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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.
> 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?
If you reach out the limit of what you can encode in a single mRNA payload you can add additional payloads to a single dose or spread them across multiple doses.
Engineered viral vectors also can do similar things and also have a base pair limit so the solution would be similar.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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 Isra…
I was confused about that as well. The article suggests that targeting "other portions of the spike protein" (as immune systems previously infected with COVID do) results in the immune system being _less_ robust against variants of the virus than targeting "places on the RBD" (as immune systems exposed to Moderna's mRNA vaccine do): > Specifically, antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD…
immune systems dont look at everything at once, they find something that sticks and and over trials sharpen the response until highest efficacy of antibody epitope combination is found.
the vaccine is like a laser guided munition, natural immunity is like carpet cluster bombing; both highly effective but in different modalities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
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”.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
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”.
My son had a nasty case of pneumonia early in 2020; we thought afterwards it might've been a COVID case. Later antibody testing demonstrated that it wasn't.
That's why advice is still "go get the vaccine".
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…
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 Isra…
I was confused about that as well. The article suggests that targeting "other portions of the spike protein" (as immune systems previously infected with COVID do) results in the immune system being _less_ robust against variants of the virus than targeting "places on the RBD" (as immune systems exposed to Moderna's mRNA vaccine do): > Specifically, antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD…
Natural immunity knows only of COVID-19 Alpha. But it knows it well. All those nooks and crannies the other variants may not have, the natural antibodies can latch on to.