Thought of the Day - October 27 2021 - Antibodies, Shmantibodies

For some reason, the popular media - called the MSM by some - seems to be transfixed with the declining levels of COVID blood antibodies. Well duh, this is is not news, this is what our body is supposed to do!

In case you missed a memo ( Thought of the Day - July 27 2021 - What Do Vaccines Do? ) on how vaccines work, your body ceases to make more antibodies once the exposure has gone; otherwise, it would be busy making a plethora of unnecessary antibodies. Usually, active blood antibody levels wain in about six months. That said, your body, once exposed to the vaccine, also learns how to recognize and rapidly make antibodies and so can respond quickly to any future exposure, thus thwarting the impact of the pathogen - this is supposed to be the main benefit of a vaccine. The main reason for "boosters" for some vaccines is to make sure that these memory cells are alive and well. Thus are administered in the short-term, to make sure your body is fully ready, or many years after the initial vaccine, to make sure you are still ready.

So what are the real issues behind these headlines?

Three reasons:

1. The elderly and immunocompromised may not have fully developed COVID memory cells and so unsurprising this demographic needs to be "boosted" just in case. This is simply the process of learning the best level of dosing, something that normally vaccine makers take years to perfect.

2. As we have talked about before, COVID vaccination provides a "thin veil" of protection compared to what your body could provide if fully exposed to the pathogen - thus the debate around the benefit of natural immunity ( Thought of the Day - September 7 2021 - The Best Way to Top-up Immunity ), and the concern: is the vaccine response "enough"?

3. Finally, and most importantly, unlike most successful vaccines (and in this, I do NOT include the flu shot), there is a concern that if you do not have active SARS-CoV-2 blood antibodies, especially with the Delta variant, your body may not be able to produce new antibodies rapidly enough to stave off future serious COVID infection. In short, COVID vaccines are not really a prevention at all. They are simply a short-term prophylactic that will probably need to be continually re-administered until a better solution is found. This is also the reason that, unlike vaccines for other deadly diseases, we are not seeing any SARS-CoV-2 herd immunity - your body can still act as a breeding ground and thus transmit the virus before you can fight it off ( Thought of the Day - October 8 2021 - Delta Spreaders ).

Have you really not considered why there are so many protests around the world questioning the benefit of vaccine passports and calling for a better solution for COVID? Any wonder that Merck and now Pfizer are promoting a COVID pill rather than pouring more research into COVID vaccines ( Thought of the Day - October 20 2021 - Merck's New Therapeutic Drug )?

This is it people . . Despite all the wishful thinking in the popular press, the simple fact is, while the COVID vaccines are remarkable in reducing the level of illness in the short term, they do not stop the spread.

Cheers

Cliff