34 ms·

Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

240 points by rolph 5y ago

dogma1138 5y ago
It would be interesting to see the duration of the immunity or resistance across multiple vaccine variants. The latest data from the UK indicates that the AZ vaccine suffers less degradation over time than Pfizer, at least when it comes to the Delta variant which is now the prevalent one in the UK. Israel has now giving boosters to 30 year olds and older in order to boost the immunity to infection and resistance to severe illness.
- shin_lao 5y ago
  My understanding is that it may be due to the difference of time during the two shots. It's possible that 2 weeks between the two shots of Pfizer is too short. We're learning.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    In the UK Pfizer and AZ both are on 8 weeks protocols and the UK has seen a sharper drop in Pfizer efficacy compared to AZ. I got Pfizer in the UK, I also suspect to have had it in March (3 days of some coughing and loss of smell), I’m under 40 so no AZ for me.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    In part due to immunity duration concerns and, honestly, in part due to supply issues - Canada ended up going way wide on vaccines - most people ended up with twelve weeks between vaccinations.
    - walterbell 5y ago
      Canada also made the bold move of mixing different vaccines, even though there were zero clinical trials of multi-vendor vaccines.
  - graywh 5y ago
    Pfizer is 3 weeks, Moderna is 4
    - walterbell 5y ago
      Moderna apparently has a 33% higher volume dosage?
      - maxerickson 5y ago
        It's 3x larger, at least by the amount of mRNA.
- arisAlexis 5y ago
  But the lower efficacy drop of Pfizer is still higher than the less degraded AZ efficacy...
bananabiscuit 5y ago
The spike protein targeting antibodies produced by the vaccine do indeed target a wider range of spike mutations than the spike protein antibodies from previous infection. However, vaccines only target spike protein, while a previous infection will cause your body to produce antibodies for a much larger set of targets on the virus, which in practice leads to a more robust immunity. This is supported by data from Israel and some recent studies. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310963 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310963 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
- nradov 5y ago
  That really depends on which vaccine. There are several inactivated virus vaccines such as Sinovac used in other countries which we would expect to produce antibodies for more than just the spike protein. However it's unclear whether those vaccines are more or less effective in practice.
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    I think on a personal basis all of them are better than nothing. It's like advice about taking the first bus out of town.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    Are there such vaccines available in the US? It seems like those would make for effective boosters.
    - nradov 5y ago
      There are no inactivated virus vaccines authorized in the US. I'm not aware of any research on the effectiveness of using such vaccines as boosters after other types of vaccines.
      - 5y ago
Zigurd 5y ago
If you are wondering whether you are sufficiently protected by having recovered from COVID, this article provides up to date answers. Get vaccinated. Get a booster if recommended.
- corona-research 5y ago
  why?
- vkou 5y ago
  You are being unfairly downvoted, because what you are saying runs contrary to people's gut feelings. At this point, we have enough statistics on people getting COVID a second time with or without vaccination, to know that vaccination reduces your odds of re-infection by ~2.3. [1] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
  - bananabiscuit 5y ago
    This is true. But given the already high baseline immunity for previously infected people, the messaging for them should be somewhere closer to “you can get the vaccine if you want” rather than “you must get the vaccine otherwise you are causing the pandemic”.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I don't know - I consider getting vaccinated to be a matter of common courtesy to those you're going to be interacting with now. I don't feel like thanking folks for only kicking - and not murdering - the adorable puppy at this point. Those who have been advised not to get vaccinated due to immune issues or other medical reasons I completely get - but everyone else is basically saying "I think preserving my pride by sticking to my misinformed opinion is more important than preventing harm to all of you." The vaccines work, get it. My dad has survived three bouts with different forms of cancer - he's healthy and could be around for a long time. Please don't let your pride put his life in danger.
corona-research 5y ago
PLANDEMIC
mabbo 5y ago
> antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD compared to antibodies elicited by an infection, which more often targeted other portions of the spike protein. I wonder how this might impact the design of future mRNA vaccines. For example, could vaccines target multiple proteins that both are associated with the virus?
- rolph 5y ago
  this is referred to as a polyvalent vaccine, and it is a good thing to do once we understand enough about the antigens in question to incorporate both in one shot. There is nothing of course precluding two different vaccines of differenct valence, and we have been doing this for a short time now, when we combine single jab mRna vaccines, with adenoviral vectored vaccines, there is very slight sequence variation between adV and mRNA vaccines however by strictest interpretation this is a multivalant[bivalant] scenario.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    it also generates immunity to the adenoviral vector proteins
    - rolph 5y ago
      yes and this has been the big setback for many years this is why we dont have a lot of these vector vaccines. if someone is immune to adenovirus they typically destroy the vaccine before antigen can be presented. this reduces prophylactic opportunities regarding serial innoculation with adenovirus vector, regardless of the cassette load i am one of those people, having worked with adenovirus, as well as coronavirus, thus i am obligated to non adenoviral vaccine, and made out quite well during my infection with SARS-1, and with SARS-2
      - cblconfederate 5y ago
        you got infected with SARS1?
anonuser123456 5y ago
Antigen targets aside, there is also a difference in the production of antibodies in the mucosal system. Current vaccines are intra muscular and lacks a robust mucosal response while natural infection will provide mucosal immunity as well. As one can imagine, mucosal immunity is very important in an upper respiratory track disease w.r.t. symptomatic infection and transmission.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  Yeah, why aren't we putting more effort into getting an intranasal vaccine approved for emergency use? An intranasal vaccine would confer mucosal immunity and might also be more acceptable to the vaccine hesitant. They're talking about 3rd shot boosters, but I'd really like to be able to get an intranasal vaccine as the third booster.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Nasal vaccine trials are underway. We should have preliminary results in a few months. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/92527 https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9252...
