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High NAbs titers in the blood against spike will almost certainly be protective and even in the absence of sterilizing mucosal immunity will confine any infection to the upper respiratory tract.

I'm nowhere near as concerned about a variant infecting my upper respiratory tract as I am with being unvaccinated and having any of the variants attack my heart, kidneys, lungs and blood.

The use of spike was also not a mistake. Attempts to produce vaccines against NP for SARS-CoV-1 produced signs of ADE, so that is why everyone is using spike-only (other than the few inactivated virus vaccines).

> Simply looking at one aspect of immunity - detectable antibodies in the blood - is a very incomplete way of looking at the overall level of protection. For example, it's well known that mucosal immunity is important, and injected vaccines have a hard time inducing that kind of immunity: https://theprint.in/opinion/why-a-mucosal-covid-vaccine-has-...

I have not seen an actual credible claim that injectable vaccines can’t produce mucosal immunity. IIRC the HPV vaccines seem to generate strongly protective mucosal immunity. The opinion piece you linked seems off, too: the mRNA vaccines and (possibly to a lesser extent) the viral vector vaccines do seem to prevent most infections.

But it’s definitely true that antibodies in the blood are an incomplete picture. There are also memory B cell and all kinds of T cells.

> It's also concerning that there is evidence that while people who have been vaccinated are much less likely to be infected. If they do get infected, they are more likely to be infected with one of the variants than unvaccinated

That's not "concerning"...it's a truism. You've made those people immune to the wild-type strain. If they're going to get infected, it's going to be to a variant. You're still missing the denominator (i.e. how often does it happen?) and the most important question: how serious is it when they do get infected?

So far, the answers are "not often", and "not serious", respectively.

The spike protein is what is in common between all the variants. Getting a more diverse response doesn’t mean better protection.

>Natural exposure induces a dominant Ab response against the nucleocapsid protein (NP), but since NP is not in the vaccine, there is no vaccine induced response against it. In this way vaccinated people who had a prior natural exposure can be classified because they have Abs to NP."

>Simply looking at one aspect of immunity - detectable antibodies in the blood - is a very incomplete way of looking at the overall level of protection

You seem to have no idea what you are reading. Of course vaccines aren't going to have antibodies against the nucleocapsid -- they only generate antibodies against the spike! The vaccines only ask the human body to develop immunity to the spike!

And you know what actually neutralizes the virus? Mostly antibodies against the spike because that is where all the important parts of infecting a cell originate from.

>For example, it's well known that mucosal immunity is important

You are right about mucosal antibodies -- but your statement is also proving to be false as more research comes out. The latest research shows IgG antibodies from vaccination in the mucosal regions too. Apparently our nose is not just waiting for IgA from a natural infection (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.06.21256403v...)

>It's also concerning that there is evidence that while people who have been vaccinated are much less likely to be infected. If they do get infected, they are more likely to be infected with one of the variants than unvaccinated

You also completely misrepresented this (and frankly, it's disappointing you couldn't even link to the actual publication -- it's https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.21254882v...). The framing of this is disingenuous. Vaccines provide nearly complete protection against the non-variant form of COVID-19. They provide a little less protection against variant COVID-19s. Your non-protected human body is the same way -- it's more likely to get a variant too. It isn't that if you get infected after vaccination, it's because you were more susceptible to variants, it's that everyone is more likely to get one of the variants. Your risk is still minimized way more than than if you weren't vaccinated!

They wrote:

> The immune response developed to our vaccines is quite specific - they only generate the spike protein - which leads to a much less diverse response than a natural infection.

Which tells me that your response of:

> You seem to have no idea what you are reading. Of course vaccines aren't going to have antibodies against the nucleocapsid -- they only generate antibodies against the spike!

is wholly inappropriate as they clearly know what you are using as a rebuttal and makes me wonder if you are the one with no idea of what you are reading!

Perhaps take a second to read the person's comment more thoroughly before being rude, which I see you've continued with in the rest of your comment. It's a discussion, not a fight, try to add your thoughts in a better way, please.

The N protein is evasive, I do not believe your body can mount an effective (neutralizing antibodies) defense. But I guess you are right, your body can still fight it which is overall better than just fighting off the virus with vaccine protection

I wasn't making any statement about natural immunity versus vaccine provoked immunity, but the attitude and sloppiness of the commenter and comment I replied to. I have no idea if one is "better" than the other.