<story><title>Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta</title><url>https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-vaccination-blunts-does-not-defeat-delta</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>criticaltinker</author><text>&amp;gt; all 3 of them told me to expect something like that - the virus mutates ... and the vaccines will likely be needing to adjust&lt;p&gt;Your doctor friends were informing you about a phenomenon commonly referred to as &amp;quot;immune escape&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The current mRNA based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are effective at preventing severe outcomes like hospitalization and death. However, they do not necessarily prevent infection or transmission - and they induce an immune response highly targeted toward the spike protein RBD [1]. Combined with mass vaccination strategies, these factors contribute to a situation that exerts tremendous selective pressure on the virus, and can result in convergent mutations that are advantageous for the virus in a large population of people [1][2]. These mutations can lead to partial or complete immune escape, which manifests as increased transmission or virulence, reduced vaccine efficacy, and reduced immunity in naturally infected individuals.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Even the highest levels of vaccination are no protection&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not quite accurate to say &amp;quot;are no protection&amp;quot;. I would rephrase as:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Strategies for viral elimination should therefore be diversified across molecular targets and therapeutic modalities&lt;/i&gt; [1]&lt;p&gt;[1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;33909660&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;33909660&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion by the B.1.427&amp;#x2F;B.1.429 variant of concern
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;early&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;science.abi7994&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;early&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;scie...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>danielodievich</author><text>I am good friends with 3 doctors, and talk to them a lot about the amazing science behind the vaccines and the incredible speed with which those were designed and developed. All agree it was done at pretty much the software speed - custom designed on the computer in weeks and then built to order - and both them and I think it&amp;#x27;s pretty neat.&lt;p&gt;It is very refreshing to talk to them because they, being good doctors, deal calmly and reasonably with probabilities rather than absolutes.&lt;p&gt;Very early, even before general public could get vaccines, all 3 of them told me to expect something like that - the virus mutates, it is expected to develop, the mutation for reproductive number going up is likely to occur - and it did - and the vaccines will likely be needing to adjust.&lt;p&gt;Even the highest levels of vaccination are no protection, and I am pretty tiny Israel in a sea of the largely unvaccinated is going to be swamped.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Barrin92</author><text>&amp;gt;The current mRNA based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are effective at preventing severe outcomes like hospitalization and death&lt;p&gt;According to this very article this isn&amp;#x27;t even really true any more. Of the currently hospitalized population in Israel 60% are fully vaccinated. With 78% of the population vaccinated that implies the protection is actually surprisingly weak.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot; “There are so many breakthrough infections that they dominate and most of the hospitalized patients are actually vaccinated,” says Uri Shalit, a bioinformatician at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) who has consulted on COVID-19 for the government. “One of the big stories from Israel [is]: ‘Vaccines work, but not well enough.’”&lt;/i&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta</title><url>https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-vaccination-blunts-does-not-defeat-delta</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>criticaltinker</author><text>&amp;gt; all 3 of them told me to expect something like that - the virus mutates ... and the vaccines will likely be needing to adjust&lt;p&gt;Your doctor friends were informing you about a phenomenon commonly referred to as &amp;quot;immune escape&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The current mRNA based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are effective at preventing severe outcomes like hospitalization and death. However, they do not necessarily prevent infection or transmission - and they induce an immune response highly targeted toward the spike protein RBD [1]. Combined with mass vaccination strategies, these factors contribute to a situation that exerts tremendous selective pressure on the virus, and can result in convergent mutations that are advantageous for the virus in a large population of people [1][2]. These mutations can lead to partial or complete immune escape, which manifests as increased transmission or virulence, reduced vaccine efficacy, and reduced immunity in naturally infected individuals.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Even the highest levels of vaccination are no protection&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not quite accurate to say &amp;quot;are no protection&amp;quot;. I would rephrase as:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Strategies for viral elimination should therefore be diversified across molecular targets and therapeutic modalities&lt;/i&gt; [1]&lt;p&gt;[1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;33909660&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;33909660&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion by the B.1.427&amp;#x2F;B.1.429 variant of concern
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;early&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;science.abi7994&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;early&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;scie...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>danielodievich</author><text>I am good friends with 3 doctors, and talk to them a lot about the amazing science behind the vaccines and the incredible speed with which those were designed and developed. All agree it was done at pretty much the software speed - custom designed on the computer in weeks and then built to order - and both them and I think it&amp;#x27;s pretty neat.&lt;p&gt;It is very refreshing to talk to them because they, being good doctors, deal calmly and reasonably with probabilities rather than absolutes.&lt;p&gt;Very early, even before general public could get vaccines, all 3 of them told me to expect something like that - the virus mutates, it is expected to develop, the mutation for reproductive number going up is likely to occur - and it did - and the vaccines will likely be needing to adjust.&lt;p&gt;Even the highest levels of vaccination are no protection, and I am pretty tiny Israel in a sea of the largely unvaccinated is going to be swamped.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maxerickson</author><text>The Delta variant emerged prior to widespread vaccination.</text></comment>