in T cells and B cells. So to say that the vaccine and the disease generate the same antibodies has meaning, but it needs to be shown by evaluating the specific protein sequences (most likely by sequencing the DNA or RNA that creates the antibody).
mfer 5y ago
Scientists have found that people who had SARS are immune to COVID. Their T cells fight it off. There was another variant of a coronavirus that went around and people who got that seem to be immune to. Some scientists testing on older blood samples found this. The older coronavirus didn't cause major issues in society and went unnoticed. I share this to say that there is reason to believe that we will be able to fight this off, even with mutations. It's not baseless hope.
- titzer 5y ago
  > Scientists have found that people who had SARS are immune to COVID Citation needed.
  - mfer 5y ago
    Here's one... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832v1.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832v1....
    - titzer 5y ago
      That study has N=24 and only studies T-cell response, which is a long way from being "immune" to infection. It is also a preprint and appears it has not yet been peer reviewed. So, basically, some immune response is not the same as immunity against COVID-19, which is what your OP (over-)claimed. But it really doesn't tell us anything we didn't know. SARS-COV-1 and SARS-COV-2 are related and there is some cross-activation of immune response. It is not an epidemiological study or anything.

Closi 5y ago

Hopefully the mutations will slow over time - the mutations at the moment may be the 'easy' ones.

Sharlin 5y ago
The various non-novel corona- and rhinoviruses that cause common cold don't seem to have had any problems playing catch with the human immune system for who knows how many thousand years. SARS-CoV-2 is probably more likely than not to just become a new member of the family of "domestic" human pathogens that we learn to live with.
- threatripper 5y ago
  "learning to live with it" includes filtering out those who can't learn fast enough.

roywiggins 5y ago

The vaccine manufacturers are already gearing up for booster shots, so we won't have to trust it in the long term- new strains can be met with new vaccines.

HighlandSpring 5y ago
In that case won't it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
- mywittyname 5y ago
  No. It was suspected from the beginning that booster shots would be necessary. There are just so many variants and the infection has spread to so many people that it was unrealistic to expect a single round would eliminate the virus. There's a very real risk of covid vaccines being necessary every year.

nickthemagicman 5y ago

The common consensus among scientists now is that the vaccine works against most if not all variants as well.

afavour 5y ago
The vaccine, yes. But I'm not sure there's such consensus around homegrown antibodies.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  The vaccine elicits homegrown anti-bodies. It's the same anti-bodies.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    I don't doubt that at all but would love to see the evidence! I'm wondering how they show that, maybe DNA sequencing of T-cell receptor sequence? Or is it only through reactivity if specific proteins? Off to search about T-cell repertoire data...
    - nickthemagicman 5y ago
      A good start is researching how vaccines work.
      - epistasis 5y ago
        Aha, I think you may have been in error in your post, then. Vaccines can be targeted to many different parts of a virus, usually different parts of the surface protein. Different vaccines for the same virus may result in entirely different antibodies. Even the same vaccine may result in different antibodies in different people. The process of antibody creation is random, and involves recombination of specific DNA chunks. And it's different in T cells and B cells. So to say that the vaccine and the disease generate the same antibodies has meaning, but it needs to be shown by evaluating the specific protein sequences (most likely by sequencing the DNA or RNA that creates the antibody).

mfer 5y ago

Scientists have found that people who had SARS are immune to COVID. Their T cells fight it off. There was another variant of a coronavirus that went around and people who got that seem to be immune to. Some scientists testing on older blood samples found this. The older coronavirus didn't cause major issues in society and went unnoticed. I share this to say that there is reason to believe that we will be able to fight this off, even with mutations. It's not baseless hope.

titzer 5y ago
> Scientists have found that people who had SARS are immune to COVID Citation needed.
- mfer 5y ago
  Here's one... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832v1.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832v1....
  - titzer 5y ago
    That study has N=24 and only studies T-cell response, which is a long way from being "immune" to infection. It is also a preprint and appears it has not yet been peer reviewed. So, basically, some immune response is not the same as immunity against COVID-19, which is what your OP (over-)claimed. But it really doesn't tell us anything we didn't know. SARS-COV-1 and SARS-COV-2 are related and there is some cross-activation of immune response. It is not an epidemiological study or anything.