What would you do if you found out you had a super-immunity to SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19?
Recent research out of Rockefeller University in the United States has found that some people have managed to produce an incredible antibody response – and it’s not only COV-2. While the study has yet to be peer-reviewed, the findings are definitely caused for excitement. In this article, we’re going to break down some of their findings and how they came to the conclusion that super-immunity is achievable –for some people. Let’s dive in.
Breakthrough Variants
Do you remember the late Winter of 2020? With several promising vaccines in condensed trials – one of the greatest feats of collaborative science to date, the world was locked in to the race of the century.
If you were anywhere in the western world, you probably remember hearing headlines that ran something along the lines of “THE RACE BETWEEN VACCINES AND VARIANTS”.
The race was on to get vaccines into arms before the virus had a chance to mutate past the means of our vaccine. So who won the race? Well, frankly, it hasn’t ended yet. With vaccines rolling out just as the notorious Delta variant was making its way around the globe, the West may be in the lead by the skin of their teeth.
As the virus makes easily makes its way through the unvaccinated population, breakthrough infections of vaccinated people have been reported at a rate that is high enough to cause concern.
In order to learn more about COVID-19 immunity and vaccine efficacy, the study set out to learn from people with higher antibody levels, and what it learned is certainly interesting and hopefully s useful.
They found that certain people who had extremely effective antibody and immune responses had another thing in common. They had been infected with COVID before receiving the vaccine. This kind of hybrid-immunity, it turns out, is extremely effective against SARS COV 2 and all of its six (at the time of writing) variants.
But that’s not all it’s good for.
Researchers went one step further – remember the first time we heard of the SARS virus back in the early 2000s? That virus was called SARS COV 1, and though related, was a much different kind of disease. People with a super-immunity to COVID-19 (SARS-COV-2) also showed an extremely strong antibody response to the older virus, as well as other viruses commonly found in bats and pangolins – where SARS COV 2 is thought to have originated.
Well, scientists couldn’t leave it at that – they engineered a virus with not 6, 7, or 8, but 20 mutations! It didn’t matter. The super-immunity was able to respond to all of them. Again, the study is yet to be peer-reviewed, however if these findings are legitimate, it could lead to new weapons in humanity’s greatest fight of our generation.
Sources
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-56324050
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.455491v1
https://interestingengineering.com/despite-breakthrough-infections-covid-vaccines-still-work
