Those who actually read my posts on this thread may remember that I have often complained how the press, and others, talk about the effect of vaccination while only mentioning circulating antibodies – ignoring the effect of circulating Killer T-cells.
I recently noticed that good scientists, such as Anthony Fauci, now speak about circulating antibodies, without mention of Killer T-cells. There is now news on this topic to report.
A scientific paper, now being reviewed, shows that the levels of circulating antibodies in people are an effective way to measure immunity obtained from vaccination. This is referred to as a 'correlative marker'. We can use this easy & fast method to assess immunity instead of relying only on elaborate, slow, and expensive clinical trials.
Note that the paper looked at only people who were on the Moderna vaccine clinical trial. It says nothing about using antibody levels as a correlative marker in those who received other vaccines. It wouldn't be a stretch to believe that the same might be true for the Pfizer vaccine, but we should wait for some data. What about the other non-mRNA vaccines? Some data is required before we can conclude anything about them.
This paper does not prove that antibodies are the only immune mechanism resulting from vaccination.
Killer T-cells may very well turn out to be important as well. But measuring their presence is much more difficult, expensive, and slower than measuring antibody levels.
I can now stop complaining.
After vaccination, antibody levels can help predict how much protection a COVID-19 shot offers, scientists are learning. The finding could speed up the development of future vaccines.
www.npr.org
Background In the Coronavirus Efficacy (COVE) trial, estimated mRNA-1273 vaccine efficacy against coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) was 94%. SARS-CoV-2 antibody measurements were assessed as correlates of COVID-19 risk and as correlates of protection. Methods Through case-cohort sampling...
www.medrxiv.org