Good news about long term immunity from vaccine

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened

The current strains that are out there now are about 0.3% different. Most likely a booster or new vaccine will not be needed for these. Mounting evidence suggest the spike proteins have not changed enough to make the antibodies ineffective. In fact, someone that had the original strain, may be immune to the new ones.

Since the antibodies created by the vaccine are identical to the antibodies crated by a natural infection of Covid 19, it is irrelevant.

If you had Covid, based on what is known about SARS, there is a chance you have a good immune response for life.

Nothing set in stone. Study still needs to be done. I am not claiming anything either way, but the way I see it, it is promising. Both those that have had covid, and the vaccinated, may have good immune responses for a long period of time.

a reply to: MrRCflying

Fair points, and it's good to see you're keeping an open mind on the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine.

I have skepticism that long-term immunity will be conferred by the vaccine, and I suspect that the rate and genetic differentiation of the mutations will grow over time. The flu is our model for how a virus can defy attempts to inoculate one time and catch all possible mutations.

That said, I understand that influenza and corona viruses are different beasts, and perhaps we'll have better success in vaccinating for long-term benefit with COVID vs the flu. I really hope that becomes a reality, because a one-time COVID vaccine administration that is also resistant to mutations makes the choice more palatable to me.

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened

It is always good to be skeptical. There is still so many unknowns with Covid. I think it is good to hold out a little hope though, especially in light of the new studies showing a long term immune response.

As far as mutations are concerned. Mutation rate is directly proportionate to the number of infected. The more people infected, the higher chances that a new mutation will pop up in a population. With less infection, the less likely we will see a new mutation pop up.

If the vaccine works as advertised, and more people getting the vaccine (4.6 million yesterday alone), the less infection you will see. In the coming weeks, we should see the daily infection numbers begin to decline. This would be good news for the possibility of new mutations. Less infected, less chance of new mutations.

I should also mention that the same studies looked at the spike proteins from the SARS virus in comparison to Covid. They are so close, in theory a person that had SARS 17 years ago, should still be able to mount a good immune response against Covid. Will that be enough to prevent infection, not sure, but it should be enough to prevent serious disese.

That is important, because it adds a little more credibility to the idea of long term immune response to the spike proteins of Covid, either through natural means (previous infection) or vaccination.

originally posted by: MrRCflying
a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened

It is always good to be skeptical. There is still so many unknowns with Covid. I think it is good to hold out a little hope though, especially in light of the new studies showing a long term immune response.

As far as mutations are concerned. Mutation rate is directly proportionate to the number of infected. The more people infected, the higher chances that a new mutation will pop up in a population. With less infection, the less likely we will see a new mutation pop up.

If the vaccine works as advertised, and more people getting the vaccine (4.6 million yesterday alone), the less infection you will see. In the coming weeks, we should see the daily infection numbers begin to decline. This would be good news for the possibility of new mutations. Less infected, less chance of new mutations.

I should also mention that the same studies looked at the spike proteins from the SARS virus in comparison to Covid. They are so close, in theory a person that had SARS 17 years ago, should still be able to mount a good immune response against Covid. Will that be enough to prevent infection, not sure, but it should be enough to prevent serious disese.

That is important, because it adds a little more credibility to the idea of long term immune response to the spike proteins of Covid, either through natural means (previous infection) or vaccination.

But what is the definition of 'infected' we're using here? Is this someone who is symptomatic, tests positive and shedding the virus, someone who is /asymptomatic/ but still testing positive and shedding the virus, or both?

I had never heard the reasoning you suggest about the pathway to mutation being directly proportional to 'number of infected' in a population. My understanding of mutation is that random changes to virus genome occur during the replication process (i.e. what I guess they call Antigenic Drift). This just seems like a non-deterministic evolutionary property of biology, DNA can change over time due to environmental factors, and isn't really dependent on the size of host population. IDK I'm not a geneticist or virologist, but if we could halt say influenza mutation just by getting everyone or most everyone vaccinated, it'd have happened by now.

Either way, interesting and open-ended question. I do hope COVID vaccines can impart years of resistance to those inoculated. It would seem odd to me that this could be done, but I'm not a health expert.

