4 ms·

I thought the argument was that the spike protein may be "better" to target than some other aspect of the virus the body might learn because of how closely it i

I thought the argument was that the spike protein may be "better" to target than some other aspect of the virus the body might learn because of how closely it is linked to the infection method, I.e. a virus without a spike protein would (may) not be able to infect the way covid does and so mRNA vaccines should offer broader protection. This is just what I read, I don't know it actually makes the vaccine better than a normal immune response, which I imagine is also robust.

pfdietz 5y ago
Sure, it's a better target, but the other proteins may not be entirely useless as targets. Natural immunity at least has a chance to do something with them; a vaccine that includes/produces only the spike protein does not. There was recently (but pre-COVID) a problem with a vaccine (I think TDAP?) that was reformulated to use specific proteins instead of whole killed bacteria, and produced less persistent immunity as a result.
- Vecr 5y ago
  Yeah, ever since they changed the pertussis component from whole inactivated bacteria to a protein subunit method, it does not do much (or anything? confidence intervals, etc) regarding infection and transmission. They really need to go back.
ragingrobot 5y ago
> This is just what I read, I don't know it actually makes the vaccine better than a normal immune response, which I imagine is also robust. I'm sure the powers that be have their reasons for not going into detail, but I am interested as well. I'm sure I only understand a simplified version, but I thought that a vaccine worked pretty much by invoking an immune response. As a curious layman, I'd like it explained to me. Just to satisfy that curiosity. Web searches give me the "CDC says it's better" without going into the "why."
- RealFloridaMan 5y ago
  The point of a vaccine is to not get the actual virus, or at least to minimize its effects if infected. When you are infected with anything, you do not always develop anti-bodies. If you do develop anti-bodies, they might not be effective at actually stopping you from being re-infected. Everything about the virus can mutate, but the virus will always target the ACE2 binding site. The spike protein can mutate to bind to it differently, but it will always require a spike protein. (Biology is Analog, not digital) Thus targeting the spike protein is more efficient as it will be highly conserved. There is a video series that does a nice job of breaking down how your immune response works: https://youtu.be/lXfEK8G8CUI https://youtu.be/lXfEK8G8CUI The vaccine is more effective at developing anti-bodies for the spike protein as it is the only protein exposed during the process. An analogy that has helped some of my family: The virus is like a missile, and your immune system is a anti-missile system. Regardless of what the missile looks like, it has to have a warhead, and that warhead is what really defines what the entire thing does. So, if your defense systems targets the fuel of the missile, the enemy can change what fuel it runs on and evade your defense system. They can change the material it is made of, the shape of the overall device, change the propulsion and navigation systems…but the warhead can only have minor changes as it has because it it makes too many, it becomes ineffective and is no longer a threat. Thus, if your defense system targets the warhead none of the other changes matter.
beerandt 5y ago
It's an easy target that neutralizes point of entry, but that also adds a great deal of selective pressure for mutations of the spike proteins, which we already know have an effective/successful mutation rate much higher than the rest of the virus. (Likely for the same reasons.) But the ACE2 receptor is relatively lenient in what it will pair with compared to the immune system. So a spike with multiple mutations is more likely to be able to continue infecting cells via ACE2, than the mrna-vaccine-induced-immuno-response (targeting only the spike region) is able to block it. And because of this "fuzzy" matching, less than perfect mutations can perpetuate until other helpful mutations occur. But each of these mutations is also a step closer to evading detection by the immune system, so they can be helpful over multiple iterations of mutations, even if there's no selective pressure/benefit provided per mutation. That it can continue to bind to ACE2 is enough, until it reaches a point where the immune system doesn't recognize and must re-learn that target.
Bobylonian 5y ago
Here are some problems with vaccines - people who have reactions to foreign organic matter can have organism going into a full shock and that can lead to a death. Apparently that is what is happening with Astrazeneca and Johnsons vaccines, as they are causing disturbances in immunity system(with less intensity than what covid is causing) and it can't calm down soon enough and causes the same reactions, that people are getting from covid infection, when immunity is mobilizing at max - essentially it is not covid, that is killing people, but reaction of immunity system. The most sensible action for this was to make immunity system to "forget" about covid(because it is freaking out immunity) and get attention of immunity to something else, that it knows - alcohol poisoning might be one of these. Since I had reactions to penicilin, it seems that these vaccines are terrible idea to me in worst case scenarios(and this is where I have a line and where my sense of self-protection kicks in). I had calmed down my immunity reaction with alcohol - not claiming that it was the reason, but lookining in retrospect, I needed to calm down my nerves about something that nobody else at that moment was not sure how to deal with and the major consensus about covid at that times was that WE ALL ARE GOING TO DIE!!!, while in reality covid is not dangerous to 90% of humans, even more if their immunity system is not weakened and they are not old and stressed. Then there are other factors: 1. apparently people who had previous coronavirus infections, had stronger immunity reaction against covid as well(this basically answers the question of main topic). 