  - pettusftw 5y ago
    IIRC there is an intranasal expected to be approved mid next year. I can't find the source I read that in, so take the timing with a grain of salt. Another source I can't find at the moment mentioned questions about the duration of protection from that method of vaccination as well. I would guess the push for intramuscular was driven for multiple reasons, the first being ease of development and the second to keep hospitalizations and death at a minimum.
  - jart 5y ago
    I don't think anyone's concerned about IM vs. IN as they are mRNA vs. DNA. The boosters deliver double stranded helix straight to the nucleus like a Windows update. You'd have to pull an Apocalypse Now to roll that back. GM people nobody panics but GM organic food and everyone loses their minds.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
superkuh 5y ago
Intramuscular vaccinations are the most important first step and will keep hospitalization down. But intramuscular vaccination for respiratory viruses does not provide long lasting immunity to the surface mucosa tissues of the upper respiratory tract. The IgG antibodies in body serum do seep into the lower lungs and provide robust protection from serious disease, but they do not prevent infections very long in the nose, sinuses, or throat. This is the disparity many studies are now highlighting but failing to acknowledge the cause of. The required next step is intranasal vaccination to recruit B and T cells to the upper respiratory mucosa and have the B cells produce local IgA antibodies. This would actually stop infections (infections defined from nasal swab testing). It is up to the NIH and other large organizations in the world to get this messaging out there. There are two types of "breakthrough". There's the fact that intramuscular vaccinations don't protect the upper respiratory mucosa, and then there's the very rare cases when sars-cov-2 actually manages to infect body organs and the lower lungs. They are entirely different things. The variants currently circulating don't play a huge role in this discrepancy. We'd be seeing the same amount of upper respiratory mucosa infections (not hospitalizations) even if there were no delta and it was just alpha/beta/gamma or even original wuhan sequence sars-cov-2. ref: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evolution-of-sars-cov-2-26-july-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti... page 5, #8. "Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals." ref: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 "the ideal vaccination strategy may use an intramuscular vaccine to elicit a long-lived systemic IgG response and a broad repertoire of central memory B and T cells, followed by an intranasal booster that recruits memory B and T cells to the nasal passages and further guides their differentiation toward mucosal protection, including IgA secretion and tissue-resident memory cells in the respiratory tract." ref: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  Why isn't there more of a push for emergency use of intranasal vaccines? Apparently there are some in the testing phase, but I think if they were given as much resources as the mRNA vaccines were we might have already had an intranasal vaccine in use by now. The Israelis have one in testing but it still sounds like it's a long ways off from being deployed on a large scale. The other advantage of an intransal vaccine is that we might be able to convince a portion of the vaccine hesitant to get it.
civilized 5y ago
There's a critical point I think is getting lost in the shuffle: vaccine immunity may be different from natural immunity, but (1) it does seem to protect against severe cases, (2) precisely because the protection is imperfect, the first infection you get after being vaccinated should train the immune system in a similar way as an unvaccinated infection. So to me, the real question is, what is your immunity like after you get vaccinated AND then infected? Because that's what is most likely to happen in the long run, as COVID becomes endemic. Everyone's going to get an infection, so does vaccine + infection give you better or worse immunity than no vaccine + infection?
- pajamanaut 5y ago
  It seems like the article is saying that vaccine immunity is actually more robust that natural immunity though.
  - flatiron 5y ago
    For spike proteins. Not for the other targets you get with natural immunity.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > For spike proteins. Not for the other targets you get with natural immunity From the article: "the new evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying 'single letter' changes in a key portion of their spike protein compared to antibodies acquired from an infection." The study discussed in the article unequivocally states that vaccine-induced immunity is more robust than that from infection.
      - criticaltinker 5y ago
        > unequivocally states that vaccine-induced immunity is more robust than that from infection. It absolutely does not make such a strong claim - a more accurate takeaway is that vaccination using the current mRNA based formulations induces an immune response highly targeted toward the S protein RBD. This has not been conclusively proven to provide better or worse protection than immunity acquired through natural infection. > At first glance, the RBD targeting of the vaccine sera neutralization might seem likely to increase susceptibility to viral mutations, but the rest of our results SUGGEST that this MAY not be the case. > We found that the specificity of the mRNA-1273 vaccine-induced RBD-binding antibody response often narrows over time. In contrast, the infection-elicited RBD-binding antibody response often broadens over time > The vaccinated individuals in our study were relatively young (18–55 years) and healthy, whereas the convalescent individuals were older (23–76 years, median 56) with a range of comorbidities (13). > Additionally, we did not examine effects of mutations or deletions to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, which can also affect neutralization by vaccine sera (7). > Our experiments assayed binding of antibodies to isolated RBD expressed by yeast, and so cannot capture mutational effects on trimer conformation or antibodies with quaternary epitopes > Evidence from multiple experimental studies showing that single RBD point mutations can lead to resistance to neutralizing convalescent plasma from multiple donors suggests that specific single mutants may be able to evade spike-targeting vaccinal immunity in many individuals and rapidly lead to spread of vaccine-resistant SARS-CoV-2. [1] [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
huibf 5y ago
Quick, flag this!!!!
nanis 5y ago
Full text here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8369496/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8369496/ From the discussion section: > In this study, we have shown differences in the specificity of polyclonal serum antibodies acquired by infection versus vaccination with mRNA-1273. The neutralizing activity of vaccine sera is more targeted to the RBD than for convalescent sera, with the majority of vaccine sera losing all detectable neutralization at a 1:25 cutoff after depletion of RBD-directed antibodies. (emphasis mine) From the conclusion: > Despite these limitations, our results in conjunction with other recent studies (19) suggest that mRNA vaccines and infection elicit somewhat distinct anti-spike antibody responses. Therefore, it is important to differentiate antibody immunity acquired by different means when assessing the impact of viral evolution. Considerable effort is being expended to identify emerging antigenic variants of SARS-CoV-2 and determine which ones might evade immunity (3, 7, 8, 35). Our findings suggest that the results could vary depending on the source of immunity. Furthermore, carefully characterizing and comparing the specificity of antibody immunity elicited by additional vaccine modalities could provide a basis for determining whether some vaccine responses will be more resistant to viral evolution.
fouric 5y ago
> The new evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying “single letter” changes in a key portion of their spike protein compared to antibodies acquired from an infection. This seems like a remarkably specific criteria. Using my naive, computer-science brain, I would think that it's unlikely that a mutation would consist of exactly one change to the RBD amino acid sequence (compared to all of the other possible mutations). What am I missing?
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  A variant has multiple mutations which they call "single letter changes". It's not meant to say that there will be only one mutation per variant
- rolph 5y ago
  single letter change is refered to as a point mutation meaning one residue. it is common there are a number of mutation types and numerous mechanisms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation in the case of point mutations, cosmic ray ablation, and wobbly fit of the replication mechanism lead to data corruption, conflated by error prone replication or error prone proof reading
brainbrane 5y ago
I just learned last week that my COVID antibody count from the vaccine is zero. Since I'm on an immunosuppressing medication that wipes out the B cells in my bloodstream, this isn't really all that surprising to me. I learned about this because I'm in a medical study, and other people in the study who take the same medication also don't produce any COVID antibodies in response to the vaccine. What's interesting is that I still get side effects from the vaccine, and they seem to be right in line with the side effects that other people generally report. I'm no immunologist, but I've taken an armchair interest in the subject since I've been managing an autoimmune disease (MS) for the past 25 years. The immune system is an amazingly complex thing with many branches. Different types of cells interact in ways that we have yet to fully understand. In spite of having no B cells (except what's in my bone marrow), my T cell count is solidly in the normal range. And the currently-accepted catalog of types of T cells is enough to make your head swim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell#Types_of_T_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell#Types_of_T_cell Three types of CD4+ Helper T cells are implicated in MS: Th1, Th17, and Th9. And yet by killing the B cells in my bloodstream, for me that seems to stop these T cells from doing MS-like activity without substantially compromising my body's ability to still fight infections. What does all this mean for my own risk level from COVID, and in particular the Delta variant? Absolutely no clue. I've gotten my third (booster) shot and will be getting more blood drawn next week for the medical study, which I expect will again result in a zero COVID antibody count. People on my medication have been shown to have more severe cases of COVID when they contract it. I'm a realist about COVID and realize that some day I'll contract it. The best I can do is make sure I'm otherwise in good shape by eating, sleeping, and exercising right. Another option is to go off my medication, let my B cells recover, and then try another less effective medication for a while. For people in my circumstance, there really are no good answers right now. I know this is all at best tangential to the subject of this study, but I'm glad this research is getting done, and I hope it will lead to a better understanding of how to protect everyone.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  Is it possible that your side effects are a result of your immune system reacting against the delivery mechanism (PEG or adenovirus) of the vaccine? Here's one source suggesting this may occur: https://sanchakblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/mrna-vaccines-be-prepared-for-annual-shots-it-wont-be-easy-to-generate-memory-using-this-method/ https://sanchakblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/mrna-vaccines-b...
bsedlm 5y ago
> A third difference is that natural infection only exposes the body to the virus in the respiratory tract (unless the illness is very severe), while the vaccine is delivered to muscle, where the immune system may have an even better chance of seeing it and responding vigorously. But the respiratrory tract is constantly exposed to the external world, wheras the muscles are typically protected by the skin... Therefore I find this fact counterintuitive.
- walterbell 5y ago
  A marketing person might consider this a way of spinning a known negative into a rhetorical positive. Unless people are being bitten by Covid-bearing mosquitoes, blood serum antibodies aren't going to be seeing virus earlier than the upper respiratory tract.
hybrid_cluster 5y ago
It will be interesting to see how the immune response develops for previously covid-naive vaccinated people after their first covid infection. Specifically, does their immune system still adapt to new variants? One of the main arguments of controversial anti-covid vaccine people like Geert vanden Bossche is that the immune response generated by the vaccine may thwart the immune system in generating an effective response to future variants after infection[0]. I don’t have enough insight into the immune system’s intricacies to evaluate whether such claims might be legit, but once variants start to emerge that really evade most of the current vaccine-induced immune response, this question will become increasingly important. [0] https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/not-covid-19-vaccine-mediated-but-naturally-acquired-immunity-enables-herd-immunity https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/not-covid-19-vaccine...
fpgaminer 5y ago
A layman's take: Maybe the antibodies are different because the immune system is being presented with _only_ the spike protein, rather than the whole virus? From my understanding, the immune system breaks the viral proteins up into pieces and then starts rapidly "evolving" antibodies to target those pieces. The goal being to ultimately produce antibodies that target those pieces, and don't target the learned whitelist of proteins (from your own body). Once it's got that it begins deploying antibody producing cells, and remembers the antibodies for later infections. What I'm curious about is the stopping criteria the body uses during the evolution stage. It sounds like it's producing an array of antibodies, not just one kind. So the stopping criteria isn't finding one working antibody. Perhaps it's more like, "Produce at least N different antibodies." If the latter, then the difference between natural and mRNA immunity makes sense to me. If your immune system is working to produce N different antibodies for the whole viral proteome, less of those antibodies will target the spike protein. And thus it will have less resilience to changes in the spike protein. But of course more tolerance to changes in the virus as a whole. Whereas with mRNA the immune system only sees the spike proteins, and since it's still going to make N different antibodies it'll have more tolerance for changes to the spike protein. What's most interesting to me, assuming any of the above is close to reality, is that mRNA vaccines allow us to give our immune system an inductive bias of some kind. Presumably our immune systems aren't "smart" enough to know what parts of a virus are most conserved, and thus best to target. It just targets all of it blindly. mRNA vaccines used the spike protein because we believe that to be the most conserved proteins. If those change too much the virus either won't work, or will effectively be a different species. So our mRNA vaccines are a way of telling our immune systems to focus their work on the "important" proteins, and thus, we would assume, give us better immunity. Whether our guess about the spike proteins is correct remains to be seen I suppose.
