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Comment by suzzer99 | Hacker News Reader

So the big question - did those people who showed high levels of antibodies after vaccination have a) more symptoms from vaccination, b) less symptoms, or c) no correlation?

I had zero symptoms. I'd really like to know if that means my antibodies kicked ass, or were non-existent to create any kind of fever, etc.

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I asked my dad this who's a virologist, and he said this isn't known yet, but it's likely that there isn't really a correlation. The symptoms of the vaccine and the antibody production are caused by two different mechanisms. The first is the innate response which reacts to any antigen and triggers inflammation, fever, etc. The second is the adaptive immune response where your body develops memory B cells which produce neutralizing antibodies that bind to the spike protein and prevent it from entering a cell, and killer T cells which identify infected cells and kill them before the virus can replicate and spread. If you didn't get a fever from the vaccine, it just means that the innate response didn't cause noticeable symptoms, but it doesn't mean that the adaptive response wasn't strong.

A small amount of malaise, drowsiness, arm tenderness, and subclinical fever are expected after any vaccine. It's most probable that you did have symptoms but didn't notice them because you're a normal, active person with other things to think about.

But having zero symptoms, if that was the case, is unusual. It'd be interesting to have your blood tested for antibodies.

I had zero symptoms too. I mean, I had very mild tenderness in my arm, but that was a symptom of the muscular trauma from the shot itself, not the actual vaccine.

Same. Sore arm after the first shot. NOTHING after the second.

You all are lucky, I had a pretty bad reaction from the second dose(pfizer) wiped out for two solid days, started feeling better and then boomerang fatigue hit, a half mile walk would leave me so tired I needed to rest for an hour after. I also had heart issues and as a runner(I run 20-30 miles a week) had to stop for almost 2 weeks. Interestingly enough I have a garmin watch and it showed my v02 max also drop by 10% during that time, Dr's attributed it to the vaccine but couldn't be sure. That being said I'll still get the booster if and when it arrives as I would rather deal with those side effects than severe covid or death.

I went hiking for 10 hours right after my shot. Maybe that helped.

Here is one peer reviewed publication that somewhat answers your question [1].

The relevant quote is "Vaccine recipients with preexisting immunity had systemic side effects at higher frequencies than those without preexisting immunity (fatigue, headache, chills, muscle pain, fever, and joint pain, in order of decreasing frequency)" [1]

Other notes from [1]:

- "We wondered what the response would be to the first vaccine dose in persons with previous Covid-19"

- "We took advantage of our ongoing institutional review board–approved, longitudinal PARIS (Protection Associated with Rapid Immunity to SARS-CoV-2) study to provide a limited snapshot of the antibody responses in 110 study participants with or without documented preexisting SARS-CoV-2 immunity (mean age overall, 40.0 years [range, 24 to 68; ≥60 years, 8%]; 67 seronegative participants [64% female] with a mean age of 41.3 years and 43 seropositive participants [59% female] with a mean age of 41.4 years)"

- "Repeated sampling after the first dose indicates that the majority of seronegative participants had variable and relatively low SARS-CoV-2 IgG responses within 9 to 12 days after vaccination"

- "In contrast, participants with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at baseline before the first vaccine injection rapidly developed uniform, high antibody titers within days after vaccination"

- "The antibody titers of vaccinees with preexisting immunity were 10 to 45 times as high as those of vaccinees without preexisting immunity at the same time points after the first vaccine dose (e.g., 25 times as high at 13 to 16 days) and also exceeded the median antibody titers measured in participants without preexisting immunity after the second vaccine dose by more than a factor of 6"

- "Although the antibody titers of the vaccinees without preexisting immunity increased by a factor of 3 after the second vaccine dose, no increase in antibody titers was observed in the Covid-19 survivors who received the second vaccine dose"

- "Overall, both vaccines (156 participants received the Pfizer vaccine and 74 the Moderna vaccine) had no side effects that resulted in hospitalization"

- "Vaccine recipients with preexisting immunity had systemic side effects at higher frequencies than those without preexisting immunity (fatigue, headache, chills, muscle pain, fever, and joint pain, in order of decreasing frequency)"

- "Because a convenience sample was used and only participants with available data were studied, caution is needed until the full data set, including side effects occurring after the first as well as the second vaccine dose, can be assessed"

[1] Antibody Responses in Seropositive Persons after a Single Dose of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine (April 2021) https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMc2101667?articleToo...

Unless you had a second test, it's also highly likely that you had a false positive test, especially since the incidence of COVID in the population is still not that high

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

Read the section on drug testing to see what I mean. The probability of false positives when doing mass testing of mostly healthy individuals is much higher than you would intuit, so it's very possible that you never had the pathogen at all

Yes. If I recall correctly the midseason positivity rates of flu tests is something like 40 percent, which suggests doctors are performing a legitimate differential diagnosis before prescribing flu tests. At no point ever have positivity rates been remotely close to this with coronavirus, even though it was far more prevalent.

The result of any individual test performed on a healthy asymptomatic person as part of a nondiscriminating mass screening regime is pure noise.

I meant I had zero symptoms from the vaccine, not covid itself.

I never had covid as far as I know.

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