2. blood type O and then blood type AB seems to had better results with covid - most probably because they either lack antigens or antibodies and does not fight against covid as much as immunity systems in other blood types. We now know, that covid was targeting blood system - up to the bone marrow and lung infection were just side effect of that targetting and fight with immunity(who was apparently fighting to the death of what it had to protect). 3. some genes gives better chances on surviving the covid(genetical test for me was putting me among this group) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03065-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03065-y The whole strategy towards covid has gone south from the very start. For various reasons, and science is not among them - there seems to have been NEED to govern something at the scale of pandemic and this is what we have got. IMO there are more people who have died, because of actions to contain covid, than people who have been saved - and they have been saved mostly because of doctors who have not been following instructions(and were getting mocked and punished because they did not agree that sun was green, sky is yellow and deer is a horse), but acted on their own knowledge. So, I'm looking on WHO, CDC and others(who blamed unvaccinated, young people blaming old people in my country!) with utter horror what bureaucracy can do and how easily it can find others to blame and there is absolutelly no responsibility, because SYSTEM is responsible and bureaucrats are only cogs in this - just the same, as Nazis were doing their systematic work, where they could not punish themselves, because they could not see what horrific things they were doing. IMO, vaccines are not giving long-term defense against covid and can't, because they were only meant as short-term defense, because there were no other medicines to fight covid. Young children and young adults who had contracted covid and went through it, in future might have the same effect as those people who had gone through SARS or other covid infections and now have better defense against covid. Initially - 1 year before it was developed, I wanted to have a vaccine. Now I see no reason to have it and absolutelly have no wish to have it and now my attitude has changed to that it is potentially causing more harm and that most of the claims about any healthy effects of vaccines are baseless. I am living in UK, in region, where has been done 100% vaccination for people aged 60+ and they are dying at the same rate(mostly vaccinated) as people are dying in my origin country, where vaccination rate is 50%(apparently most of the deaths are among unvaccinated). So, my take is that vaccination does not prevent deaths, but other reasons - overall health and immunity is one of them, and prevention of covid spread is another. Whatever it is, the only way to slow down spreading covid, was shutting down borders - just like Japan and Taiwan was doing and just like China was doing when it was assuring, that covid was not dangerous. So, the borders in US had to be shut down between states, in Europe - between countries and for EU and US this is political issue, that is incompatible with mind of EU and US liberal bureaucrats, as that is like identity crisis - they would rather try something else, before agree that only one sensible action was to: 1. shut down borders 2. stop migration - in and out 3. allow border openings only between those regions, that have a zero covid cases 4. this is mindboggling, but the end result is that people, who were poor and with poorer health were confined to their houses, that degraded their overall health and covid was rampant among those, while people with good income(and health) and bureaucrats were still travelling around the world and spreading various covid strains with them. Probably after 100-200 years in future(because modern people can't judge their own, because they are part of the same society) people will look in disbelief at how people allowed this, where overall global political crisis(Essentially crisis of existence of US, that initially was fighting evil of USSR and eventually without that fight have lost it, subsequent rise of China, globalization which should lead to government of Earth - ironmically USSR, unlike Nazis wanted to take over and rule over whole Earth - it got only 15 republics, but last republic in global USSR would be Argentina...) played such a great impact on spreading pandemic. So, in the end immunity, vacciantion and pandemic can go down south, if people are moronic and have to sort out their political issues first and in this environment pandemic is a political weapon, just as well as any others.

