Comment by belter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by belter | Hacker News Reader

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Thanks for sharing your experience.

>"... Of course the thing to emphasise is that, whilst it might break through, the vaccine still stops serious illness to a high degree...."

Important to note, vaccines do not protect you, its the immune response they trigger and the level of antibodies that will protect you.

What really should be happening should be a mass vaccination program and a mass antibodies level testing program at the same time. Except for a few clinical studies, whose results are only now starting to come out I do not think any country is doing that. Frankly it puzzles me a little bit.

There is not enough data yet to see how these antibodies levels reduce with time, but there is already plenty of information to show they drop dramatically after 6 months, hence the talk now of the third shot.

Hence I think its better to say vaccines will produce level of antibodies that will protect...for now.

"Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines"

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...

It's not just antibodies though. Vaccines also trigger you to get memory cells, which have a longer life span. So even if your antibody levels go down after ~6 months, and you might get infected again, your immune system will have a faster and more precise reaction, preventing a more severe course of covid.

This is what a lot of people do not understand. Antibodies are basically the front line soldiers fighting the virus, but there's no point keeping them deployed even after the war is over.

Memory cells circulate in the blood stream for much longer - sometimes decades for other pathogens - and if they identify their target antigen, will quickly trigger an immune response and produce new antibodies.

Having a high number of antibodies correlates with a strong immune response and lower rates of incidence, but that doesn't mean having a high number of antibodies is needed for that. It's really too early to say exactly how long term immune response works with this virus, as the only studies that have been completed so far are small samples sets or short time frames.

I'm curious to know how much the reaction to the second or subsequent jabs correlates to antibody/immunity level. I had no reaction to the first jab and a 12-hour flu-like reaction to the second jab the next day (both Moderna).

NOT having a similar reaction to a third booster would be concerning, but I wonder how much the reaction actually correlates with protection for shots beyond the first.

Good question. I think the consensus is that the two things are not related. That is the reason I argued for vaccination and testing for immunity as a single combined action for each individual.

"No, vaccine side effects don’t tell you how well your immune system will protect you from COVID-19"

https://theconversation.com/no-vaccine-side-effects-dont-tel...

for what its worth, I had AZ as my first shot and it was pretty rough for 36 hours and then I was fine. My second shot of pfizer 8 weeks later barely left a sore spot on my arm. Not sure what if anything it means, but curious what will happen if I get a 3rd.

I had 2 shots of AZ but the same experience. Rough initial period, but the second one was fine. I don't plan to get a third one until they make an updated vaccine for the newer variants like delta. What's the point if it's the old vaccine?

Data from Israel shows that a third pfeizer dose is highly effective against delta.

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