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Comment by Turing_Machine | Hacker News Reader

> Do we really know this? Obviously the spike proteins are using an existing mechanism (ACE2) in our bodies to bind to cells.

Sure, but aren't the proteins produced by the vaccine virtually identical to the ones produced by the actual virus?

If so, the calculus looks like this:

1) Take the vaccine and accept the (unknown, but apparently quite small) probability that something in your body will react very negatively to the generated viral proteins.

2) Get the virus, accept the probability (also unknown, but the same as in 1) that something in your body will react very negatively to the viral proteins, plus accept the additional risk of being infected by the actual virus.

I guess the third possibility would be to refuse the vaccine and gamble that you won't get the virus, either.

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I generally agree with you. Keep in mind I'm at 'stayed at the Holiday Inn' levels of competence here, but in my mind the spike proteins that are generated by an actual infection don't typically leave the cytoplasm detached from the rest of the virus. This could be incorrect.

If that's generally true, the difference here would be that the part of the spike protein topology that is typically bound to other proteins in an actual infection would be accessible to the immune system in the case of a vaccination. I think that is where the differential risk could occur with a vaccination that wouldn't occur with an actual infection (however small that might be).

In my daughter's case, something happened when she was about 14 years old that caused her body to determine that the beta cells in her pancreas were invaders and have to die, so I'm just tuned into this kind of possible side effect.

> (...) but in my mind the spike proteins that are generated by an actual infection don't typically leave the cytoplasm detached from the rest of the virus.

If the virus is destroyed and released into the extracellular environment, its proteins can dissociate and are further fragmented and processed by the immune system. What’s usually presented to T cells are small antigen pieces as opposed to the whole virus/protein.

This is a great point thank you.

> in my mind the spike proteins that are generated by an actual infection don't typically leave the cytoplasm detached from the rest of the virus

Virus takes over the cell, makes the cell to manufacture components of the virus and to assemble viruses, until this disrupts the cell so bad that the cell dies and typically bursts. Surely at this point, not only assembled viruses, but also components at different stages of production, are released?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_viruses#Life-c...

Thank you. I knew this at some level but this (amazing) animation of HIV got me on a track of thinking that the viruses have a mechanism for exiting the cell without destroying it:

https://vimeo.com/260291607

Like the Wikipedia article says, most viruses make the cell burst. Some, like HIV, have less destructive methods. I could not find how SARS-CoV-2 does it.

> Keep in mind I'm at 'stayed at the Holiday Inn' levels of competence here

OT, but what does this mean or refer to? I'm curious :)

https://youtu.be/eHCTaUFXpP8

Corny but fun, they had a few good ones.

I read that the immune system doesn't usually produce antibodies for the spike protein when fighting the virus, i think it was a membrane protein that was more commonly targeted, and we didn't understand why.

I was just going to ask this question. Do you happen to recall where you read it?

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-covid-vaccines-focus-...

I was wrong, its the nucleocapsid protein, not the membrane one, but that's even weirder as the N protein is only found inside the virus particle..

Or have the virus already and get immunity in that way.

That would be the same as 2, in terms of risk from the body reacting negatively to the viral proteins.

and possibly infect scores of other people, some of them not so lucky and will get the serious case requiring hospitalisation or worse.

It’s not clear if the vaccine will prevent infectiousness yet, unfortunately, so for now it’s best to assume even vaccinated people can spread the virus until more is known. Both ways will increase herd immunity.

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