- IX-103 5y ago
  It's not "make N antibodies". It's a bunch of cells in parallel creating cells specialized to each create a single random antibody. Cells that create antibodies that don't work don't reproduce (linear decay). Cells that create antibodies that worked reproduce (exponential growth). This process stops when the infection is gone. For the mRNA vaccines, the antibodies only target the some protein, but on the other hand they all target the spike protein. Natural immunity products antibodies that could match want part oft the virus. The amount of protection you get against a new variant is related to how well your existing antibodies match the new virus. With natural immunity it is likely that only some of the antibodies match (and since each antibody exists in random amounts, the matching antibodies may be the ones that you have much less of). With vaccine immunity,all of the antibodies produced will work against the new variant if the spike protein is the same, offering nearly the same immunity to the variant as the original virus (assuming the spike protein doesn't change significantly). We know that the spike protein is significantly less likely to change than other parts of the virus so that's a reasonable assumption.
dabbledash 5y ago
I wonder low likely it is that over the course of a lifetime the vaccinated will end up with both forms of immunity. I assume we’ll be exposed to the virus regularly. Would the natural immunity be weaker if it comes from a second, very mild, infection?
bobbytit 5y ago
This more recent Thai study shows that natural immunity is far superior for all known variants... https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210719/Thai-study-looks-at-CoronaVac-vaccine-vs-natural-immunity-to-SARS-COV-2-variants.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210719/Thai-study-looks-...
- jiocrag 5y ago
  CoronaVac vaccine? This is a much less effective vaccine than Pfizer and Moderna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoronaVac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoronaVac), so it's not surprising that natural immunity would be superior.
  - bobbytit 5y ago
    What about the Israeli study then.. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/natural-immunity-is-stronger-than-vaccination-study-suggests https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/natural-immunity-is-stro... Double pfizer jabbed idiots were 13 times more likely to be infected than those unjabbed who had already recovered from prior infection.
  - bobbytit 5y ago
    What about the Israeli study then.. http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/natural-immunity-is-stronger-than-vaccination-study-suggests&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjg5ZWd6s_yAhVSaCsKHetjDb4QFnoECAgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3CrWllzh27q-mb6sZj6mYM http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.spectator.co.uk/arti... It found that double pfizer jabbed people were 13 times more likely to be infected than those who had already recovered.
    - jiocrag 5y ago
      Not disputing that. Anecdotally in my household: 100% break-through rate (2 Pfizer vaxxed adults and 2 unvaxxed [ineligible] children] all recently caught what we believe to be the delta variant (confirmed via PCR). That said, the vaccine clearly reduced disease severity; all recovered within a few days.
mactitan 5y ago
Informed consent disclosure to vaccine trial subjects of risk of COVID‐19 vaccines worsening clinical disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645850/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645850/ It seems that the new data invalidates that conclusion?
rubyist5eva 5y ago
The media and government overreaction to this virus is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the human race.
- bobbytit 5y ago
  Biggest is a big claim. After they got away with the climate change scam they realised they can get away with anything. Two plus two equals five. Carbon dioxide is pollution not plant food.
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    The covid-19 scamdemic has damaged this planet in 18 months in ways the climate scam couldn't even dream. The most effective solution to "climate change" is planting trees. Also the cheapest, but you can't spend trillions of dollars of taxpayer money out to your corporate buddies if you just plant trees!
  - bestcoder69 5y ago
    Not to mention the Earth is hollow and inside exists a land full of Orcs wearing bootcut jeans.
nickthemagicman 5y ago
Wouldn't this open the door to possible immune diseases in the long term? With a much wider net for the antibodies to attack, someone with the DNA and matching proteins that are similar to the spike protein would have an increased chance of an autoimmune disease.
EGreg 5y ago
Let’s look at what these articles are actually saying.. EMPHASIS is mine below: “Also, it’s POSSIBLE that mRNA delivery may change the way antigens are presented to the immune system, leading to differences in the antibodies that get produced. A third difference is that natural infection ONLY exposes the body to the virus in the respiratory tract (unless the illness is very severe), while the vaccine is delivered to muscle, where the immune system MAY have an even better chance of seeing it and responding vigorously.” After so many words, what has really been said? Something is possible. MAYBE injecting into a muscle is more effective for a vigorous response. But, folks, the natural infection ONLY exposes the body to the virus in the respiratory tract! (As opposed to ONLY the muscle? Neither is true.) But hey. We already know before even writing the article… that natural immunity is ONLY this or that, while vaccines are DIFFERENT and HOPEFULLY and MAYBE will give longer lasting immunity than natural one (never mind that studies mostly show otherwise) How do they get from vacuous statements to a firm conclusion that everyone should take the vaccine?
cblconfederate 5y ago
I feel sorry for iOS devs. Literally like prisoners begging for breadcrumbs
Proven 5y ago
It seems this has unnerved HN vax optimists. Time to start planning the 4th vax shot next spring!
chaircher 5y ago
I mean yeah but the point is to not get infected in the first place right?
xyzzy21 5y ago
Yeah, true that. With natural infection you get BOTH lymphocytic memory of the disease AND antibodies to the disease. With a vaccine you ONLY get the latter. And it's the lack of that balanced duality that creates the risk of ADE or Antibody Dependent Enhancement which is far more dangerous than getting the disease naturally.

