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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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Israel and some recent studies No, it does not. The data from Israel only supports the claim that immunity from infection is longer lasting than from the vaccine, which shoul…

Honestly I have yet to see any convincing scientific evidence that is free from confounding factors which suggests that there is waning immunity. And there's reason to believe from HCoV-229E that immunity against coronaviruses is actually durable and that reinfection is due to mutation and immune escape. https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...

There may be no scientific reason but it would make focusing on mRNA vaccine exclusively look like a strategic mistake. The driving factor behind the approach is the belief that the encoded domain is essential to virulence. Immune escape from mutation would imply failure of that reasoning. Unfortunately other approaches that focus exlusively on a segment of the S protein would face the same challenges.

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

#152

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…

The vaccines also lack a specific abnormal side effect that the infection may carry: risk of death and hospitalization. Now with death, one could argue that it does provide much longer lasting immunity.... Seriously though, for most people the severity of infection-derived immunity is preconditioned upon them surviving the disease so this looks like the classic "planes with bullet holes" image?

> The vaccines also lack a specific abnormal side effect that the infection may carry: risk of death and hospitalization.

This is well-intentioned but false. The vaccines can send you to the hospital (side-effects). It's rare but happens. Similarly, you can be vaccinated, get infected with SARS-2, and end up in the hospital, so it's not even true that they avoid hospitalization from SARS-2 itself completely. (They help a lot with hosp/death from the virus, to be clear)

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccines also lack a specific abnormal side effect that the infection may carry: risk of death and hospitalization. Now with death, one could argue that it does provide much longer lasting immunity.... Seriously though, for most people the severity of infection-derived immunity is preconditioned upon them surviving the disease so this looks like the classic "planes with bullet holes" image?

Not with inactivated virus. There are vaccines based on that.

… did you just respond to a statement about the reduction in morbidity and mortality from vaccines compared to infection with the virus… with a statement that says ‘use a vaccine?’

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CoronaVac vaccine? This is a much less effective vaccine than Pfizer and Moderna ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoronaVac ), so it's not surprising that natural immunity would be superior.

What about the Israeli study then.. http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.spectator.co.uk/arti... It found that double pfizer jabbed people were 13 times more likely to be infected than those who had already recovered.

Not disputing that. Anecdotally in my household: 100% break-through rate (2 Pfizer vaxxed adults and 2 unvaxxed [ineligible] children] all recently caught what we believe to be the delta variant (confirmed via PCR). That said, the vaccine clearly reduced disease severity; all recovered within a few days.

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For spike proteins. Not for the other targets you get with natural immunity.

> For spike proteins. Not for the other targets you get with natural immunity From the article: "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." The study discussed in the article unequivocally states…

The quote you're highlighting is specifically referring to 'single letter' variants of the spike protein. Immunity from infection gives a wider variety of protections beyond just the narrow targeting of the spike protein.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is not disputing that. They're pointing out that we know this, but not why.

It might seem small but they only said it was longer lasting, not that it was stronger: > is longer lasting than from the vaccine

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not with inactivated virus. There are vaccines based on that.

… did you just respond to a statement about the reduction in morbidity and mortality from vaccines compared to infection with the virus… with a statement that says ‘use a vaccine?’

Opening argument was about robustness of immune response from exposure to the whole virus. GP implied infection was the only way to be exposed to the whole virus. I pointed out such exposure can also be achieved through inactivated virus.

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

#158
post #19

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…

> Anyone with more experience in immunology care to weigh in on why the second paragraph there follows from the first? Naively, one might expect targeting a wider variety of places on on the COVID spike protein to result in better immunity against variants, not worse. Why is the article saying the opposite?

The RBD is the part of the spike protein that latches onto the cell. Specifically it latches onto the ACE2 receptor. If the RBD changes too much then the virus can no longer infect its target cells (because it can't attach to ACE2 receptors). This means that there are probably strong limits on how much this section of the virus can change.

Because we expect the RBD to change less than other areas, and because the mRNA vaccines recognize more of these possible changes, then we have a reasonable expectation that mRNA based immunity should continue to be effective.

To make a crude analogy, ACE2 is a phillips head screw. The spike protein is a phillips screw driver. The tip of the screw driver is the RDB. Infection elicited antibodies recognize random spots all over the screw driver. mRNA vaccine elicited antibodies recognized spots all over the tip. Eventually you can turn the handle into a shape that won't be recognized, but there are strict limits on how much you can change the tip while still having it function as a philips screw driver. And of the ways that you can change the tip, the mRNA antibodies will match more of them than the naturally acquired ones. At least that's the expectation.

There are still possible ways that the virus might evade; perhaps by making shields for the tip that block portions of the antibody, but this seems like it might be harder than changing the handle's shape.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. This smells of literal survivor bias. The group that survives the delta variant is a smaller set than all who got infected while all vaccinated persons survived, even ones that wouldn’t have survived without the vaccine.

While true, it's not by much; mortality for covid-19 is less than a percent of all hospitalizations, iirc.

I do not think you remember it correctly. Cumulatively mortality is around 2% and sometimes higher of all known cases.

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other commentators have noted, it's quite a leap in logic to use reinfection data to make a mechanistic claim on how natural infection may or may not improve the immune response compared to vaccination. In addition, the naturally-infected and vaccine populations are not the same. For example, having a bad experience with a natural infection of Covid may cause people to not participate as much in virus-risky behavi…

That mechanism of action is just what I’ve seen put forth by immunologists commenting on the these kinds of results. While the author’s opinions on the necessity of vaccines do differ, they do agree on my main point: that empirically, natural immunity is indeed robust and tentatively even better than vaccine acquired immunity. It looks like getting a vaccine helps boost immunity in all cases, whether you had a previo…

To acquire immunity naturally you have to get sick.

In oder to acquire that immunity you have a 1% chance of dying, 2% chance of ending up in the hospital on a ventilator for a month, and a 20% chance of long haul covid.

To acquire immunity from a vaccine you have a 0.001% chance of an allergic reaction.

Which risk do you choose?

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