Reports of vaccines' decline have been greatly overstated.

[Celerity]

What We Actually Know About Waning Immunity

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/waning-immunity-not-crisis-right-now/619965/



Vaccines don’t last forever. This is by design: Like many of the microbes they mimic, the contents of the shots stick around only as long as it takes the body to eliminate them, a tenure on the order of days, perhaps a few weeks. What does have staying power, though, is the immunological impression that vaccines leave behind. Defensive cells study decoy pathogens even as they purge them; the recollections that they form can last for years or decades after an injection. The learned response becomes a reflex, ingrained and automatic, a “robust immune memory” that far outlives the shot itself, Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told me. That’s what happens with the COVID-19 vaccines, and Ellebedy and others told me they expect the memory to remain with us for a while yet, staving off severe disease and death from the virus at extraordinary rates. That prediction might sound incompatible with recent reports of the “declining” effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, and the “waning” of immunity. According to the White House, we’ll all need boosters very, very soon to fortify our crumbling defences. The past few weeks of news have made it seem as though we’re doomed to chase SARS-CoV-2 with shot after shot after shot, as if vaccine protections were slipping through our fingers like so much sand.

The reality of the situation is much more complicated than that. Despite some shifting numbers, neither our vaccines nor our immune systems are failing us, or even coming close. Vaccine effectiveness isn’t a monolith, and neither is immunity. Staying safe from a virus depends on host and pathogen alike; a change in either can chip away at the barriers that separate the two without obliterating them, which is exactly what we’re seeing now. As the hyper-contagious Delta variant continues to blaze across the country and much of the world, more vaccinated people are encountering the virus and occasionally getting infected enough to trip a coronavirus test. But our shots are still guarding against disease and death—the standard our shots were meant to meet, and the most crucial element of making the virus “a much more manageable threat,” Müge Çevik, a medical virologist at the University of St. Andrews, told me. “We need to have much more realistic expectations of these vaccines” and what they can teach our immune systems to do, Çevik said. The good news is, it’s quite a lot. Immune responses don’t last forever. They’re supposed to wane, and the fact that they do works to our advantage. The first time someone meets a virus or a vaccine, defensive cells must scramble. A wave of fast but imprecise fighters—members of the innate immune system—rushes in to wall off the assailant, buying time for the body’s more sophisticated sharpshooters to gather their wits. This latter group, which makes up the body’s adaptive arm, takes several days to really fire up.

But the wait is worth it: After a couple of weeks, the blood is rife with antibodies—molecules, made by B cells, that can sequester viruses outside cells—and aptly named killer T cells, which can blow up cells that have already been infected. Eventually, as the infectious threat passes, our immune response contracts; frontline B and T cells, no longer needed in their amped-up state, start to die off. Antibody levels—one of the easiest immune metrics to measure—slip downward over the course of several months, before roughly levelling off. That’s perfectly normal, Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, told me. “You have a big increase at the beginning, then a decline.” Consider the alternative: If humans never quieted any of the immunological furore that follows infections and simply kept accumulating antibodies for every pathogen we came across, we’d all have burst a long time ago. Even attempting to maintain that kind of immune reservoir “would require so much energy—I don’t even know where you’d keep all those cells,” says Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington. A downtick in antibody levels can come with consequences. Antibodies are among the few immune actors capable of waylaying a virus before it infiltrates a cell; when present in high-enough amounts, they can quash a developing infection. But where a virus is abundant and speedy and antibodies are relatively scarce, the body’s defenses are much more liable to crack, which is why protection against infection will be the first to erode.

This issue might be especially pronounced after receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine, which is delivered into an arm muscle. Injected vaccines are ace at prompting the production of IgG antibodies in the blood; they’re less good at coaxing out the IgA antibodies that patrol the moist mucosal linings of the nose and mouth and corral respiratory viruses at their natural point of entry. IgG antibodies are good travellers and can eventually flock to the site of a growing infection. That takes time, though, and when fewer of them are bopping about, their eventual arrival may not be enough to pen the pathogen in place. Antibody levels will taper in the months following vaccination or infection, but that doesn’t mean they plummet to zero, Bhattacharya told me. Although most of the B cells die off, some stick around in the bone marrow and keep churning out the virus-fighting molecules at more modest, but still detectable, levels. Though the life span of these long-lived B cells can vary, some studies have hinted that they’re capable of persisting as antibody factories for decades. Another population of immune cells, memory B cells, meanders around the body like sleeper agents, ready to resume making its antibodies whenever necessary. All of these B cells can continue to broaden and intensify their virus-vanquishing powers for months after a vaccine or pathogen leaves the body, in a sped-up form of antibody evolution. “The quality of antibodies in the body improves over time,” Bhattacharya said. “It takes way fewer of them to protect you.”

snip

[SheltieLover]

1. Read Jerusalem Post article on this topic

[Celerity]

2. That is pretty cryptic, and I highly doubt that J Post article is anywhere near as in-depth and

documented as this one.

