[HN Gopher] Antibody levels highly predictive of immune protecti...
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Antibody levels highly predictive of immune protection from
symptomatic Covid
Author : georgecmu
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-05-22 17:11 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| mikem170 wrote:
| From the article, a section called "Prediction of the potential
| for long term protection" at the bottom of the Results:
|
| > The estimated neutralization level for protection from severe
| infection is approximately sixfold lower than the level required
| to protect from any symptomatic infection. Thus, a higher level
| of protection against severe infection is expected for any given
| level of vaccine efficacy against mild SARS-CoV-2 infection.
| Assuming that this relationship remains constant over time, it
| appears probable that immunity to severe infection may be much
| more durable than overall immunity to any infection. Long-term
| studies of antibody responses to vaccinia, measles, mumps or
| rubella suggest that these responses generally stabilize with
| half-lives of >10 years. We therefore projected beyond the
| reported decay of SARS-CoV-2 responses (out to 8 months after
| infection5), assuming that after 8 months following the infection
| the decay rate will slow down. We modeled the decay rate of the
| neutralization titer, assuming that it slowed linearly to a
| 10-year half-life over 1, 1.5 or 2 years (details in Methods).
| This analysis predicts that even without immune boosting, a
| significant proportion of individuals may maintain long-term
| protection from severe infection by an antigenically similar
| strain, even though they may become susceptible to mild infection
| (Fig. 3b,c).
|
| Sounds like good news. This study appears to be saying that the
| vaccines do a 6x better job of preventing severe covid infection
| than the known 94% efficacy preventing even mild symptoms from
| appearing, and that long term immunity [0] might be expected to
| last decades, similar to other vaccines.
|
| [0], EDIT: "long term protection against severe sickness", as
| opposed to "immunity", as pointed out by PeterHolzwarth in
| comment below
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| I believe the paper indicates otherwise, in regards to
| immunity. To help make sense of the paper, I read this Science
| Daily article that reviews it, and contains some comments from
| the paper's authors.
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210517105727.h...
|
| Here, one of the people associated with the paper mentions:
|
| _" Vaccination works very well to prevent both symptoms and
| severe disease in the short to medium term, but efficacy is
| predicted to decline over the first few months for most of
| these vaccines,"_
|
| _" However, it is very important to understand the difference
| between immunity against infection and protection from
| developing severe disease. Our study found that a 6-fold lower
| level of antibodies is required to protect against severe
| disease. So even though our analysis predicts that we will
| start losing immunity to mild infection in the first year after
| vaccination, protection from severe infection should be longer
| lived," says Dr Khoury._
|
| Key is that distinction between immunity and protection against
| severe sickness.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Does _" 6-fold lower level"_ mean "a sixth of the level"?
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| Yes
| [deleted]
| mikem170 wrote:
| I added a clarifying edit to my comment above.
| christkv wrote:
| So it will become endemic and be one of the common colds ?
| ed_balls wrote:
| pretty much. This what happened with 7 cold viruses and 2*
| flu viruses. I don't think it's realistic to destroy the
| virus reservoirs.
|
| *not sure if these are the exact number I remember from the
| lecture.
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| I feel this depends on what we mean when we say "common
| cold."
|
| I perceive the topic as characterized by answers to the
| questions of:
|
| 1. How easily can I catch the virus?
|
| 2. How likely am I to experience severe symptoms when
| infected?
|
| 3. Are there treatments that will significantly help me if
| I experience severe symptoms?
|
| My readings indicate covid appears to be more infectious
| than influenza, but I do not know the comparison between
| the common cold viruses and covid on this front.
|
| I am uncertain if covid is more or less likely to cause
| severe symptoms vs influenza. I believe, however, that the
| viruses that represent the common cold (rhinoviruses) can
| be definitely characterized as being much more benign in
| regards to symptoms.
|
| I feel a key issue is #3 - there are few known compounds
| that can reliably aid in treatment of someone who is
| experiencing severe symptoms for covid. This is an area of
| rapidly expanding research now, of course.
| guscost wrote:
| > I believe, however, that the viruses that represent the
| common cold (rhinoviruses) can be definitely
| characterized as being much more benign in regards to
| symptoms.
|
| There are at least four endemic cold-coronaviruses, plus
| the adenovirus family, plus a bunch more. The severity of
| most of these respiratory infections depend a lot on
| patient comorbidities, and immune history.
| timr wrote:
| The OP asked a simple question that requires no
| definitional equivocation. You are complicating the
| question unnecessarily.
|
| The question is: will the virus become endemic. The
| simple answer is "yes", because it is _already endemic_ :
| it has multiple mammalian reservoirs, is found in every
| country on earth, and is ubiquitous in the human
| population. It is endemic.
|
| Theories about severity, treatment, etc., are completely
| irrelevant.
| jacobmischka wrote:
| How is it irrelevant? It seems like some of the most
| relevant considerations when explicitly asking about
| something compared to the common cold, which is exactly
| what they did.