240 points by rolph 5y ago

It would be interesting to see the duration of the immunity or resistance across multiple vaccine variants. The latest data from the UK indicates that the AZ vaccine suffers less degradation over time than Pfizer, at least when it comes to the Delta variant which is now the prevalent one in the UK. Israel has now giving boosters to 30 year olds and older in order to boost the immunity to infection and resistance to severe illness.

shin_lao 5y ago
My understanding is that it may be due to the difference of time during the two shots. It's possible that 2 weeks between the two shots of Pfizer is too short. We're learning.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  In the UK Pfizer and AZ both are on 8 weeks protocols and the UK has seen a sharper drop in Pfizer efficacy compared to AZ. I got Pfizer in the UK, I also suspect to have had it in March (3 days of some coughing and loss of smell), I’m under 40 so no AZ for me.
- munk-a 5y ago
  In part due to immunity duration concerns and, honestly, in part due to supply issues - Canada ended up going way wide on vaccines - most people ended up with twelve weeks between vaccinations.
  - walterbell 5y ago
    Canada also made the bold move of mixing different vaccines, even though there were zero clinical trials of multi-vendor vaccines.
- graywh 5y ago
  Pfizer is 3 weeks, Moderna is 4
  - walterbell 5y ago
    Moderna apparently has a 33% higher volume dosage?
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      It's 3x larger, at least by the amount of mRNA.
arisAlexis 5y ago
But the lower efficacy drop of Pfizer is still higher than the less degraded AZ efficacy...

bananabiscuit 5y ago

The spike protein targeting antibodies produced by the vaccine do indeed target a wider range of spike mutations than the spike protein antibodies from previous infection. However, vaccines only target spike protein, while a previous infection will cause your body to produce antibodies for a much larger set of targets on the virus, which in practice leads to a more robust immunity. This is supported by data from Israel and some recent studies. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310963 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310963 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

nradov 5y ago
That really depends on which vaccine. There are several inactivated virus vaccines such as Sinovac used in other countries which we would expect to produce antibodies for more than just the spike protein. However it's unclear whether those vaccines are more or less effective in practice.
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  I think on a personal basis all of them are better than nothing. It's like advice about taking the first bus out of town.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  Are there such vaccines available in the US? It seems like those would make for effective boosters.
  - nradov 5y ago
    There are no inactivated virus vaccines authorized in the US. I'm not aware of any research on the effectiveness of using such vaccines as boosters after other types of vaccines.
    - 5y ago

Zigurd 5y ago

If you are wondering whether you are sufficiently protected by having recovered from COVID, this article provides up to date answers. Get vaccinated. Get a booster if recommended.

corona-research 5y ago
why?
vkou 5y ago
You are being unfairly downvoted, because what you are saying runs contrary to people's gut feelings. At this point, we have enough statistics on people getting COVID a second time with or without vaccination, to know that vaccination reduces your odds of re-infection by ~2.3. [1] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
- bananabiscuit 5y ago
  This is true. But given the already high baseline immunity for previously infected people, the messaging for them should be somewhere closer to “you can get the vaccine if you want” rather than “you must get the vaccine otherwise you are causing the pandemic”.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I don't know - I consider getting vaccinated to be a matter of common courtesy to those you're going to be interacting with now. I don't feel like thanking folks for only kicking - and not murdering - the adorable puppy at this point. Those who have been advised not to get vaccinated due to immune issues or other medical reasons I completely get - but everyone else is basically saying "I think preserving my pride by sticking to my misinformed opinion is more important than preventing harm to all of you." The vaccines work, get it. My dad has survived three bouts with different forms of cancer - he's healthy and could be around for a long time. Please don't let your pride put his life in danger.

corona-research 5y ago

PLANDEMIC

mabbo 5y ago

> antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD compared to antibodies elicited by an infection, which more often targeted other portions of the spike protein. I wonder how this might impact the design of future mRNA vaccines. For example, could vaccines target multiple proteins that both are associated with the virus?

rolph 5y ago
this is referred to as a polyvalent vaccine, and it is a good thing to do once we understand enough about the antigens in question to incorporate both in one shot. There is nothing of course precluding two different vaccines of differenct valence, and we have been doing this for a short time now, when we combine single jab mRna vaccines, with adenoviral vectored vaccines, there is very slight sequence variation between adV and mRNA vaccines however by strictest interpretation this is a multivalant[bivalant] scenario.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  it also generates immunity to the adenoviral vector proteins
  - rolph 5y ago
    yes and this has been the big setback for many years this is why we dont have a lot of these vector vaccines. if someone is immune to adenovirus they typically destroy the vaccine before antigen can be presented. this reduces prophylactic opportunities regarding serial innoculation with adenovirus vector, regardless of the cassette load i am one of those people, having worked with adenovirus, as well as coronavirus, thus i am obligated to non adenoviral vaccine, and made out quite well during my infection with SARS-1, and with SARS-2
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      you got infected with SARS1?

anonuser123456 5y ago

Antigen targets aside, there is also a difference in the production of antibodies in the mucosal system. Current vaccines are intra muscular and lacks a robust mucosal response while natural infection will provide mucosal immunity as well. As one can imagine, mucosal immunity is very important in an upper respiratory track disease w.r.t. symptomatic infection and transmission.

