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0 pointsraphlinus4y ago0 comments

Thanks for trying to bring more precision to the discussion. I also cited that blog post elsethread, and, having reviewed it, agree it's not the single best piece of evidence. It establishes a narrow result which suggests a generally better immune response from vaccines, but does not prove it.

If I had to cite a single preprint to support the assertion, it would probably be this one:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4

Obviously this study also has limitations: it speaks only to Ab levels, while obviously the overall immune response is a lot more complicated.

I agree with the "waving of preprints" claim. Unfortunately, hyperskepticism, rejecting drawing conclusions because of the inevitable limitations of any study, is also a politicized position, and unfortunately I see a fair amount of that as well.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

nwienert4y ago· 2 in thread

We know based on past corornaviruses that natural infection can lead to durable immunity up to 20 years, and like you mentioned with T-cells and more. We also have data showing the current ones so far last as long as we’ve tested them, while vaccines have waned once near a year out. The consensus hasn’t been reached, by my current beliefs strongly tend towards (based on many past similar viruses and all current studies) that vaccine is far less efficacious.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762

Note: that’s 6.7 times stronger immunity from natural vs vaccinated! If anything we should have “previously-infected” cards that confer far greater privileges than vaccination cards, if we’re going to be playing that silly game.

Here’s a citation showing stronger T cell immunity from naturally infected: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1418

Natural infection stronger across the board:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news-medical.net/amp/news/2...

Natural immunity holds across even previously known coronavirus variants:

https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/covid_survivors_resis...

raphlinusOP4y ago

Antibodies wane, but B-cell and T-cell response is important for longer term protection. Fortunately, we have results (including [B] and [T]) that vaccines also induce these memory cell responses.

Also, the durability of immunity from coronavirus probably depends on the exact coronavirus. It does seem to be true for SARS, but possibly less so for the seasonal coronaviruses that cause a respectable fraction of common colds[3]. We don't really know yet where SARS-CoV-2 falls on that spectrum.

[B]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.12.21259864v...

[T]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.30.21259787v...

[3]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1083-1

nwienert4y ago

While they may stimulate some B and T, they aren’t close to the levels from infection.

From what I’ve seen many coronavirus have durable immunity from infection, you’d need to cite that they vary. Also, from what I’ve seen the T and B cell response is not nearly the same effect, nor as durable.

Further, like the Israeli report, there are a handful more reports of previously infected not getting reinfected at nearly the same rates. The Israeli report has hard numbers in the article you ignored.

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criticaltinker4y ago

Thanks for the citation, I hadn't seen that paper yet.

I agree it predominantly speaks to antibody levels. For others reading who don't already know - antibody levels are used as proxy to measure immune protection, but currently there is no scientific consensus that increasingly higher antibody levels correspond to increasingly better protection. Similarly, it is difficult to determine at what antibody levels an individual is "protected enough". So answering those questions is an ongoing scientific endeavor.

With that said, the literature is rapidly approaching (and likely has already established) scientific consensus that vaccination increases many components of the humoral response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. But for the reasons I previously stated, this has not been proven to translate into better protection or additional benefits for previously infected individuals.

So while antibody levels are a useful measure, another important factor is the robustness of the vaccine induced immune responses in comparison to the response induced in naturally infected individuals. There is a relevant section in the paper you cited titled 'mRNA vaccines induce higher Ab levels and greater Ab breadth than natural exposure to infection'.

My takeaway is that the authors are concluding that the vaccine induces a more robust antibody response because "the vaccine induced significant cross-reactive Abs against the SARS spike and SARS RBD". However they also clearly state that the vaccine does not induce antibodies against the nucleocapsid protein, which natural infection does.

For these reasons I feel that characterizing the vaccine induced immune response as "more robust" doesn't really paint an accurate picture. Especially when it has yet to be proven that this difference in immune response is actually beneficial for health outcomes in people infected with the virus.

Here are some key excerpts:

- "The nucleocapsid protein (NP) is an immunodominant antigen for which the antibody response increases in concordance with natural exposure (Figure 2A,3A and 4)."

- "However, nucleocapsid is not a component of the mRNA vaccines and consequently there is no vaccine-induced increase in Ab against this antigen. Accordingly, anti-spike antibody levels increased in vaccinees while the nucleocapsid protein Ab level remained constant."

- "Natural exposure in seropositive people induces high antibody levels against nucleocapsid protein (NP), full-length spike (S1+S2) and the S2 domain. Antibodies against S1 and the RBD domains are lower."

- "Vaccinated individuals have high Ab levels against full-length spike and the S2 domain of SARS-CoV-2 spike, and significantly higher antibody levels against S1 and the RBD domains compared to naturally exposed individuals."

- "In natural exposure there was no significant cross-reactivity against SARS S1 or the RBD domains. Surprisingly, the vaccine induced significant cross-reactive Abs against the SARS spike and SARS RBD."

- "Vaccination induces a more robust antibody response than natural exposure alone, SUGGESTING that those who have recovered from COVID benefit from the vaccination with stronger and broader antibody response."

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