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened

I guess the term 'infected' in this case would be both. We are talking about mutation of virus, which in theory could happen in either a symptomatic, or asymptomatic case. The mutated version would then have to be passed on to a new host/s, and not meet a dead end (R0 of less than 1) before taking a foothold to become a problem.

I am not virologist, epidemiologist, or any other ologist. It is just my understanding from reading, so take it with a grain of salt.

The "pathway" to a mutated strain has a number of factors, I will try to clarify just a couple.

First, mutations are random. Most mutations are not helpful to the virus (in this case), and are a dead end unto themselves. Mutations that are helpful, such as becoming more easily spread by one method or another, could cause the new mutation to take a foothold. Now, if the mutations are random, simple math tells us that the more we have of something, the higher chance we have for that randomness to appear.

In this case, a higher number of infected individuals at one time simply means that there is a higher probability that a "helpful" mutation will show up sooner. It may show up over time in a smaller population of infected as well. Kind of a quantity vs time thing. Higher quantity, lower time. Lower quantity, higher time.

The second is the R0 factor. The rate at which the virus spreads. An R0 of 1 means every infected person will spread it to one additional person. This would be stable, not increasing numbers, not decreasing. Where you get into trouble is an R0 of 1.5-2.0 or higher. That is epidemic or pandemic levels. Growth becomes exponential.

An R0 of less than 1 means that the virus will infect less than one other person per infected. So, you have 2 people infected, one may pass it on, the other may not. An R0 of less than one means the virus spread is dying out. It can bounce back though, as we have seen the "waves".

Big IFs. IF enough people are vaccinated and/or have acquired immune response (natural infection producing antibodies), And IF the antibody immune response is strong enough to prevent either infection or at least spread, the R0 should drop. This would create a scenario in which if a "helpful" mutation were created, but the R0 was below 1, it should snuff itself out before being able to make a foothold. It just simply would not be able to be passed on enough to spread over a large population.

I have no idea of the rate at which Covid mutates in comparison to the flu. The flu has a different strain dominant just about every year. It never truly goes away, Covid may not either, who knows for sure. Virologist have to anticipate the dominant strain for the following year so that vaccine production can begin well ahead of time. Often times they are wrong. It also seems that the efficacy of the flu vaccine is much lower than the vaccines for Covid. I don't recall the exact numbers, but most years I believe they are less than 50%. Don't quote me on that, as I am not certain. Also, the flu mutates enough each season that a new vaccine is needed. That looks like it may not be the case with Covid. Notice I said "looks like", I don't think anyone can say for sure. It does give wiggle room for hope though.

Gosh, I hope I made sense with all that.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
a reply to: HawkeyeNation

Obvious you can do with your body what you want, I won't judge you or anybody for it.

The misinformation on vaccines in general is astounding.

And I have enough from people like you that ALWAYS have the conclude that if someone is against this new, untested vaccination that doesn't even earn the name..... that one must be confused about vaccinations. I am vaccinated against the typical stuff like hepatitis, measles, tetanus and a few others because of travel, so is my daughter.

Just because I am highly critical about this new, untested vaccine, doesn't imply I am misinformed about vaccines.

I have no problems with people questioning this...I have myself. The problem, is people stating this will change your DNA and all that other BS, that then blows up and then people think it's one big conspiracy. This whole new vaccine isn't necessarily new as they have been testing and working with SARS for years.

This vaccine was able to get rolled out so fast because, sad but true, funding. They had all the up front funding from the get go to go full speed ahead. It's not typically like this with other vaccines, thus a much slower roll out but as you know, this one has more urgency.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: HawkeyeNation

I have worked in the Healthcare industry for 15 years

Would you then mind answering a question for me?

Is it considered good practice to draw blood samples in a hospital parking lot?

TheRedneck

In a global pandemic you go with any means necessary. While under normal circumstances this would not be ideal. Each hospital does it differently and region plays into this a lot on how one handles situations. I can only attest to my region, which is in IA and some surrounding states. So as you can imagine, more populated states and cities likely have different protocols.