If a person had COVID-19, then got vaccinated and then a breakthrough infection.
His antibodies will be positive after the breakthrough infection. How will we know if the antibodies are from the disease or vaccination?
That’s the study’s objective from the Department of Medicine of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
The study Anti-membrane and anti-spike antibodies are long-lasting and together discriminate between past COVID-19 infection and vaccination, was released November 8, 2021, as a preprint at BioRxiv.
They found their answer, but there was more to the study that was not in the title. Stay will the end.
To answer their question, the investigators obtained blood samples from groups of people.
- Individuals who never had COVID-19 and COVID vaccine.
- People who recovered from COVID-19 and never got vaccinated.
- Another group who had COVID-19 then got vaccinated
- Persons who had COVID-19, then got vaccinated, then had a breakthrough infection.
They tested the different types of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 among the study groups.
Here is a backgrounder to better understand the study.
The SARS-CoV-2 proteins
The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes the COVID-19 infection. The virus has several proteins. Among them are the spike, membrane, nucleocapsid, envelope, and accessory proteins.
The immune system has to make antibodies or immune globulin or Ig specific for each protein in an infection. The immune globulin that lasts for months is the IgG. The body will make anti-spike IgG or anti-Spike protein, anti-membrane IgG or anti-M, anti-nucleocapsid IgG or anti-N, and others during and after the infection. They are all detectable with testing.
The Spike Proteins and its parts
The spike protein is divided into different parts or domains. The most important is the receptor-binding domain, or RBD. The RBD is the part that attaches to the ACE2 receptors of the cells in the nose. Once fixed, the virus enters the cells, starts replicating, and the infection starts.
Antibodies to the RBD or anti-RBD effectively block the SARS-CoV-2 from attaching to the ACE2. They neutralize or prevent infection.
Antibodies to the other parts of the spike protein like the N-terminal domain or NTD also exist, and they help fight infections. Still, neutralizing antibodies or anti-RBD are preferred because they stop COVID-19 before it starts.
The image below is the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and the receptor-binding domain is in magenta. The NTD is in blue.
The Result
Testing for the anti-membrane and anti-RBD antibodies is the best test to know if the antibodies are from previous COVID-19 infections.
If only the anti-RBD are high, then they are from the vaccination. The anti-nucleocapsid is not a good test since it declines rapidly.
That’s the conclusion of the study.
The authors said that the significance of this study is to find out if protective immunity from vaccination is the same as natural infection. Knowing that can impact public health policies.
But more findings are buried in the discussion.
A small group of people (4/20) who recovered from COVID-19 made lower levels of antibodies. Those people are the ones who had COVID-19 before, got vaccinated, and later developed a breakthrough infection.
In comparison, levels of anti-RBD and anti-membrane antibodies who had COVID-19 before but did not have the vaccine continued to be high at 12 months. Here is what they reported. The following are copied and pasted from the report. (emphasis added).
The 4 breakthrough infection subjects who also had COVID-19 prior to vaccination had anti-RBD and anti-nucleocapsid antibody levels at the low end of expected suggesting a reduced antibody response to the original infection.
Interestingly, antibodies generally did not rise against any antigen in the three longitudinally followed subjects several weeks after breakthrough infection.
Our limited data suggest that individuals with breakthrough infections may mount a reduced antibody response against SARS-CoV-2.
Although none of these subjects had immunocompromising conditions, it is not known if the lack of antibody response was due to an atypical host immune system or the effects of prior (COVID-19) vaccination on the subsequent immune response to infection.
Thus, while we did not identify anti-RBD levels that could predict breakthrough infection, our limited data suggest that individuals with breakthrough infections may mount a reduced antibody response against SARSCoV-2.
Did you get that? COVID-19 vaccination resulted in a lower antibody response to a breakthrough infection.
My Opinion
I don’t know why those results about low antibody levels after breakthrough infections are not mentioned in the title. It could be that those findings were in a small number of people? And yet, it was significant enough for the authors to write almost a whole paragraph about it. That is not the first time I have seen it. Many authors and editors know that the current COVID-19 vaccines are harmful, but they have to write their papers to fit the official narrative. That is why the not-so-ideal findings of the COVID vaccines are buried.
This study confirms in real life this paper, SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro that showed that COVID-19 vaccination could handicap the adaptive immune response. This study was done in a laboratory.
That study is discussed in my recent article, Study: SARS-CoV-2 Spike Proteins Impaired DNA Repair That Can Lead to Defective Immunity and Cancers.
Laboratory findings are theoretical. But it is worrying when you see it in real life. Only a fraction of those who had COVID-19, then got vaccinated and had a breakthrough infection had a decreased antibody response. (4/20 or 20%).
The decrease in immune response adds to antibody-dependent enhancement to the risk of COVID-19 vaccination.
The most extensive human trial for any vaccine in history is still ongoing. More evidence and data are needed to verify this. We will know in the coming months.
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Related:
- Five Mechanisms of Antibody-Dependent Enhancement
- What is Antibody-Dependent Enhancement, and why should you care.
- Antibody-dependent enhancement can happen to Delta Variant COVID-19
- Antibody-Dependent Enhancement in Breastfed Infants
- Antibodies to the Flu and COVID-19 Cross-React
- Adverse Reactions to Pfizer Biontech Vaccine for the 5-11 Years Old
- You Have to Know Vaccine Related Kounis Syndrome
- Myocarditis after mRNA Vaccination in the Military
- Unidentified Foreign Bodies in the Vaccines Form Clots
- CDC Report shows 25% Mortality in Breakthrough Cases
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