3 ms·
Not necessarily so from what I've read about neutralizing antibodies. You'll only have a lot of them for a while after an exposure, but if they latch onto, in
by Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
Not necessarily so from what I've read about neutralizing antibodies. You'll only have a lot of them for a while after an exposure, but if they latch onto, in this case, every spike protein on the surface of a SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus will never get a chance to infect a cell. Antibodies latched onto surface proteins can also stick to each other and form clumps that limit or eliminate the ability to infect.
Otherwise you're correct as far as I know, the other mechanisms of the adaptive immune system only come into play once cells get infected. But there might not be very many of them, perhaps not enough for a RT-PCR test to find.