[SheltieLover]

3. Here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016300990

Presented by CNBC

[Celerity]

6. That doesn't deal with the multiplicity of issues and complexities of the immune system.

I am not going to simply keep jacking myself up with booster after booster without seeing more studies on the long term outcomes of constant, repetitive introduction of said boosters. There very well maybe a point of diminishing returns or even a deleterious effect on your overall immune system. I am also not in any sort of high risk group, so that is another factor I weigh-in, plus my vax is not the normal one, its the mRNA-1273.351 variant-tweaked Moderna. I (as is my wife) am in a long term experimental trial, so I am going with what the scientists directing it say. Unlike some people (not speaking of you), I do not only follow the science and the doctors up until they say something I do not like or advise something I disagree with.

[cadoman]

36. if science leads CDC to recommend the booster we all have to get the booster

You're in a trial so your circumstances are unique, but for the rest of us boosters will be part of the mandate. In Israel you are not vaccinated without the scheduled booster shots.

It's like refusing to take a full course of anti-biotics. By refusing to take mandated boosters, people are weakening the protection of the vaccine for all of us and that is dangerous. I'm certain that boosters will be part of the trial you're participating in.

[Celerity]

38. If the trial says booster, we get a booster. We are not under the CDC's purview, so I leave that

for people living in the US.

By refusing to take mandated boosters

I am unaware of any across the board federal mandates about vaccines in the US so far, be it initial jabs, or a booster.

[stopdiggin]

4. excellent info. well written and easily absorbed

we need more reporting/writing on this track - and more or less on this level. I suggest that most of the public is better off leaving the scientific findings and papers - to the scientists.

[WHITT]

5. The Trouble With This

is that even the CDC has stated that Delta is less like a variant, and more like a whole new virus, so I'm afraid all of this is out the window.

[Celerity]

7. link please to this

even the CDC has stated that Delta is less like a variant, and more like a whole new virus

If this was the case, it would be labelled as a VOHC (variant of high consequence)

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-info.html

[WHITT]

9. It Was All Over The News

at the time, with various people making that very point. Fauci said EXACTLY that.

[Dorian Gray]

10. Can you link to an interview or an article

where Fauci or another epidemiologist said it's like a different virus? I think that the hyped up news stories have led us to believe that without that actually being verbally said. Which is the danger with the messaging we've gotten. It feels hopeless.

And when things feel hopeless, people give up.

[Celerity]

12. It isn't like 'a whole new virus'. That is fear-causing, non science-based disinformation, and not

at all helpful.

see

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215820078#post11

[Dorian Gray]

14. I didn't think it was like a whole new virus

which is why I asked him to link to where someone of note said it was.

I think that there is very mixed messaging coming from the media and various government sources that is making this feel hopeless.

[Celerity]

15. I know you didn't think that, sorry if my syntax led to that appearance. I was merely echoing the

other poster's claim for clarity and emphasis (or so I thought, LOLOL) in debunking it. In that I apparently failed.

cheers

[Dorian Gray]

16. No worries!

The info that you linked to was great!

[WHITT]

20. Nope

It merely stuck with me that several people said the same thing.

When Delta was was only showing up regionally, Fauci said testing indicated the vaccines were holding up real well against Delta, but later after it was more widespread, and with rising breakthroughs, he said it's AS IF it's a whole new virus.

Director Walensky at some point also flat-out said Delta was like a whole new virus.

[obamanut2012]

23. So, no links, as expected

So, this is either misinformation or disinformation. Got it.

DU needs to start having this as an alert category.

[Celerity]

25. +1

[ProfessorGAC]

40. Boy, Do I Agree With That!

I'm sick of that here.
There's enough of that on msm, and all social media.
We should have a respite from it here on DU.

[Celerity]

28. If Delta IS 'like a whole new virus' (which of course it is not) then what would even be the point

of using any of the current vaccines (whether the initial first two jabs or a booster)? If it was 'like a new virus', then the current vaccines would be basically useless.

Funny thing that. Even though the current vaccines are not specifically tweaked for the Delta variant, they still provide an amazing amount of protection from it, especially in terms of preventing serious illness that requires hospitalisation, and then of course, preventing death from it as well.

Those two preventive metrics are ultimately how a good vaccine is measured. That is basic immunological science.


you first said:




IF one accepts your claims, then you ARE advocating that there is no need to take the current vaccines. You said it so yourself, right there:

so I'm afraid all of this is out the window.

That is anti-vaxxer talk, at least for the currently available ones.

I cannot stress how dangerous your line of reasoning is, on a multiplicity of levels.