|
| This was a super weird reaction to someone's detailed yet
| brief and thoughtful response.
| anamexis wrote:
| And the second half of the question is "and be one of the
| common colds," which is exactly what GP was responding
| to..
| belltaco wrote:
| Not if a significant fraction refuses to get vaccinated.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| I'm a little surprised this is in nature... Isn't that exactly
| what you'd expect?
| dEnigma wrote:
| But not everything turns out as you'd expect, so it's important
| to actually test and provide evidence.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| Yeah, it just seems unusual for Nature to publish such a
| confirmatory outcome.
| noodlenotes wrote:
| The headline might be what you expect, but the article contains
| mathematical details about the relationship between antibody
| levels from the vaccines and neutralization. It also models
| antibody levels over time to see what immune protection we'll
| have in the future. Did we know the expected efficacy of the
| vaccine against severe Covid 750 days post-vaccine before?
| The_rationalist wrote:
| I wonder whether bromantane can help with the covid response
| xiphias2 wrote:
| My father tested negative for spike specific antibodies 2 weeks
| after the 2nd Pfizer vaccine (he's not the only one), and as I
| didn't find any data on people who test negative (and I know that
| the vaccine has 94% efficiency preventing COVID), he's still
| mostly not leaving his apartment.
|
| He'll have a test against the viruses themselves next week, but
| he'll need to wait 2 weeks for the result for that test.
| yosito wrote:
| I wonder if an expert could chime in on this. If someone tests
| negative for antibodies a few weeks after a vaccine, should
| that person get vaccinated again? Maybe with a different
| vaccine?
| tdeck wrote:
| How did he happen to get that antibody test?
| xiphias2 wrote:
| A nurse came to his apartment to take the test (I payed for
| it)
| tdeck wrote:
| That's cool! I had no idea those were available to the
| general public.
| rgbbtc4life wrote:
| If the vaccine is truly 95% effective in preventing infection,
| how did 9 fully vaccinated Yankees players all contract the
| virus?
| [deleted]
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Part of it is probably that these people get tested very
| often.
|
| The "95% protection rate" doesn't really mean people don't
| get infected. Vaccinated people get in contact with as much
| virus as others.
|
| What it means is their immune system defeats 95% of the
| infections before you notice you're sick.
|
| But if you get a test while your body is in the middle of
| crushing such a small infection, you'll test positive.
| neither_color wrote:
| 5% of one hundred million people is 5 million people.
| verdverm wrote:
| 1. It was a single player, the rest were other staff
|
| 2. Vaccines don't prevent infection, they reduce severity by
| training the body's immune system. Natural exposure works the
| same way. This it is not surprising that 8/9 Yankees which
| tested positive were asymptomatic
| atty wrote:
| This is incorrect - from population studies, we now know
| that both the mRNA vaccines reduce infection rates and
| reduce severity of symptoms for those who do get infected.
| In fact, they both show about 90% efficacy at preventing
| infection at all. That number is probably trending down a
| bit with all the new strains, but it is still very high.
| _coveredInBees wrote:
| The Yankee players all had J&J vaccines, so not the mRNA
| variety.
| verdverm wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/20/health/yankees-
| covid-19-break...
|
| The Yankees are reported to be using the J&J vaccine,
| which is a viral vector product.
| verdverm wrote:
| I suppose that depends on how infection is defined.
| Nothing prevents the virus from entering the body and
| triggering a positive test result, especially when the
| tests are run with longer cycle times
| standardUser wrote:
| I don't know where this misinformation came form, but it is
| absolutely false. COVID vaccines have been shown to prevent
| infection...
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacc
| i....
| legobmw99 wrote:
| I think most ball players got J&J, which has a decently lower
| prevention number. The encouraging news was that they all
| ended up asymptomatic, which is the next best thing
| _coveredInBees wrote:
| Yes, All of the Yankee players who were vaccinated had J&J.
| Also, most were completely asymptomatic and no one had
| serious symptoms. All-in-all, it was a success story for
| vaccines.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| Has he been tested for immune deficiencies? What is his age?
| Have a contact that's an NIH immunologist, want to get his
| opinion.
|
| tia
| azinman2 wrote:
| That doesn't mean he doesn't have protection. The antibody
| tests only look For one thing, but the body has many mechanisms
| of protection from the vaccine. That is one of the reasons why
| they're not suggested to be used for the general population.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| I know that it doesn't mean that he isn't protected, but I
| didn't find data on the protection against severe covid
| disease with the conditional probability of spike specific
| antibody test being negative after being properly vaccinated.
| Instead of just guidance I would like to see data.
|
| Anyways that's why there are specific, slower test that can
| test his protection against specific virus mutations.
| rgbbtc4life wrote:
| The people achieving immunity through vaccination are at a huge
| disadvantage compared to those with natural immunity. As shown in
| research from the other day, natural antibodies target several
| proteins and more of the spike protein than Pfizer immunity does.