UncleOxidant 5y ago
Yeah, why aren't we putting more effort into getting an intranasal vaccine approved for emergency use? An intranasal vaccine would confer mucosal immunity and might also be more acceptable to the vaccine hesitant. They're talking about 3rd shot boosters, but I'd really like to be able to get an intranasal vaccine as the third booster.
- nradov 5y ago
  Nasal vaccine trials are underway. We should have preliminary results in a few months. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/92527 https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9252...
- pettusftw 5y ago
  IIRC there is an intranasal expected to be approved mid next year. I can't find the source I read that in, so take the timing with a grain of salt. Another source I can't find at the moment mentioned questions about the duration of protection from that method of vaccination as well. I would guess the push for intramuscular was driven for multiple reasons, the first being ease of development and the second to keep hospitalizations and death at a minimum.
- jart 5y ago
  I don't think anyone's concerned about IM vs. IN as they are mRNA vs. DNA. The boosters deliver double stranded helix straight to the nucleus like a Windows update. You'd have to pull an Apocalypse Now to roll that back. GM people nobody panics but GM organic food and everyone loses their minds.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

superkuh 5y ago

Intramuscular vaccinations are the most important first step and will keep hospitalization down. But intramuscular vaccination for respiratory viruses does not provide long lasting immunity to the surface mucosa tissues of the upper respiratory tract. The IgG antibodies in body serum do seep into the lower lungs and provide robust protection from serious disease, but they do not prevent infections very long in the nose, sinuses, or throat. This is the disparity many studies are now highlighting but failing to acknowledge the cause of. The required next step is intranasal vaccination to recruit B and T cells to the upper respiratory mucosa and have the B cells produce local IgA antibodies. This would actually stop infections (infections defined from nasal swab testing). It is up to the NIH and other large organizations in the world to get this messaging out there. There are two types of "breakthrough". There's the fact that intramuscular vaccinations don't protect the upper respiratory mucosa, and then there's the very rare cases when sars-cov-2 actually manages to infect body organs and the lower lungs. They are entirely different things. The variants currently circulating don't play a huge role in this discrepancy. We'd be seeing the same amount of upper respiratory mucosa infections (not hospitalizations) even if there were no delta and it was just alpha/beta/gamma or even original wuhan sequence sars-cov-2. ref: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evolution-of-sars-cov-2-26-july-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti... page 5, #8. "Whilst we feel that current vaccines are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals." ref: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397 "the ideal vaccination strategy may use an intramuscular vaccine to elicit a long-lived systemic IgG response and a broad repertoire of central memory B and T cells, followed by an intranasal booster that recruits memory B and T cells to the nasal passages and further guides their differentiation toward mucosal protection, including IgA secretion and tissue-resident memory cells in the respiratory tract." ref: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x

UncleOxidant 5y ago
Why isn't there more of a push for emergency use of intranasal vaccines? Apparently there are some in the testing phase, but I think if they were given as much resources as the mRNA vaccines were we might have already had an intranasal vaccine in use by now. The Israelis have one in testing but it still sounds like it's a long ways off from being deployed on a large scale. The other advantage of an intransal vaccine is that we might be able to convince a portion of the vaccine hesitant to get it.

civilized 5y ago

There's a critical point I think is getting lost in the shuffle: vaccine immunity may be different from natural immunity, but (1) it does seem to protect against severe cases, (2) precisely because the protection is imperfect, the first infection you get after being vaccinated should train the immune system in a similar way as an unvaccinated infection. So to me, the real question is, what is your immunity like after you get vaccinated AND then infected? Because that's what is most likely to happen in the long run, as COVID becomes endemic. Everyone's going to get an infection, so does vaccine + infection give you better or worse immunity than no vaccine + infection?

pajamanaut 5y ago
It seems like the article is saying that vaccine immunity is actually more robust that natural immunity though.
- flatiron 5y ago
  For spike proteins. Not for the other targets you get with natural immunity.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > For spike proteins. Not for the other targets you get with natural immunity From the article: "the new evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying 'single letter' changes in a key portion of their spike protein compared to antibodies acquired from an infection." The study discussed in the article unequivocally states that vaccine-induced immunity is more robust than that from infection.
    - criticaltinker 5y ago
      > unequivocally states that vaccine-induced immunity is more robust than that from infection. It absolutely does not make such a strong claim - a more accurate takeaway is that vaccination using the current mRNA based formulations induces an immune response highly targeted toward the S protein RBD. This has not been conclusively proven to provide better or worse protection than immunity acquired through natural infection. > At first glance, the RBD targeting of the vaccine sera neutralization might seem likely to increase susceptibility to viral mutations, but the rest of our results SUGGEST that this MAY not be the case. > We found that the specificity of the mRNA-1273 vaccine-induced RBD-binding antibody response often narrows over time. In contrast, the infection-elicited RBD-binding antibody response often broadens over time > The vaccinated individuals in our study were relatively young (18–55 years) and healthy, whereas the convalescent individuals were older (23–76 years, median 56) with a range of comorbidities (13). > Additionally, we did not examine effects of mutations or deletions to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, which can also affect neutralization by vaccine sera (7). > Our experiments assayed binding of antibodies to isolated RBD expressed by yeast, and so cannot capture mutational effects on trimer conformation or antibodies with quaternary epitopes > Evidence from multiple experimental studies showing that single RBD point mutations can lead to resistance to neutralizing convalescent plasma from multiple donors suggests that specific single mutants may be able to evade spike-targeting vaccinal immunity in many individuals and rapidly lead to spread of vaccine-resistant SARS-CoV-2. [1] [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/

huibf 5y ago

Quick, flag this!!!!

nanis 5y ago

Full text here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8369496/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8369496/ From the discussion section: > In this study, we have shown differences in the specificity of polyclonal serum antibodies acquired by infection versus vaccination with mRNA-1273. The neutralizing activity of vaccine sera is more targeted to the RBD than for convalescent sera, with the majority of vaccine sera losing all detectable neutralization at a 1:25 cutoff after depletion of RBD-directed antibodies. (emphasis mine) From the conclusion: > Despite these limitations, our results in conjunction with other recent studies (19) suggest that mRNA vaccines and infection elicit somewhat distinct anti-spike antibody responses. Therefore, it is important to differentiate antibody immunity acquired by different means when assessing the impact of viral evolution. Considerable effort is being expended to identify emerging antigenic variants of SARS-CoV-2 and determine which ones might evade immunity (3, 7, 8, 35). Our findings suggest that the results could vary depending on the source of immunity. Furthermore, carefully characterizing and comparing the specificity of antibody immunity elicited by additional vaccine modalities could provide a basis for determining whether some vaccine responses will be more resistant to viral evolution.

