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Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection

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

#91

Post by maxerickson »

arisAlexis wrote: post #55
civilized wrote: post #25

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?

It's probably still worth trying to reduce the amount of virus in circulation, even if individual risk is low. There's someone in another thread talking about being on immunosuppressants, for example.

I don't think it's a binary condition either, we can do things that are more effective and less costly (like cutting down on large, indoor, adult social gatherings) and not do things that are less effective.

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

#92

Post by IX-103 »

fpgaminer wrote: post #74

A layman's take: Maybe the antibodies are different because the immune system is being presented with _only_ the spike protein, rather than the whole virus? From my understanding, the immune system breaks the viral proteins up into pieces and then starts rapidly "evolving" antibodies to target those pieces. The goal being to ultimately produce antibodies that target those pieces, and don't target the learned whitelis…

It's not "make N antibodies". It's a bunch of cells in parallel creating cells specialized to each create a single random antibody. Cells that create antibodies that don't work don't reproduce (linear decay). Cells that create antibodies that worked reproduce (exponential growth). This process stops when the infection is gone.

For the mRNA vaccines, the antibodies only target the some protein, but on the other hand they all target the spike protein. Natural immunity products antibodies that could match want part oft the virus.

The amount of protection you get against a new variant is related to how well your existing antibodies match the new virus. With natural immunity it is likely that only some of the antibodies match (and since each antibody exists in random amounts, the matching antibodies may be the ones that you have much less of). With vaccine immunity,all of the antibodies produced will work against the new variant if the spike protein is the same, offering nearly the same immunity to the variant as the original virus (assuming the spike protein doesn't change significantly). We know that the spike protein is significantly less likely to change than other parts of the virus so that's a reasonable assumption.

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

#93

Post by dimgl »

brainbrane wrote: post #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 th…

> What's interesting is that I still get side effects from the vaccine

What side effects? How can you know this is coming from the vaccine?

> I've been managing an autoimmune disease (MS) for the past 25 years.

Wouldn't it be more likely that this [multiple sclerosis] is the cause of your symptoms?

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

#94

Post by rolph »

cblconfederate wrote: post #89
rolph wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes and this has been the big setback for many years this is why we dont have a lot of these vector vaccines. if someone is immune to adenovirus they typically destroy the vaccine before antigen can be presented. this reduces prophylactic opportunities regarding serial innoculation with adenovirus vector, regardless of the cassette load i am one of those people, having worked with adenovirus, as well as coronavirus,…

you got infected with SARS1?

yes i did, when it was brand new, it was very concerning, i was very congested, labouring to breath and walking was starting to feel like running a marathon in 90 degree weather. when SARS-2 came around it was a case of the sniffles, with very high antibody titre, searching on a whim i discovered that i am not alone, and apparently SARS-1 convalesence related to outcome of SARS-2 infection

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

#95

Post by randomopining »

arisAlexis wrote: post #55
civilized wrote: post #25

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?

That's what I've been proposing for a few months. Get the vaccine and then get the delta variant a few weeks later to crush it and then be super immune for future variants that jet off of that one.

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

#96

Post by argvargc »

munk-a wrote: post #21
Zigurd wrote: post #4

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.

This really is the TL;DR of all the research comparing natural and vaccinated resistance. The vaccine provides significant benefits to both folks who dodged the pandemic and those who were infected. There isn't a rational reason to avoid getting vaccinated.

2021:

Q1: "It's perfectly safe!"

Q2: "It's pretty darn safe, just a small number of people get blood clots!"

Q3: "It's safe, just a small number of people get blood clots and a few others have heart problems most of which fully recover but some don't."

Q4: ???

2022

Q1: ???

Q2: ???

Q3: ???

Q4: ???

2023

Q1: ???

Q2: ???

Q3: ???

Q4: ???

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

#97

Post by staticassertion »

nradov wrote: post #16
bananabiscuit wrote: post #3

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…

That really depends on which vaccine. There are several inactivated virus vaccines such as Sinovac used in other countries which we would expect to produce antibodies for more than just the spike protein. However it's unclear whether those vaccines are more or less effective in practice.

Are there such vaccines available in the US? It seems like those would make for effective boosters.

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

#98

Post by criticaltinker »

fpgaminer wrote: post #74

A layman's take: Maybe the antibodies are different because the immune system is being presented with _only_ the spike protein, rather than the whole virus? From my understanding, the immune system breaks the viral proteins up into pieces and then starts rapidly "evolving" antibodies to target those pieces. The goal being to ultimately produce antibodies that target those pieces, and don't target the learned whitelis…

Solid layman reasoning, just wanted to clear up one slight misconception:

> mRNA vaccines used the spike protein because we believe that to be the most conserved proteins

The spike protein was chosen mostly because it was well known to serve a primary role in the process of infection and subsequent immune response. Ongoing vaccine research is exploring the use of additional proteins, because they have been demonstrated to be a major factor in viral replication and protective immunity. For example, nucleocapsid (N) protein antibodies are induced by natural infection, but not by vaccination using the current solely spike protein focused mRNA vaccine formulations. N protein antibodies likely have a synergistic effect with S protein antibodies, and thus vaccine formulations incorporating both elements may result in more robust protection, especially against variants.

See my other comment on this thread for supporting excerpts and citations from the literature.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28320340

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

#100

Post by jart »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #14
anonuser123456 wrote: post #9

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 don't think anyone's concerned about IM vs. IN as they are mRNA vs. DNA. The boosters deliver double stranded helix straight to the nucleus like a Windows update. You'd have to pull an Apocalypse Now to roll that back. GM people nobody panics but GM organic food and everyone loses their minds.
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