Antibodies induced by lab-created COVID-19 vaccines may be more effective than natural immunity in combating the virus and its variations, a new study has revealed.
Researchers from the National Cancer Institute "used a series of in vitro assays to determine the number of antibodies produced by the vaccine and natural immunity, and whether this correlates to how much of the virus is neutralized," according to the study's findings, which were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
In the study, 41 serum samples were collected from 33 volunteers, all of whom had a documented history of COVID-19 infection, and compared to 28 donors who had all received two doses of either Pfizer or Moderna.
When compared to the natural immunity group, those who were vaccinated exhibited a 16.8-fold rise in neutralizing antibodies, and a 30.1-fold increase over a group of newly diagnosed COVID-19 patients.
The researchers discovered that this increase in antibodies corresponded to a similar improvement in virus neutralization in a follow-up experiment, implying that vaccinated people have more antibodies and are hence more efficient at neutralizing COVID-19.
When compared to natural immunity-induced antibodies, the vaccinated samples' antibodies were considerably more effective at neutralizing a different variation.
Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University says the following variety's origins are unknown, but that Omicron did not arise from the preceding variant, Delta.
Omicron "came from a completely different part of the virus's family tree. And since we don't know where in the virus's family tree a new variant is going to come from, we cannot know how pathogenic it might be. It could be less pathogenic but it could, just as easily, be more pathogenic," he told The Guardian.
The scientist's opinion was supported by Professor Lawrence Young of Warwick University.
"People seem to think there has been a linear evolution of the virus from Alpha to Beta to Delta to Omicron," he told The Observer. "But that is simply not the case. The idea that virus variants will continue to get milder is wrong. A new one could turn out to be even more pathogenic than the Delta variant, for example."
The scientists' perspectives come after Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been at the forefront of the virus's arrival in America in January 2020, stated that the day we may all drop the face masks could be "soon."
SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus of the coronavirus illness 2019 (COVID-19), has affected about 394 million individuals worldwide to date. Several more viral variations have evolved throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the most recent being the Omicron variant, which was first detected in November 2021.
Vaccine research against SARS-CoV-2 has been unprecedentedly rapid, yet despite more than ten billion vaccine doses provided so far, the pandemic remains a severe health crisis.