| Additionally, natural immunity stimulates both the innate immune
| response and killer T cell response.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing ADE among vaccinated
| individuals - there's a good chance their antibodies will be non
| neutralizing when challenged with live virus a year from now.
|
| Also, it appears governments are motivated to hide information
| about the vaccine. It's come out the CDC is performing PCR
| testing for vaccinated individuals with a lower cycle count than
| for the unvaccinated. There's no reason to trust anything coming
| out of the CDC with regards to vaccination.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Do you have a link to the research you're citing from the other
| day? Also the basis for your implication that there's a known
| difference in T cell response for natural immunity vs vaccine
| immunity?
| rgbbtc4life wrote:
| Natural antibodies target several proteins:
| https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/05/18/human-antibodies-
| ta...
|
| Natural immunity robust and long lasting:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-
| immuni...
|
| Killer t cell importance:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00367-7
| tzs wrote:
| Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cause production of
| the full COVID spike protein. There is no reason to believe
| or even suspect that antibodies produced in response to
| that do not target the same regions of that spike protein
| that they would if produced in response to spike protein
| from the actual virus.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| That antibody research doesn't seem to support your initial
| assertion of vaccinated individuals being at a huge
| disadvantage compared to those with natural immunity. Your
| point about T cell response seems reasonable. A natural T
| cell response may be able to target internal viral
| proteins. But backing up a bit, I'm struggling to find the
| overall "so what". If a person is worried about getting
| covid and doesn't want to be at a "disadvantage" they
| should...get covid?
| tryonenow wrote:
| The high cycle counts of the PCR tests in the US make all
| official numbers suspect. Particularly in combination with
| implicit political pressure against the previous
| administration, and an overzealous press. The entire system -
| academic, medical, news and entertainment - is rotten with bias
| and society collectively is worse off for it, especially with
| respect to handling this pandemic.
|
| It's hard to find a source now but these PCR tests were being
| run with cycle counts anywhere from 30-40; in this regime you
| are extremely likely to amplify noise and generate a huge
| percentage of false positives. The inventor of the PCR tests
| made similar comments regarding abuse of the PCR process during
| the HIV/aids pandemic - and wouldn't you know it, Dr. Fauci was
| involved in [mis]managing that pandemic as well. His self
| serving publication and premature press release created an
| ultimately unfounded stigma around HIV positivity. There is
| simply no reason to trust the guy now, regardless of his
| overtly warm, anti-trump persona. And now he has repeatedly
| denied before congress that he was affiliated with
| funding/conducting gain of function research on bat
| coronaviruses. But the publications, with authors publicly and
| directly linked to Fauci and funds he managed, are freely
| available online. This should be a far bigger story.
| t-writescode wrote:
| How does your argument here correspond with the numerous
| articles discussing how the mRNA vaccines are effective against
| the numerous variants?
|
| There's a big scare every time there's a new variant, followed
| by another article a couple weeks later about how the vaccine
| is X > 50% effective against [ new variant ].
| standardUser wrote:
| "It's come out the CDC is performing PCR testing for vaccinated
| individuals with a lower cycle count than for the
| unvaccinated."
|
| Do you have anything to back up this conspiracy theory? I'm
| also wondering how many of the ~1 million tests per day are
| being performed by the CDC itself?
| [deleted]
| grej wrote:
| I don't believe this is clear at all. So far, it actually seems
| the mRNA vaccines as well as the viral vector vaccines greatly
| attenuate the severity of COVID among those who do catch a
| variant.
| rgbbtc4life wrote:
| There is only one study to estimate the effectiveness of the
| mrna vaccines. It was quite small, and performed only on
| those who received pristine mrna injections.
|
| It's come out that the mass produced vaccine has significant
| mrna degradation. It's unclear how many people's vaccines
| were even effective.
|
| Additionally you have 9 Yankees players who were fully
| vaccinated contracting the virus, so its not 95% effective in
| preventing infection and there's a very real risk of Merek's
| disease as a result.
|
| Furthermore, Pfizer is on record as saying a 3rd dose will be
| needed. Meanwhile, natural immunity has been shown to be
| robust and long lasting.
| truantbuick wrote:
| AFAIK the only player to have tested positive for COVID in
| that outbreak is Gleyber Torres (the rest were support
| staff), who had an actual COVID infection before, which
| undermines your idea that getting COVID is somehow superior
| to getting vaccinated.
|
| And as already mentioned, the Yankees received the J&J
| vaccine, which is not an MRNA vaccine.
| t-writescode wrote:
| The Yankees were given the J&J vaccine, not an mRNA
| vaccine. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/13/sport/yankees-
| test-positi...
|
| Are you scared? Or intentionally spreading misinformation?
| [deleted]
| rgbbtc4life wrote:
| Naturally the hacker's echo chamber will downvote my wrongthink
| into oblivion. I hate this community. Proceed to shadowban
| everyone you disagree with. Bye.
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