from the if-there-are-antibodies-are-there-also-unclebodies? dept.
Up to now, people have been discouraged from getting antibody tests to measure what their COVID vaccination did. The reasoning behind that advice is that since nobody knew what a given level meant in actionable terms, it was not useful information.
That just changed.
Nature has published the results of research into the relationship between antibody levels post-vaccination and vaccine efficacy, with plenty of different vaccines.
An easy-to-read overview is at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01372-6
The full paper, with the methodology and conclusions, is at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01377-8 (It looks like careful work but it's over my head in places.)
The bottom line is that they found a clear correlation and protection levels keep going up as antibody levels go up, though there's some diminishing returns at the very top end where the mRNA vaccines are.
The cool part is they figured out what antibody level would give you the 50% protection that we would have been willing to accept from a vaccine. The mRNA vaccines leave you with an order of magnitude more. That's quite a comforting safety factor against variants and gradual decline.
Journal References:
1.) Smriti Mallapaty. Scientists zero in on long-sought marker of COVID-vaccine efficacy, (DOI: 10.1038/d41586-021-01372-6)
2.) David S. Khoury, Deborah Cromer, Arnold Reynaldi, et al. Neutralizing antibody levels are highly predictive of immune protection from symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection [open], Nature Medicine (DOI: 10.1038/s41591-021-01377-8)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @10:19AM
This is what happens when you let scientists control the agenda. Why didn't they measure and graph the correlation between antibody level and autism? If there's no correlation they would have info against the anti-vaxxers. Are they sweeping the results under the rug because mRNA causes an order of magnitude more?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @10:28AM (1 child)
Answer:
All of them!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @10:41AM
Three. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6rHeD5x2tI [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 28 2021, @10:35AM (7 children)
So, 500% protection? Awesome. My wife got the shot, so she's protecting everyone in our home!! Seriously, that's just awesome!!! Thank you Astrazeneca, Thank you Johnson & Johnson, and Thank you President Trump!! This is the sort of quality we can get behind! This is magNIFicent!! /sarcasm
(Score: -1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @12:57PM (4 children)
That order of magnitude is not a good thing. You do not want super strong immunity towards one variant because that stops you from getting full immunity to future variants. In fact the reason you need a booster is because your body knows to wait for multiple exposures to get an idea of the variation before mounting a full response. Artificially injecting the exact same sequence multiple times bypasses this safegaurd.
Original antigenic sin has already been seen for Moderna boosters. See figure 3d, which shows that even after boosted with a vaccine designed for the south africa variant, neutralization of that variant could not rise to the same level as for the original strain.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.05.21256716v1 [medrxiv.org]
Once you are vaccinated like this, you cannot raise an optimal immune response to similar viruses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @04:17PM (3 children)
citation needed? oh wait, there isn't know, just flawed correlation.
and it's not how it works. you should read what you actually linked. Here, I quote,
it means the modified vaccine was better vs. the mutant than boosting with original, but the trial continues. So, not sure if you are trying to be a troll or just not understanding how things work, but it clearly states that booster vaccine is working well vs. covid. And considering that original already proved to be affective vs. the variant, it's not surprising you don't get too many new antibodies when then old ones are already effective. If they weren't, then it would be like a new virus and everyone would be fucked. But it's not like that.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @04:27PM
Look at figure 3d, the SA booster was unable to boost antibodies vs the SA strain to the same level as the original strain. The immunity is too focused on a strain that no longer exists.
Original antigenic sin is well known and has been a concern since the beginning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday May 28 2021, @06:25PM (1 child)
Even without a booster those enormous antibody levels can make up for some loss of binding effectiveness to variants. If one antibody molecule falls off, that's OK as long as there's another nearby to take its place.
The immune system naturally prepares for variants, it turns out. Instead of throwing out all the second-rate matches and only keeping the most effective antibody producing cells, it maintains a suite of antibodies some of which sort of work. When a virus mutates, it may hit one that's already by coincidence effective against it.
We did evolve to defend against mutating viruses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @09:14PM
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/12/antibody-dependent-enhancement-and-the-coronavirus-vaccines [sciencemag.org]
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5 [nature.com]
The "some loss of binding effectiveness" is far from the worst thing that can result from an unlucky variant-mismatch.
(Score: 4, Informative) by EvilSS on Friday May 28 2021, @04:10PM
Pretty sure they are referring to the antibody level that you coincidentally left out of your quote, not the % protection, when they say it gives an order of magnitude more.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday May 28 2021, @06:11PM
Did you miss the part where I said "diminishing returns"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @04:11PM (5 children)
Some say 640 should be enough. Others say 42 is the magic number.
You be the judge.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @04:43PM (4 children)
> ... 42 is the magic number.
... 42 is The Answer.
ftfy.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday May 28 2021, @04:48PM (3 children)
Just have to come up with the right question now.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @04:51PM (1 child)
I know some comrades don't even bother reading TFS, nevermind TFA, but not even the title?!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday June 01 2021, @02:41PM
Sorry, I was going on the premise that they were referring to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" is 42. What the Ultimate question was, required further processing.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday May 28 2021, @08:57PM
What do you get if you multiply six by nine?
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday May 28 2021, @06:15PM
A couple of my friends are on immunosuppressive drugs and there's an open question whether their vaccinations were effective. Now they can take an antibody test and find out how well they are protected.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Friday May 28 2021, @09:27PM
Yes, and I enjoy playing hide the sausage with my unclebodies. :^D
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti