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Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

directorsblog.nih.gov

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Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#51
post #40
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know - I consider getting vaccinated to be a matter of common courtesy to those you're going to be interacting with now. I don't feel like thanking folks for only kicking - and not murdering - the adorable puppy at this point. Those who have been advised not to get vaccinated due to immune issues or other medical reasons I completely get - but everyone else is basically saying "I think preserving my pride by…

>"I think preserving my pride by sticking to my misinformed opinion is more important than preventing harm to all of you." People who don't get vaccinated generally say it's because they don't trust the government. Probably because the government has proven time again to be untrustworthy. It's not just right wingers like the news is insinuating (another untrustworthy group), but all sides of the political spectrum an…

> so you should adapt to that truth.

And they should adapt to the truth that as long as there are COVID outbreaks, there are going to be epidemic adaptations. And that as long as they are the cause of those adaptations, public sentiment will increasingly shift towards making those adaptations targeted against anti-vaxxers.

One of those adaptations should be getting COVID patients out of hospitals, where they are infecting other people, disrupting ER services and scheduled surgeries, and into field hospitals. Every bed that is currently going to deal with a trivially preventable disease is multiple life-saving surgeries that aren't getting done. It would be nice if we could end this year with a working medical system.

If people want to free-load, that's fine, but we shouldn't be throwing scheduled passengers off the plane to make room for them.

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#52
post #12
post #7

> 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?

this is referred to as a polyvalent vaccine, and it is a good thing to do once we understand enough about the antigens in question to incorporate both in one shot. There is nothing of course precluding two different vaccines of differenct valence, and we have been doing this for a short time now, when we combine single jab mRna vaccines, with adenoviral vectored vaccines, there is very slight sequence variation betwe…

it also generates immunity to the adenoviral vector proteins

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#53
post #7

> 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?

Looks like they are trying to do something exactly like that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28319391

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#54
I just learned last week that my COVID antibody count from the vaccine is zero. Since I'm on an immunosuppressing medication that wipes out the B cells in my bloodstream, this isn't really all that surprising to me. I learned about this because I'm in a medical study, and other people in the study who take the same medication also don't produce any COVID antibodies in response to the vaccine.

What's interesting is that I still get side effects from the vaccine, and they seem to be right in line with the side effects that other people generally report. I'm no immunologist, but I've taken an armchair interest in the subject since I've been managing an autoimmune disease (MS) for the past 25 years.

The immune system is an amazingly complex thing with many branches. Different types of cells interact in ways that we have yet to fully understand. In spite of having no B cells (except what's in my bone marrow), my T cell count is solidly in the normal range. And the currently-accepted catalog of types of T cells is enough to make your head swim:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell#Types_of_T_cell

Three types of CD4+ Helper T cells are implicated in MS: Th1, Th17, and Th9. And yet by killing the B cells in my bloodstream, for me that seems to stop these T cells from doing MS-like activity without substantially compromising my body's ability to still fight infections.

What does all this mean for my own risk level from COVID, and in particular the Delta variant? Absolutely no clue. I've gotten my third (booster) shot and will be getting more blood drawn next week for the medical study, which I expect will again result in a zero COVID antibody count.

People on my medication have been shown to have more severe cases of COVID when they contract it. I'm a realist about COVID and realize that some day I'll contract it. The best I can do is make sure I'm otherwise in good shape by eating, sleeping, and exercising right. Another option is to go off my medication, let my B cells recover, and then try another less effective medication for a while. For people in my circumstance, there really are no good answers right now.

I know this is all at best tangential to the subject of this study, but I'm glad this research is getting done, and I hope it will lead to a better understanding of how to protect everyone.

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#55

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…

And then the question is, should you as a vaccinated healthy person mind getting infected in the sense that it can shield you maybe even more from future variants or is this a dangerous game to play?

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#56
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a good explanation of why.[1] There are several intranasal coronavirus vaccines in test. There's only one approved nasal vaccine now, for anything: FluMist. It's not recommended for people over 50. There have been previous failures. Intranasal vaccines are hard to make work. Think of the current mRNA vaccines as a minimum viable product. The basic formulation was computed days after the virus was sequenced and…

This raises an interesting question: is someone who is waiting for an effective intranasal vaccine to get something more like sterilizing immunity, and foregoing the less-effective vaccine meanwhile, anti-vax?

Yes. Refusing to get a vaccine now is harmful to yourself and others. The current vaccines are effective. A more effective intranasal vaccine may come, but you should protect yourself and others now.

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#57
post #48

> The new evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying “single letter” changes in a key portion of their spike protein compared to antibodies acquired from an infection. This seems like a remarkably specific criteria. Using my naive, computer-science brain, I would think that it's unlikely that a mutation would consist o…

single letter change is refered to as a point mutation meaning one residue. it is common

there are a number of mutation types and numerous mechanisms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

in the case of point mutations, cosmic ray ablation, and wobbly fit of the replication mechanism lead to data corruption, conflated by error prone replication or error prone proof reading

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#58

It would be interesting to see the duration of the immunity or resistance across multiple vaccine variants. The latest data from the UK indicates that the AZ vaccine suffers less degradation over time than Pfizer, at least when it comes to the Delta variant which is now the prevalent one in the UK. Israel has now giving boosters to 30 year olds and older in order to boost the immunity to infection and resistance to s…

But the lower efficacy drop of Pfizer is still higher than the less degraded AZ efficacy...

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#59

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…

Another consequence of this is that, theoretically, the virus could mutate and be unrecognizable by the antibodies produced by the vaccine.

Re: Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

#60
post #8

It would be interesting to see the duration of the immunity or resistance across multiple vaccine variants. The latest data from the UK indicates that the AZ vaccine suffers less degradation over time than Pfizer, at least when it comes to the Delta variant which is now the prevalent one in the UK. Israel has now giving boosters to 30 year olds and older in order to boost the immunity to infection and resistance to s…

My understanding is that it may be due to the difference of time during the two shots. It's possible that 2 weeks between the two shots of Pfizer is too short. We're learning.

Pfizer is 3 weeks, Moderna is 4
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