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Why would the antibodies be more effective after 3 shots than 2? Shouldn't they be the same/similar antibodies? Is it more a case of the 3rd dose being more re

Why would the antibodies be more effective after 3 shots than 2? Shouldn't they be the same/similar antibodies? Is it more a case of the 3rd dose being more recent than the 2nd dose was for participants so there are more present? If so, why are we talking about number of vaccines instead of recency of vaccination?

maxerickson 5y ago
It isn't a linear response. Which biological processes certainly don't behave linearly as any sort of rule.
rsfern 5y ago
One hypothesis I have seen around is that is not so much the time since the last shot, but the longer time span between shots that slows for more robust antibody response Seems reasonable, as many of the booster doses for more established vaccines are spaced months to a year apart. There hasn’t really been enough time to study this comprehensively for the coronavirus vaccines
volker48 5y ago
Many vaccines have multiple doses. DTaP for example is 5 shots and Polio is 4. They are also normally spread out much farther than the 3 or 4 weeks the COVID vaccines are separated. Other vaccines are more like 6 months to years apart. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolesc...
native_samples 5y ago
They wouldn't but there are other possible mechanisms. As a hypothetical example, if the body doesn't consider Omicron to be particularly threatening then it wouldn't devote much resources to fighting it. The vaccine would override that response by forcing a massive counter-response (antibody titers after vaccination are much higher than after infection), and those antibodies would then help suppress the symptoms. If you assume symptoms to what appears to be a common cold is all that matters, then this is "effective". If you assume flooding the immune system with dangerous proteins to make it manufacture tons of antibodies isn't free, then you'd have to weigh up the costs and benefits of doing things this way. However COVID is a magical disease in which costs and benefits don't apply - for whatever the public health community wants to do there are only ever benefits, never costs. Hence: effectiveness.

maxerickson 5y ago

It isn't a linear response. Which biological processes certainly don't behave linearly as any sort of rule.

rsfern 5y ago

One hypothesis I have seen around is that is not so much the time since the last shot, but the longer time span between shots that slows for more robust antibody response Seems reasonable, as many of the booster doses for more established vaccines are spaced months to a year apart. There hasn’t really been enough time to study this comprehensively for the coronavirus vaccines

volker48 5y ago

Many vaccines have multiple doses. DTaP for example is 5 shots and Polio is 4. They are also normally spread out much farther than the 3 or 4 weeks the COVID vaccines are separated. Other vaccines are more like 6 months to years apart. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolesc...

native_samples 5y ago

They wouldn't but there are other possible mechanisms. As a hypothetical example, if the body doesn't consider Omicron to be particularly threatening then it wouldn't devote much resources to fighting it. The vaccine would override that response by forcing a massive counter-response (antibody titers after vaccination are much higher than after infection), and those antibodies would then help suppress the symptoms. If you assume symptoms to what appears to be a common cold is all that matters, then this is "effective". If you assume flooding the immune system with dangerous proteins to make it manufacture tons of antibodies isn't free, then you'd have to weigh up the costs and benefits of doing things this way. However COVID is a magical disease in which costs and benefits don't apply - for whatever the public health community wants to do there are only ever benefits, never costs. Hence: effectiveness.