One leading immunologist says the findings give optimism that humans do not have to maintain recurrent coronavirus infections. It also provides evidence that a vaccine can protect people for longer than a short period of time.
“The hope I had was to realize with these early studies,” said Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Beginning in the pandemic, some scientists questioned how long the body would remember the infection and continue to produce antibodies – the proteins that the body makes to fight an infection – to protect it. Studies have shown that these antibodies decrease over time and different people produce different numbers of antibodies. It is unclear what kind and what level of an antibody reaction is needed to provide protection.
“This is an accumulation of more information that will make people more comfortable with the idea that we will have immunity that will last longer,” Lipkin told CNN. “We do not know that for a fact, but there are a few things that are interesting that gave me a basis for optimism.”
One of the studies showed that T cells seem to be activated by this new coronavirus. T cells are important immune cells that stimulate different arms of the immune system and that also attack and kill cells that have already been infected by a virus.
Another study that looked at donor blood samples found that a large portion of the population, between 20% and 50% of people in some areas of the US, may have T cells that recognize the new coronavirus, even if this person has never been infected. It is still unclear why people have them. It may be called cross-protection from other coronaviruses that cause the cold. What scientists do not yet know is if this provides protection against Covid-19, but it has potential.
“So, this is very good news and it’s optimistic,” Lipkin said. “You know, it’s a little blue sky we were looking for.”
What also remains unclear is how long the human body’s response to the new coronavirus can provide protection. Since it is only seven months after the pandemic, these studies cannot determine how long protection lasts, but at least one shows that even a mild infection has provided protection for three months and suggests that protection is likely to last longer.
“The hard part about sustainability is that it’s a time-dependent measurement,” said David Masopust, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientist in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Minnesota. “We want to know what that looks like five years from now. Unfortunately, we can not predict that today,” Masopust added. The research results are what scientists would expect from a coronavirus, he said.
“What the research shows us is encouraging – that things look normal in the sense that you have what we call humoral immunity, as antibodies,” Masopust told CNN.
“And you’re developing B cells, which can differentiate into cells that make antibodies, and it looks like you have T cells that look durable, to the extent that this study was able to do that. view, “he added. “It would be bad or sad news if they got anything other than these studies.”
Masopust said while these studies are stimulating, it is not yet clear whether the memory of the immune system can actually protect people against infection. “Again, this is a real world experiment that, unfortunately, will be done by people coming into contact with the coronavirus,” Masopust said.
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