Fortunately, a booster dose appears likely to restore most of the protection. These are the conclusions of a recent study from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Omicron aggressively spreading

Explosive. That’s the word I would use to describe the growth and spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. The virus has been discovered in 89 countries and has a doubling rate of 1.5 to 3 days in regions with community transmission. These are observations from the World Health Organization (WHO) today.

Is the rapid growth secondary to the variant virus’ ability to evade our immune systems, or is it secondary to increased transmissibility for other reasons? We don’t know.

Let’s take a quick look at the preliminary evidence regarding the lack of effectiveness of vaccination without a booster shot. The Boston region researchers tested blood from people who had received the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines against a pseudovirus engineered to look like the Omicron variant.

There appeared to be very little (if any) neutralization of antibodies of the variant from any of the vaccines. However, the blood from those who recently had a booster shot neutralized the variant.

These research observations are in line with some other recent reports. In a study announced earlier this week, Oxford University (England) researchers tested subjects’ blood samples 28 days after their second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

When the scientists introduced Omicron to the samples, there appeared to be a substantial fall in the neutralizing antibodies that fight Covid. Some recipients failed to neutralize the virus at all. This response appears inferior to that seen against earlier variants of the coronavirus. Here is the take of the study’s authors:

“This will likely lead to increased breakthrough infections in previously infected or double vaccinated individuals, which could drive a further wave of infection, although there is currently no evidence of increased potential to cause severe disease, hospitalization or death.”

The researchers reported this pre-print study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, on the MedRxiv server.

Good news

BioNTech and Pfizer said last week that a three-shot course of their COVID-19 vaccine neutralized the new Omicron variant in a laboratory test. However, the two doses resulted in significantly lower neutralizing antibodies.

Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have not released their data about the vaccines against the new variant.

I am glad that I got a booster vaccine shot. Thank you for joining me today.

The post Covid: Why You Need a Booster appeared first on Medika Life.

This is not totally surprising. While it would be ideal for a vaccine to prevent infection – i.e., catching the virus at all – at the very least, a good vaccine will prevent you from getting very sick from the disease. On this latter front, the vaccines continue to hold up well.

Yet, if it were to happen – if someone were to get a breakthrough infection – research shows that this person ends up with very robust immunity.

Researchers from the Oregon Health & Science University studied 26 people who were fully vaccinated against SARS CoV-2 and subsequently got COVID and compared them with 26 people who were vaccinated but did not get COVID. They found the immunity after a breakthrough infection was substantial:

In fact, the immunity after a breakthrough infection helped protect against multiple variants of SARS CoV-2, including Delta (the study was conducted before Omicron was born):

This is also not surprising, as an infection after vaccination serves as a “booster shot,” of sorts, and it therefore greatly enhances one’s immunity.

Now, of course, this is not the best way to boost your immunity against COVID if you are vaccinated. Sometimes, even mild COVID infections can have lasting long-term effects.

The best way, in fact, to boost your immunity against COVID is to get a booster shot. In the United States, everyone over the age of 16 is eligible to get a booster shot 2 months after the J&J vaccine and 6 months after the mRNA vaccines. They are safe. They are effective. And they boost your immunity to a great degree.

Again, I do not wish a breakthrough infection on anyone. This disease is horrible, and I have seen its horror up close. If one does get a breakthrough, though, the silver lining is that the immunity after such infection is very, very robust.

Reference: Bates TA, McBride SK, Winders B, et al. Antibody Response and Variant Cross-Neutralization After SARS-CoV-2 Breakthrough Infection. JAMA. Published online December 16, 2021. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.22898

The post Breakthrough Infections Dramatically Enhance COVID Immunity appeared first on Medika Life.