pfdietz 5y ago

Sure, it's a better target, but the other proteins may not be entirely useless as targets. Natural immunity at least has a chance to do something with them; a vaccine that includes/produces only the spike protein does not. There was recently (but pre-COVID) a problem with a vaccine (I think TDAP?) that was reformulated to use specific proteins instead of whole killed bacteria, and produced less persistent immunity as a result.

Vecr 5y ago
Yeah, ever since they changed the pertussis component from whole inactivated bacteria to a protein subunit method, it does not do much (or anything? confidence intervals, etc) regarding infection and transmission. They really need to go back.

ragingrobot 5y ago

> This is just what I read, I don't know it actually makes the vaccine better than a normal immune response, which I imagine is also robust. I'm sure the powers that be have their reasons for not going into detail, but I am interested as well. I'm sure I only understand a simplified version, but I thought that a vaccine worked pretty much by invoking an immune response. As a curious layman, I'd like it explained to me. Just to satisfy that curiosity. Web searches give me the "CDC says it's better" without going into the "why."

RealFloridaMan 5y ago
The point of a vaccine is to not get the actual virus, or at least to minimize its effects if infected. When you are infected with anything, you do not always develop anti-bodies. If you do develop anti-bodies, they might not be effective at actually stopping you from being re-infected. Everything about the virus can mutate, but the virus will always target the ACE2 binding site. The spike protein can mutate to bind to it differently, but it will always require a spike protein. (Biology is Analog, not digital) Thus targeting the spike protein is more efficient as it will be highly conserved. There is a video series that does a nice job of breaking down how your immune response works: https://youtu.be/lXfEK8G8CUI https://youtu.be/lXfEK8G8CUI The vaccine is more effective at developing anti-bodies for the spike protein as it is the only protein exposed during the process. An analogy that has helped some of my family: The virus is like a missile, and your immune system is a anti-missile system. Regardless of what the missile looks like, it has to have a warhead, and that warhead is what really defines what the entire thing does. So, if your defense systems targets the fuel of the missile, the enemy can change what fuel it runs on and evade your defense system. They can change the material it is made of, the shape of the overall device, change the propulsion and navigation systems…but the warhead can only have minor changes as it has because it it makes too many, it becomes ineffective and is no longer a threat. Thus, if your defense system targets the warhead none of the other changes matter.

beerandt 5y ago

It's an easy target that neutralizes point of entry, but that also adds a great deal of selective pressure for mutations of the spike proteins, which we already know have an effective/successful mutation rate much higher than the rest of the virus. (Likely for the same reasons.) But the ACE2 receptor is relatively lenient in what it will pair with compared to the immune system. So a spike with multiple mutations is more likely to be able to continue infecting cells via ACE2, than the mrna-vaccine-induced-immuno-response (targeting only the spike region) is able to block it. And because of this "fuzzy" matching, less than perfect mutations can perpetuate until other helpful mutations occur. But each of these mutations is also a step closer to evading detection by the immune system, so they can be helpful over multiple iterations of mutations, even if there's no selective pressure/benefit provided per mutation. That it can continue to bind to ACE2 is enough, until it reaches a point where the immune system doesn't recognize and must re-learn that target.