[Celerity]

11. No, no it wasn't. It's not 'like a whole new virus', it's the SARS-CoV-2 virus with very specific

spike protein mutations. If it was 'like a whole new virus', it would listed as a VOHC, and thus:

There would be clear evidence that prevention measures or medical countermeasures (MCMs) have significantly reduced effectiveness relative to previously circulating variants. There would also be a demonstrated failure of diagnostic test targets, evidence to suggest a significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness, a disproportionately high number of vaccine breakthrough cases, or very low vaccine-induced protection against severe disease.

None of those are the case with Delta.

The Delta variant is defined by 19R, (G142D), 156del, 157del, R158G, L452R, T478K, D614G, P681R, D950N mutations in the spike protein. Several of these mutations may impact on immune responses directed towards the key antigenic regions of receptor binding protein (452 and 478) and deletion of part of the N terminal domain (156 and 157). P681R mutation changes an amino acid at a spot directly beside the furin cleavage site, a key step enabling the virus to invade human cells, thus enhancing viral infectivity.

The mutation that helps Delta spread like wildfire

A key amino-acid change might underlie the coronavirus variant’s ferocious infectivity.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02275-2

As the world grapples with the hyper-infectious Delta coronavirus variant, scientists are racing to understand the biological basis for its behaviour. A slew of studies has highlighted an amino-acid change present in Delta that might contribute to its swift spread. Delta is at least 40% more transmissible than is the Alpha variant identified in the United Kingdom in late 2020, epidemiological studies suggest. “The key hallmark of Delta is that transmissibility seems to be ramping up to the next notch,” says Pei-Yong Shi, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. “We thought Alpha was pretty bad, very good at spreading. This one seems to be even more.”

Shi’s team and other groups have zeroed in on a mutation that alters a single amino acid in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein — the viral molecule responsible for recognizing and invading cells. The change, which is called P681R and transforms a proline residue into an arginine, falls within an intensely studied region of the spike protein called the furin cleavage site. The presence of this short string of amino acids set off alarm bells when SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in China, because it is associated with heightened infectivity in other viruses such as influenza, but had not previously been found in sarbecoviruses, the family of coronaviruses to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs. “This little insert sticks out and hits you in the face,” says Gary Whittaker, a virologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Pre-activated virus

To penetrate cells, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein must be cut twice by host proteins. In the SARS-CoV-1 virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), both incisions occur after the virus has locked on to a cell. But with SARS-CoV-2, the presence of the furin cleavage site means that host enzymes (including one called furin) can make the first cut as newly formed viral particles emerge from an infected cell. These pre-activated viral particles can then go on to infect cells more efficiently than do particles requiring two cuts, says Whittaker. Delta wasn’t the first SARS-CoV-2 variant to gain a mutation that alters the furin cleavage site. The Alpha variant has a different amino-acid change at the same location as Delta. But the available evidence suggests that the mutation’s effect has been especially profound in Delta. In a study reported as a preprint on 13 August1, Shi’s team found that the spike protein is cut much more efficiently in Delta-variant particles than in Alpha particles, echoing results reported in May by virologist Wendy Barclay at Imperial College London and her team, who compared Delta with an earlier strain2.

Follow-up experiments by both groups showed that the P681R change was largely responsible for spike being clipped so much more efficiently. “This really nailed it, in terms of the mechanism,” says Shi. Researchers are also beginning to join the dots between P681R and Delta’s ferocious infectivity. Shi’s team found that, in cultured human-airway epithelial cells infected with equal numbers of Delta and Alpha viral particles, Delta rapidly outcompeted the Alpha variant, mimicking epidemiological patterns that have played out globally. But Delta’s advantage disappeared when the researchers eliminated the P681R change. The mutation might also speed up the spread of SARS-CoV-2 from cell to cell. A team led by Kei Sato, a virologist at the University of Tokyo, found that spike proteins bearing the P681R change fuse with the plasma membranes of uninfected cells — a key step in infection — almost three times faster than do spike proteins lacking the change3. “I think the virus is succeeding on volume and speed,” says Whittaker. “It’s become a much more efficient virus. It’s going through people and going through cells a lot quicker.”

More than one mutation

Although evidence is building that the P681R change is a crucial feature of Delta, researchers emphasize that it is unlikely to be the only mutation responsible for the variant’s fast spread. Delta carries numerous other mutations to the spike protein, as well as to other less well-studied proteins, that might be important. “It’s very simplistic to say it’s just this 681 change. I think it’s a sum of everything,” says Teresa Aydillo-Gomez, a virologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. The epidemiological and genetic context of the mutation is also important to Delta’s rise, say scientists. One of Delta’s siblings, a variant called Kappa that, like Delta, was first identified in India, carries many of the same mutations, including P681R, but its effects haven't been as devastating as Delta’s. In a preprint posted on 17 August, a team led by structural biologist Bing Chen at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, reports that Kappa’s spike protein is cleaved less frequently and fuses to cell membranes much less efficiently than does Delta’s4. The researchers say this finding raises questions over the role of P681R.

