Considerable escape of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron to antibody neutralization: Nature Accelerated

[NNadir]

...Report.

It's been reviewed and accepted and comes with this note:

ADVANCE ARTICLE PREVIEW

This manuscript has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication in Nature and is provided in this format here as a response to the exceptional public-health crisis. This accepted manuscript will continue through the processes of copy editing and formatting to publication of a finalized version of record on nature.com. Please note there may be errors present in this version, which may affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

It's here: Considerable escape of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron to antibody neutralization: Considerable escape of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron to antibody neutralization


As the paper is in prepublication, the figures are not included in the PDF. I'm logged in to Nature, but I expect the publication is open sourced, whereupon one can read the institutions of the authors, who are in France and Belgium.

We can take it for what it's worth, but it is, as opposed to a tweet, about to published in one of the World's Premier Scientific Journals, if not the Washington Post and the New York Times, or again, a post on Twitter.

However, I speculate that this paper, as opposed to the one I referred to in another post here, is more likely to be picked up by the popular media.

Note that this paper refers largely to therapeutic antibodies (including sera from infected patients) administered by injection as pharmaceutical agents as opposed to antibodies generated by immune response.

Have a happy, safe, and productive New Year.

[UTUSN]

1. Translate, pls: Does this mean the vaxxs are less effective on it?

[NNadir]

2. Not necessarily, probably not at all. This paper refers to externally generated antibodies.

Another sister post I put up here, referred to a class of antibodies, broadly neutralizing antibodies from vaccines.

That post is here: Broadly neutralizing antibodies overcome SARS-CoV-2 Omicron antigenic shift: Nature Accelerated...

We have fabulous tools in molecular biology now that are unprecedented. Many of them grew out of the Clinton era "Human Genome Project." Others relate to bioinformatics systems and modern developments in mass spectrometry.

However even with these tools instantaneous unambiguous answers to questions do not appear via oracles. The short answer is: "We just don't know everything yet."

There does seem to be a lot of hysteria surrounding this issue, connected with the emotional "here we go again."

Both Pfizer/BioNT and Moderna have announced vaccine development of omicron targeted sequences, as I mentioned in the other thread. As long as there are people in the third world or in the world of idiots who are not vaccinated, variants will evolve. They may be less virulent but more contagious.

It is not in our power to make idiots not be idiots, but it is in our power to address the third world. This we should do this in my view, if not for ethical reasons, then in self defense. Happily, as for the idiots, many of the idiots are candidates for the Darwin Award and subject to removal from the gene pool.

[stopdiggin]

3. that is the rather strong implication

(and clearly the focus of the paper)

- snip - Thus, Omicron escapes most therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and to a large extent vaccine-elicited antibodies. Omicron remains however neutralized by antibodies generated by a booster vaccine dose. - snip -
(somewhat - but clearly less so than against Delta) -- italicized my own

[NNadir]

4. I wouldn't say "strong."

It says titers are lower and that receiving the booster dose shows neutralizing effects.

In the full text we can see, for this small sample size (N = 54, 18 AZ, 20 Pfizer/BNT, 16 unspecified) which involved subjects vaccinated over 7 months ago, that sera in vitro was less effective against the virus. However sera is stripped of B cells and T cells, and one must be careful of extrapolation to live tissue.

The booster does of the Pfizer vaccine apparently did elicit an antibody response, a weaker response, but one that was not necessarily ineffective.

[stopdiggin]

7. I will defer to stronger expertise

and thank you for an informative posting.

[Earth-shine]

5. Critical sentence here ...

... Thus, Omicron escapes most therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and to a large extent vaccine-elicited antibodies. Omicron remains however neutralized by antibodies generated by a booster vaccine dose.

[NNadir]

6. I agree. It is a critical sentence which says "get vaccinated, get boosted." n/t.