Bobylonian 5y ago

Here are some problems with vaccines - people who have reactions to foreign organic matter can have organism going into a full shock and that can lead to a death. Apparently that is what is happening with Astrazeneca and Johnsons vaccines, as they are causing disturbances in immunity system(with less intensity than what covid is causing) and it can't calm down soon enough and causes the same reactions, that people are getting from covid infection, when immunity is mobilizing at max - essentially it is not covid, that is killing people, but reaction of immunity system. The most sensible action for this was to make immunity system to "forget" about covid(because it is freaking out immunity) and get attention of immunity to something else, that it knows - alcohol poisoning might be one of these. Since I had reactions to penicilin, it seems that these vaccines are terrible idea to me in worst case scenarios(and this is where I have a line and where my sense of self-protection kicks in). I had calmed down my immunity reaction with alcohol - not claiming that it was the reason, but lookining in retrospect, I needed to calm down my nerves about something that nobody else at that moment was not sure how to deal with and the major consensus about covid at that times was that WE ALL ARE GOING TO DIE!!!, while in reality covid is not dangerous to 90% of humans, even more if their immunity system is not weakened and they are not old and stressed. Then there are other factors: 1. apparently people who had previous coronavirus infections, had stronger immunity reaction against covid as well(this basically answers the question of main topic). 2. blood type O and then blood type AB seems to had better results with covid - most probably because they either lack antigens or antibodies and does not fight against covid as much as immunity systems in other blood types. We now know, that covid was targeting blood system - up to the bone marrow and lung infection were just side effect of that targetting and fight with immunity(who was apparently fighting to the death of what it had to protect). 3. some genes gives better chances on surviving the covid(genetical test for me was putting me among this group) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03065-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03065-y The whole strategy towards covid has gone south from the very start. For various reasons, and science is not among them - there seems to have been NEED to govern something at the scale of pandemic and this is what we have got. IMO there are more people who have died, because of actions to contain covid, than people who have been saved - and they have been saved mostly because of doctors who have not been following instructions(and were getting mocked and punished because they did not agree that sun was green, sky is yellow and deer is a horse), but acted on their own knowledge. So, I'm looking on WHO, CDC and others(who blamed unvaccinated, young people blaming old people in my country!) with utter horror what bureaucracy can do and how easily it can find others to blame and there is absolutelly no responsibility, because SYSTEM is responsible and bureaucrats are only cogs in this - just the same, as Nazis were doing their systematic work, where they could not punish themselves, because they could not see what horrific things they were doing. IMO, vaccines are not giving long-term defense against covid and can't, because they were only meant as short-term defense, because there were no other medicines to fight covid. Young children and young adults who had contracted covid and went through it, in future might have the same effect as those people who had gone through SARS or other covid infections and now have better defense against covid. Initially - 1 year before it was developed, I wanted to have a vaccine. Now I see no reason to have it and absolutelly have no wish to have it and now my attitude has changed to that it is potentially causing more harm and that most of the claims about any healthy effects of vaccines are baseless. I am living in UK, in region, where has been done 100% vaccination for people aged 60+ and they are dying at the same rate(mostly vaccinated) as people are dying in my origin country, where vaccination rate is 50%(apparently most of the deaths are among unvaccinated). So, my take is that vaccination does not prevent deaths, but other reasons - overall health and immunity is one of them, and prevention of covid spread is another. Whatever it is, the only way to slow down spreading covid, was shutting down borders - just like Japan and Taiwan was doing and just like China was doing when it was assuring, that covid was not dangerous. So, the borders in US had to be shut down between states, in Europe - between countries and for EU and US this is political issue, that is incompatible with mind of EU and US liberal bureaucrats, as that is like identity crisis - they would rather try something else, before agree that only one sensible action was to: 1. shut down borders 2. stop migration - in and out 3. allow border openings only between those regions, that have a zero covid cases 4. this is mindboggling, but the end result is that people, who were poor and with poorer health were confined to their houses, that degraded their overall health and covid was rampant among those, while people with good income(and health) and bureaucrats were still travelling around the world and spreading various covid strains with them. Probably after 100-200 years in future(because modern people can't judge their own, because they are part of the same society) people will look in disbelief at how people allowed this, where overall global political crisis(Essentially crisis of existence of US, that initially was fighting evil of USSR and eventually without that fight have lost it, subsequent rise of China, globalization which should lead to government of Earth - ironmically USSR, unlike Nazis wanted to take over and rule over whole Earth - it got only 15 republics, but last republic in global USSR would be Argentina...) played such a great impact on spreading pandemic. So, in the end immunity, vacciantion and pandemic can go down south, if people are moronic and have to sort out their political issues first and in this environment pandemic is a political weapon, just as well as any others.