Researchers in Uganda identified the P681R change in a variant that spread widely in the country in early 2021, but that never took off as Delta did, even though it displays many of the same properties in cell-based lab studies. Whittaker’s team inserted the P681R change into a spike protein from the coronavirus that was circulating in Wuhan, China, at the beginning of the pandemic, and found no increase in its infectivity5. “It takes more than one mutation to make a difference,” he adds. Regardless of its role in Delta’s dominance, Whittaker and other scientists say, the mutation has underscored the importance of understanding changes in the coronavirus’s furin cleavage site. Whittaker doesn't expect P681R to be the last furin cleavage site mutation to cause concern. “I’m waiting to see what happens next.”

[Tadpole Raisin]

19. Thanks for all your references. It's going to take awhile to get through them, LOL!

[WHITT]

21. Non Sequitur

Straw Man argument.

[Celerity]

24. Not at all, you are the one pushing non-scientific rubbish, backed up with nothing.

Do you even know what

Non Sequitur

and

Straw Man

mean?

Or are you just tossing them about in a futile attempt to counter my detailed, documented (something you seem to have real problems with, as you have provided no receipts for your claims, despite multiple posters asking you for them) and thorough rebuttal?

I committed neither logical fallacy.

[Jakes Progress]

32. This is not fox news. So stop it.

Here you are actually supposed to be able to support what you post. All you have is "a bunch of people said" and "a lot of people are sayin'". trump used that too.

If you can't support what you said and you won't examine your misinformation, you are not serving the forum.

[scipan]

41. To look at it in a simple way

The vaccine contains the complete code for the spike protein (except 1 change to keep it from collapsing) plus some other stuff (metadata, start stop codons, etc.).
Code for spike protein is 3777 characters
Delta has 9 (see above) mutations in spike protein

Extremely similar spike proteins

Edit: maybe that's too simplistic.
2 "bits" (molecules)/nucleotide (GUAC for RNA)
3 nucleotides/codon ( like a byte) (amino acid)
A peptide is several amino acids
Antibodies consist of chains of amino acids I believe but I'm at the limit of my knowledge here
Still very similar

Info gleaned from:

https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/reverse-engineering-source-code-of-the-biontech-pfizer-vaccine/

[obamanut2012]

22. Dr. Fauci never said that, ever

Why are you so intent on spreading this?!

[Pinback]

8. This mirrors information from Laurie Garrett,

who explained it very well on a recent Al Franken podcast:
https://alfranken.com/listen/laurie-garrett-and-andy-slavitt-where-we-are-now-on-covid-19

After a few months, the vaccine isn't in full battle mode all the time. It only springs into action when the virus enters the system. The body's response to so-called "breakthrough infections" indicates that the enhanced immune response produced by the vaccine is doing its job -- which is not to prevent the virus from entering our system, but to prevent it from putting us in the hospital.

Good article. Recommended.

[Celerity]

13. thank you for that interview, excellent information as well

[Jon King]

17. Simple message, vaccination greatly lowers risk of Covid death.

That is the only way to combat the nonsense. Forget infection rates, focus on deaths. Over and over and over again.

Today the anti-vaxxers have latched onto Oscar De La Hoya, a boxer who posted on Instagram he is in the hospital with covid even after being vaccinated. Never mind we have no clue if he was vaccinated, what vaccine, what other stuff he was taking to box again at his older age, etc.

So to combat the junk keep it simple.....get vaccinated and your risk of dying from Covid drops a ton, end of story.

[Hortensis]

18. Good The Atlantic article. Thanks, Celerity. nt

[uponit7771]

26. People keep reporting edge cases as the norm

[FarPoint]

27. Open discussion

Essential for progress.

[Celerity]

31. but edge cases are, by their very definition, NOT the norm

[panader0]

29. Marking to read later--I have chores now. Thanks Celerity.

[Treefrog]

30. Thank you for this.

[dalton99a]

33. Kick

[malaise]

34. Quality post

as always

[Celerity]

35. thankies sis

[gulliver]

37. This is way over the heads of the vax lax

Nearly all COVID deaths are people who are unvaccinated. Getting vaccinated also appears to protect against possibly lifelong long haul symptoms. It's just a couple of shots. It's approved, like any other vaccine now. It's going to be required, like any other vaccine now. Anyone who doesn't "trust the government about this" is being an idiot. Vaccination will shut up the liberals and my stupid doctor...

Those are the kinds of arguments to use. The vax laxers don't get science at all, and they're chock-a-block with science-y snippets, half-truths and rank falsehoods anyway.

[Celerity]

39. This is about people already fully vaxxed. nt