fouric 5y ago

> The new evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying “single letter” changes in a key portion of their spike protein compared to antibodies acquired from an infection. This seems like a remarkably specific criteria. Using my naive, computer-science brain, I would think that it's unlikely that a mutation would consist of exactly one change to the RBD amino acid sequence (compared to all of the other possible mutations). What am I missing?

cblconfederate 5y ago
A variant has multiple mutations which they call "single letter changes". It's not meant to say that there will be only one mutation per variant
rolph 5y ago
single letter change is refered to as a point mutation meaning one residue. it is common there are a number of mutation types and numerous mechanisms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation in the case of point mutations, cosmic ray ablation, and wobbly fit of the replication mechanism lead to data corruption, conflated by error prone replication or error prone proof reading

brainbrane 5y ago

I just learned last week that my COVID antibody count from the vaccine is zero. Since I'm on an immunosuppressing medication that wipes out the B cells in my bloodstream, this isn't really all that surprising to me. I learned about this because I'm in a medical study, and other people in the study who take the same medication also don't produce any COVID antibodies in response to the vaccine. What's interesting is that I still get side effects from the vaccine, and they seem to be right in line with the side effects that other people generally report. I'm no immunologist, but I've taken an armchair interest in the subject since I've been managing an autoimmune disease (MS) for the past 25 years. The immune system is an amazingly complex thing with many branches. Different types of cells interact in ways that we have yet to fully understand. In spite of having no B cells (except what's in my bone marrow), my T cell count is solidly in the normal range. And the currently-accepted catalog of types of T cells is enough to make your head swim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell#Types_of_T_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell#Types_of_T_cell Three types of CD4+ Helper T cells are implicated in MS: Th1, Th17, and Th9. And yet by killing the B cells in my bloodstream, for me that seems to stop these T cells from doing MS-like activity without substantially compromising my body's ability to still fight infections. What does all this mean for my own risk level from COVID, and in particular the Delta variant? Absolutely no clue. I've gotten my third (booster) shot and will be getting more blood drawn next week for the medical study, which I expect will again result in a zero COVID antibody count. People on my medication have been shown to have more severe cases of COVID when they contract it. I'm a realist about COVID and realize that some day I'll contract it. The best I can do is make sure I'm otherwise in good shape by eating, sleeping, and exercising right. Another option is to go off my medication, let my B cells recover, and then try another less effective medication for a while. For people in my circumstance, there really are no good answers right now. I know this is all at best tangential to the subject of this study, but I'm glad this research is getting done, and I hope it will lead to a better understanding of how to protect everyone.

AndrewBissell 5y ago
Is it possible that your side effects are a result of your immune system reacting against the delivery mechanism (PEG or adenovirus) of the vaccine? Here's one source suggesting this may occur: https://sanchakblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/mrna-vaccines-be-prepared-for-annual-shots-it-wont-be-easy-to-generate-memory-using-this-method/ https://sanchakblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/mrna-vaccines-b...

bsedlm 5y ago

> A third difference is that natural infection only exposes the body to the virus in the respiratory tract (unless the illness is very severe), while the vaccine is delivered to muscle, where the immune system may have an even better chance of seeing it and responding vigorously. But the respiratrory tract is constantly exposed to the external world, wheras the muscles are typically protected by the skin... Therefore I find this fact counterintuitive.

walterbell 5y ago
A marketing person might consider this a way of spinning a known negative into a rhetorical positive. Unless people are being bitten by Covid-bearing mosquitoes, blood serum antibodies aren't going to be seeing virus earlier than the upper respiratory tract.

hybrid_cluster 5y ago

It will be interesting to see how the immune response develops for previously covid-naive vaccinated people after their first covid infection. Specifically, does their immune system still adapt to new variants? One of the main arguments of controversial anti-covid vaccine people like Geert vanden Bossche is that the immune response generated by the vaccine may thwart the immune system in generating an effective response to future variants after infection[0]. I don’t have enough insight into the immune system’s intricacies to evaluate whether such claims might be legit, but once variants start to emerge that really evade most of the current vaccine-induced immune response, this question will become increasingly important. [0] https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/not-covid-19-vaccine-mediated-but-naturally-acquired-immunity-enables-herd-immunity https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/not-covid-19-vaccine...

fpgaminer 5y ago

A layman's take: Maybe the antibodies are different because the immune system is being presented with _only_ the spike protein, rather than the whole virus? From my understanding, the immune system breaks the viral proteins up into pieces and then starts rapidly "evolving" antibodies to target those pieces. The goal being to ultimately produce antibodies that target those pieces, and don't target the learned whitelist of proteins (from your own body). Once it's got that it begins deploying antibody producing cells, and remembers the antibodies for later infections. What I'm curious about is the stopping criteria the body uses during the evolution stage. It sounds like it's producing an array of antibodies, not just one kind. So the stopping criteria isn't finding one working antibody. Perhaps it's more like, "Produce at least N different antibodies." If the latter, then the difference between natural and mRNA immunity makes sense to me. If your immune system is working to produce N different antibodies for the whole viral proteome, less of those antibodies will target the spike protein. And thus it will have less resilience to changes in the spike protein. But of course more tolerance to changes in the virus as a whole. Whereas with mRNA the immune system only sees the spike proteins, and since it's still going to make N different antibodies it'll have more tolerance for changes to the spike protein. What's most interesting to me, assuming any of the above is close to reality, is that mRNA vaccines allow us to give our immune system an inductive bias of some kind. Presumably our immune systems aren't "smart" enough to know what parts of a virus are most conserved, and thus best to target. It just targets all of it blindly. mRNA vaccines used the spike protein because we believe that to be the most conserved proteins. If those change too much the virus either won't work, or will effectively be a different species. So our mRNA vaccines are a way of telling our immune systems to focus their work on the "important" proteins, and thus, we would assume, give us better immunity. Whether our guess about the spike proteins is correct remains to be seen I suppose.

