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"...protection against hospitalization and death persisted at a robust level for 6 months after the second dose" (from the above linked article) This is the im
by jhedwards 5y ago
"...protection against hospitalization and death persisted at a robust level for 6 months after the second dose" (from the above linked article)
This is the important part in my opinion and I've heard it explained thus: the level of antibodies circulating in the body goes down after six months, so you may be susceptible to infection. However, the immune system creates something called "memory cells" which live in the lymphatic system and will activate a robust immune response if they come into contact with the antigen again.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- erhk 5y agoIts also pretty challenging to publish research longer than 6 months when you only have 6 calendar months...
- native_samples 5y agoThat's how it's meant to work. If that were true you wouldn't be seeing so many people getting COVID after being vaccinated. In reality all these explanations we're being given are nearly junk value. Public health researchers don't understand the immune system or mRNA based vaccines well enough to predict things like how it adapts or learns, and in particular they just ignore any factor that they don't have a fast/cheap test for (or sometimes any test).
- jhedwards 5y agoMemory cells do not prevent infection, they live in the lymphatic system and are only activated if a pathogen gets past the "innate immune system" and gets to the point we typically refer to as "infection". So, to re-use your phrase: if that were true we'd be seeing vaccinated people getting infected but recovering quickly and generally not dying, which is exactly what we see.