Comment by criticaltinker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by criticaltinker | Hacker News Reader

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> given the evidence that "natural" immunity has been shown to be less effective at producing neutralizing antibodies than many of the vaccines that are available

Down-voted because this is misinformation.

First of all the citation you provided does not support your claim at all.

Second, a large body of literature suggests that vaccination and natural infection induce a robust and durable immune response that is mostly similar [1][2], but slightly different. One of the primary differences is that natural infection induces an immune response that includes nucleocapsid protein antibodies, whereas vaccination with the current spike protein focused mRNA vaccines does not [3]. Another significant difference is that vaccination induces an immune response that is more highly targeted toward the spike protein RBD compared to natural infection [4].

There is absolutely no scientific consensus that vaccination offers better protection than natural infection, or vice-versa. None of the papers cited in either of our comments make that claim.

[1] Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...

[2] Rapid induction of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells is associated with coordinated humoral and cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3

[3] Distinct SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Responses Elicited by Natural Infection and mRNA Vaccination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4

[4] Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/

Doesn't [4] say exactly that? It seems to indicate that mRNA-1273 vaccination antibodies work better against spike mutation.

> It seems to indicate that mRNA-1273 vaccination antibodies work better against spike mutation.

Yes [4] does kind of say that - but it does not claim that this provides better protection or benefits individual health outcomes.

Here are a few key nuances and limitations:

> We found that the specificity of the mRNA-1273 vaccine-induced RBD-binding antibody response often narrows over time. In contrast, the infection-elicited RBD-binding antibody response often broadens over time.

> Additionally, the overall antibody response is more homogeneous for vaccinated than convalescent individuals.

> another recent study suggests that mRNA vaccination elicits a different distribution of isotypes and fewer antibodies that cross-react to common-cold coronaviruses as compared to infection

> we did not examine effects of mutations or deletions to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, which can also affect neutralization by vaccine sera.

> Our experiments assayed binding of antibodies to isolated RBD expressed by yeast, and so cannot capture mutational effects on trimer conformation or antibodies with quaternary epitopes

These nuances have implications for viral evolution, and are particularly important in the context of discussions around compulsory mass vaccination and vaccine resistance.

Thank you for the other references.

> Down voted because this is misinformation

I would hope you might agree that term is better reserved for bullshit conspiracy theories and not peer reviewed research published in one of the most cited journals in the world.

> the citation you provided does not support your claim

Upon re-reading the paper I still find that my claim is supported.

"Although antiviral T and B cell memory certainly contribute some degree of protection, strong evidence of a protective role for neutralizing serum antibodies exists. For example, passive transfer of neutralizing antibodies can prevent severe SARS-CoV-2 infection in multiple animal models,12,13 and Regeneron has recently reported similar data in humans14. We therefore focus our studies on in vitro virus neutralization titers reported in studies of vaccinated and convalescent cohorts"

"To compare neutralization titers across studies, we determined the mean and standard deviation (on a log scale) of the neutralization titer in published data from seven vaccine studies (mRNA-1273, NVX-CoV2373, BNT162b2, rAd26-S+rAd5-S, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, Ad26.COV2.S and CoronaVac) and one convalescent study3,16,17,18,19,20,21,22"

" This model assumes that there is a protective neutralization level, T, above which individuals will be protected from infection and below which individuals will be susceptible. The protective efficacies observed in phase 3 clinical trials of vaccinated individuals (and another large cohort study of convalescent individuals1; "

[data shows higher level of neutralizing antibodies from four of the vaccines compared with convalescent studies]

It is possible -- even likely -- that I have misunderstood the paper. And both you and the paper I cited agree that more research is needed to establish the correlation between levels of neutralizing antibodies and protection from infection and disease. But my claim was _about_ the levels of neutralizing antibodies and as I understand it that claim is supported by the paper.

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