IX-103 5y ago
It's not "make N antibodies". It's a bunch of cells in parallel creating cells specialized to each create a single random antibody. Cells that create antibodies that don't work don't reproduce (linear decay). Cells that create antibodies that worked reproduce (exponential growth). This process stops when the infection is gone. For the mRNA vaccines, the antibodies only target the some protein, but on the other hand they all target the spike protein. Natural immunity products antibodies that could match want part oft the virus. The amount of protection you get against a new variant is related to how well your existing antibodies match the new virus. With natural immunity it is likely that only some of the antibodies match (and since each antibody exists in random amounts, the matching antibodies may be the ones that you have much less of). With vaccine immunity,all of the antibodies produced will work against the new variant if the spike protein is the same, offering nearly the same immunity to the variant as the original virus (assuming the spike protein doesn't change significantly). We know that the spike protein is significantly less likely to change than other parts of the virus so that's a reasonable assumption.

dabbledash 5y ago

I wonder low likely it is that over the course of a lifetime the vaccinated will end up with both forms of immunity. I assume we’ll be exposed to the virus regularly. Would the natural immunity be weaker if it comes from a second, very mild, infection?

bobbytit 5y ago

This more recent Thai study shows that natural immunity is far superior for all known variants... https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210719/Thai-study-looks-at-CoronaVac-vaccine-vs-natural-immunity-to-SARS-COV-2-variants.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210719/Thai-study-looks-...

jiocrag 5y ago
CoronaVac vaccine? This is a much less effective vaccine than Pfizer and Moderna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoronaVac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoronaVac), so it's not surprising that natural immunity would be superior.
- bobbytit 5y ago
  What about the Israeli study then.. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/natural-immunity-is-stronger-than-vaccination-study-suggests https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/natural-immunity-is-stro... Double pfizer jabbed idiots were 13 times more likely to be infected than those unjabbed who had already recovered from prior infection.
- bobbytit 5y ago
  What about the Israeli study then.. http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/natural-immunity-is-stronger-than-vaccination-study-suggests&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjg5ZWd6s_yAhVSaCsKHetjDb4QFnoECAgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3CrWllzh27q-mb6sZj6mYM http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.spectator.co.uk/arti... It found that double pfizer jabbed people were 13 times more likely to be infected than those who had already recovered.
  - jiocrag 5y ago
    Not disputing that. Anecdotally in my household: 100% break-through rate (2 Pfizer vaxxed adults and 2 unvaxxed [ineligible] children] all recently caught what we believe to be the delta variant (confirmed via PCR). That said, the vaccine clearly reduced disease severity; all recovered within a few days.

mactitan 5y ago

Informed consent disclosure to vaccine trial subjects of risk of COVID‐19 vaccines worsening clinical disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645850/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645850/ It seems that the new data invalidates that conclusion?

rubyist5eva 5y ago

The media and government overreaction to this virus is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the human race.

bobbytit 5y ago
Biggest is a big claim. After they got away with the climate change scam they realised they can get away with anything. Two plus two equals five. Carbon dioxide is pollution not plant food.
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  The covid-19 scamdemic has damaged this planet in 18 months in ways the climate scam couldn't even dream. The most effective solution to "climate change" is planting trees. Also the cheapest, but you can't spend trillions of dollars of taxpayer money out to your corporate buddies if you just plant trees!
- bestcoder69 5y ago
  Not to mention the Earth is hollow and inside exists a land full of Orcs wearing bootcut jeans.

nickthemagicman 5y ago

Wouldn't this open the door to possible immune diseases in the long term? With a much wider net for the antibodies to attack, someone with the DNA and matching proteins that are similar to the spike protein would have an increased chance of an autoimmune disease.

EGreg 5y ago

Let’s look at what these articles are actually saying.. EMPHASIS is mine below: “Also, it’s POSSIBLE that mRNA delivery may change the way antigens are presented to the immune system, leading to differences in the antibodies that get produced. A third difference is that natural infection ONLY exposes the body to the virus in the respiratory tract (unless the illness is very severe), while the vaccine is delivered to muscle, where the immune system MAY have an even better chance of seeing it and responding vigorously.” After so many words, what has really been said? Something is possible. MAYBE injecting into a muscle is more effective for a vigorous response. But, folks, the natural infection ONLY exposes the body to the virus in the respiratory tract! (As opposed to ONLY the muscle? Neither is true.) But hey. We already know before even writing the article… that natural immunity is ONLY this or that, while vaccines are DIFFERENT and HOPEFULLY and MAYBE will give longer lasting immunity than natural one (never mind that studies mostly show otherwise) How do they get from vacuous statements to a firm conclusion that everyone should take the vaccine?

cblconfederate 5y ago

I feel sorry for iOS devs. Literally like prisoners begging for breadcrumbs

Proven 5y ago

It seems this has unnerved HN vax optimists. Time to start planning the 4th vax shot next spring!

chaircher 5y ago

I mean yeah but the point is to not get infected in the first place right?

xyzzy21 5y ago

Yeah, true that. With natural infection you get BOTH lymphocytic memory of the disease AND antibodies to the disease. With a vaccine you ONLY get the latter. And it's the lack of that balanced duality that creates the risk of ADE or Antibody Dependent Enhancement which is far more dangerous than getting the disease naturally.