Two papers discover that cross-reacting antibodies from common coronavirus infections can hinder effective antibody response to SARS-CoV-2.
In September, a small study conducted by researchers at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam looked at the antibody response of 20 severely ill Corona patients admitted to the ICU, comparing their cases to 12 mild infections and 6 negative controls. They found that the immune response of the severely ill, unlike that of the mild patients, was dominated by IgG antibodies against ordinary seasonal coronaviruses. In other words, the most severely ill patients had fewer naive B cells imprinting on SARS-CoV-2, and more memory B cells producing antibodies against the somewhat similar common coronaviruses these patients had recovered from in the past. As the authors note, this is the phenomenon of Original Antigenic Sin. The immune systems of these severely ill patients were trained, by many years of exposure to the mild alpha- and betacoronaviruses that routinely infect humans, to send these same common coronavirus antibodies against SARS-2. These antibodies were ineffective against the new virus, and they inhibited a robust naive B-cell response.
We now have a second, higher-quality study from researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, confirming and expanding upon these results. They recruited a cohort of 1,202 hospital staff, who provided an initial blood sample to establish their baseline antibodies to common coronaviruses. They were then given regular PCR tests for SARS-2 every week, regardless of symptoms. By the end of the study, 121 participants had tested positive for SARS-2, and their antibody response was compared to their prior common coronavirus antibody levels, to see what correlations could be found.
A comparison of infected participants to the 1,081 participants who remained uninfected showed that levels of common betacoronavirus antibodies did not predict the likelihood of SARS-2 infection. The numbers are small, but still – it looks like cross-immunity (at the level of antibodies, anyway) won’t protect you against infection.
Study participants were generally younger, and almost none of them suffered severe disease. To see how the severity of infection might nevertheless correlate with prior common coronavirus antibody levels, the authors decided to use the antibody response to SARS-2 as a proxy for severity of infection…
There is plenty more: https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/original-antigenic-sin-is-a-real
Thanks for all you do Mark.
Any chance you could interpret these study findings?
Or can someone else?
I mean, I understand what they are saying, I think, but my question becomes: does this mean that unjabbed people who get sick wirh Covid have different bodily and immune responses to the trying, based on what types of immune responses they have had to other Corona viruses in the past?
Or what?
The info is very helpful, but the interpretation of how it impacts different people is clear as mud.
Wondering if others have thoughts. Because I get the intellectual piece but am missing the perceived outcomes.
It means that people who have antibodies against earlier strains of coronavirus, which would include people vaccinated against an earlier strain of Covid-19, have worse outcomes against the newer variants.
What might this mean, because I do not know what to think, related to the nonvaccinated but those who have had an early COVID infection?
Good point.
Well I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer…and the general rule around here is “explain it to me like you would a 5 year old “.
I apologize, I really didn’t develop good critical thinking skills growing up in the 80’s, 90s and going forward.
Having said that, does this mean, my family and I , who’ve all had the original cooff, and are not jabbed, have a greater risk of becoming seriously ill from the cooff spin-off variants because we have antibodies from the original cooff?
I hope you can make of that👆🏻.
Katie, it’s not clear from these studies, because I don’t see that they separated vaxxed from unvaxxed. It may be just those with vaxx-generated antibodies to Coof 1.0 that are more vulnerable.
My question is pretty much the same as everyone’s: what does this mean for those of us who are unvaccinated but recovered from an earlier strain of covid? Of course I have no idea what strain my family had.
However… I am leaning more and more towards starting a radical detox and immunity boosting regimen on the theory that a stronger immunity can’t hurt.
If you find out more about this study in layman’s terms, please pass it along. Thanks.
Alrighty, I’ll just have another pb&horsepaste sammie and wash it down with a shot of ivermodka.
I found this but I skimmed it and have not read it carefully.
https://brownstone.org/articles/79-research-studies-affirm-naturally-acquired-immunity-to-covid-19-documented-linked-and-quoted/
And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. Matthew 10:28-31
Trust in God and don’t worry because everything is in His hands.
katie: “does this mean, my family and I , who’ve all had the original cooff, and are not jabbed, have a greater risk of becoming seriously ill from the cooff spin-off variants because we have antibodies from the original cooff?”
The anti covid-19 vaccines target a specific characteristic of the virus, the so called spike protein. I’ve no information that the ‘booster’ shots have a different formulation. They trick your cells into producing the spike protein which your immune system attacks, also in some instances attacking the cells that produce it too, leading to a rich variety of fun auto immune conditions.
The spike protein is one narrow characteristic of the virus, it has numerous others. If you’ve been exposed to COVID-19 and recovered, your immune system will have learnt about other characteristics of the virus, and should you get a revisit may recognise the virus by those other characteristics and kill it straight away.
You’d think, that applying an evolutionary pressure on a characteristic of an organism – if it disadvantages that organism may lead to less frequent expressions of that characteristic. In that case, the virus may by now have mutated to the extent that it does not express the spike protein at all, in which case none of the current vaccines would be effective against it.
In my non-medical opinion, if you have natural immunity against a virus, that immunity is deeper and broader than that provided by the vaccine alone. – Let’s face it they provide next to none, since it seems you can be reinfected within a matter of weeks.