<story><title>SARS-CoV-2 variant A.30 is heavily mutated and evades vaccine-induced antibodies</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-021-00779-5</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cronix</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s just say it was &amp;quot;on par&amp;quot; with a vaccine for the sake of argument, even if it is suggested it might be better&amp;#x2F;work more broadly. Is there a scientific reason, as opposed to political, why this would not exempt one from a mandated vaccine?</text></item><item><author>armagon</author><text>I think it is due to politics that you don&amp;#x27;t hear this discussed; seemingly, nuance makes it more difficult to convey a message. The number of people who are known to have been infected is not insignificant, and the number who have been infected but it isn&amp;#x27;t known is much higher. (I thought estimated were that at least 4x as many people have had Covid as show up in the published results).&lt;p&gt;There is every reason to expect that natural immunity (derived from a previous infection) is better (than that conferred by a vaccine), simply because the immune system will recognize the entire virus and not just the spike cell.&lt;p&gt;This pre-print paper (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v...&lt;/a&gt;) concludes:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If having pre-delta covid made it more likely that your immune system could face delta, then I think it would stand true for other variants, too.</text></item><item><author>cronix</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s only a small portion of those receiving the AZ vaccine whose serum had no significant activity against A.30-- all of those with the mRNA vaccine did and most of those receiving AZ did.&lt;p&gt;How about those that received no vaccine, but have previously recovered from Covid? Is it an insignificant number because I rarely hear it discussed.</text></item><item><author>mlyle</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s also worth noting that the most people still had antibodies effective against A.30-- just not &lt;i&gt;as&lt;/i&gt; effective.  So the existing antibody response would be expected to slow infection and then the body is primed to broaden the variety and quantity of antibodies after infection.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s only a small portion of those receiving the AZ vaccine whose serum had no significant activity against A.30-- all of those with the mRNA vaccine did and most of those receiving AZ did.</text></item><item><author>jjtheblunt</author><text>I think these headlines, possibly purposefully, overlook the possibility that vaccine antibodies eased acquisition of infection induced antibodies to the point of being subclinical events.&lt;p&gt;That is, a vaccinated person could be exposed to a variant for which they are partially protected, not notice clinical symptoms, while the person&amp;#x27;s immune system still remembers the details of the variant.&lt;p&gt;As an iterative process, this is akin to software updates (for a running immune system).&lt;p&gt;So to say that variant A.30 isn&amp;#x27;t covered by the mRNA induced spike protein antibodies is a very different statement than to say it&amp;#x27;s able to evade an immune system primed by mRNA antibodies which then re-entered daily life and thereby was able to continuously adapt to variants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maccam94</author><text>Most people in the US who have contracted COVID-19 don&amp;#x27;t have proof of it. Vaccinating everyone is cheaper and more consistent than trying to build out mass testing infrastructure. Plus if you can convince people to show up for a test, it&amp;#x27;s better to just vaccinate them. Tests can come back negative, or give false positives, in which case those people still won&amp;#x27;t have immunity, but the benefits of the vaccine are pretty well understood. AFAIK it&amp;#x27;s more of an issue of ensuring public safety and efficiency than whether your immune system produced good enough antibodies from an infection.</text></comment>
<story><title>SARS-CoV-2 variant A.30 is heavily mutated and evades vaccine-induced antibodies</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-021-00779-5</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cronix</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s just say it was &amp;quot;on par&amp;quot; with a vaccine for the sake of argument, even if it is suggested it might be better&amp;#x2F;work more broadly. Is there a scientific reason, as opposed to political, why this would not exempt one from a mandated vaccine?</text></item><item><author>armagon</author><text>I think it is due to politics that you don&amp;#x27;t hear this discussed; seemingly, nuance makes it more difficult to convey a message. The number of people who are known to have been infected is not insignificant, and the number who have been infected but it isn&amp;#x27;t known is much higher. (I thought estimated were that at least 4x as many people have had Covid as show up in the published results).&lt;p&gt;There is every reason to expect that natural immunity (derived from a previous infection) is better (than that conferred by a vaccine), simply because the immune system will recognize the entire virus and not just the spike cell.&lt;p&gt;This pre-print paper (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v...&lt;/a&gt;) concludes:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If having pre-delta covid made it more likely that your immune system could face delta, then I think it would stand true for other variants, too.</text></item><item><author>cronix</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s only a small portion of those receiving the AZ vaccine whose serum had no significant activity against A.30-- all of those with the mRNA vaccine did and most of those receiving AZ did.&lt;p&gt;How about those that received no vaccine, but have previously recovered from Covid? Is it an insignificant number because I rarely hear it discussed.</text></item><item><author>mlyle</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s also worth noting that the most people still had antibodies effective against A.30-- just not &lt;i&gt;as&lt;/i&gt; effective.  So the existing antibody response would be expected to slow infection and then the body is primed to broaden the variety and quantity of antibodies after infection.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s only a small portion of those receiving the AZ vaccine whose serum had no significant activity against A.30-- all of those with the mRNA vaccine did and most of those receiving AZ did.</text></item><item><author>jjtheblunt</author><text>I think these headlines, possibly purposefully, overlook the possibility that vaccine antibodies eased acquisition of infection induced antibodies to the point of being subclinical events.&lt;p&gt;That is, a vaccinated person could be exposed to a variant for which they are partially protected, not notice clinical symptoms, while the person&amp;#x27;s immune system still remembers the details of the variant.&lt;p&gt;As an iterative process, this is akin to software updates (for a running immune system).&lt;p&gt;So to say that variant A.30 isn&amp;#x27;t covered by the mRNA induced spike protein antibodies is a very different statement than to say it&amp;#x27;s able to evade an immune system primed by mRNA antibodies which then re-entered daily life and thereby was able to continuously adapt to variants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>caconym_</author><text>Since initial infectious doses and peak viral loads seem to vary wildly in people who&amp;#x27;ve been infected, I would speculate that it&amp;#x27;s much easier to quantify vaccine-induced immunity in a public health context relative to so-called &amp;quot;natural immunity&amp;quot;, since those initial variables can be tightly controlled. This is a practical matter for making consistent and effective public health policy, as well as a scientific matter (viz. establishing the relative effectiveness of various forms of immunity for diverse and uncertain infection scenarios). Experts in public health and&amp;#x2F;or infectious diseases, epidemiology, etc. may feel free to correct me if I&amp;#x27;m substantially incorrect.&lt;p&gt;However, for people who see the world through a lens that paints all public health policy with the brush of partisan politics, the distinction may be difficult to grasp.</text></comment>