Will a vaccine actually solve the problem?

Nurses COVID

Updated:   Published

There have been an increasing number of cases around the world of people being reinfected with covid, I even know of 2 myself personally. It seems generally accepted that once you've had it, you have antibodies in your system for about 3 months.

So given that vaccines essentially work the same as contracting the disease (body is introduced to the pathogen, learns to recognize it and produce antibodies, etc), why would our immunity derived from a vaccine last any longer than our immunity after contracting the disease? Are we going to be expected to be vaccinated every 3 months to maintain immunity?

I don't claim to be an expert in this, so maybe I'm missing something.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

The current vaccine is that you get vaccinated twice once and with a booster in two months.  So it might last longer than three months.  Where this leads is anyone's guess...does it last long?  Do we need it every year?  What about the 10% it doesn't work for.  10% of billions of people is a lot of people.  The verdict is still out. 

It's such a mysterious disease.  I do think the good news is the overwhelming majority of people that recover from covid don't get reinfected.   It's complicated though. 

Ugh....

I know here in Florida the governor has prioritized Covid health care workers as the first to get it and I've heard more than say "I'm not getting it, I won't be a guinea pig".  

Another ugh.....

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).

Another issue is the astonding ability that this virus has to mutate itself. I read yesterday that the Mink farmers in the Netherlands will be required to euthanize their entire stock of breeding animals as several have tested positive for this virus. It has also been found in horses, pigs, cattle and dogs. The impact on the global food supply could be disasterous. Lucky for me my folks taught me how to grow and preserve lots of food. I will put up several dozen pint's of vegetables in the fall of next year as I have expanded my garden by another 100 square feet. But I also freeze and dehydrate some items. I have yet to try canning meat as it must be done according to certain standards to prevent baterial contamination. 

I would really rather not have the vaccine but am likely to be mandated to keep my job. 

Hppy

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3 hours ago, hppygr8ful said:

Another issue is the astonding ability that this virus has to mutate itself.

I’m not sure why you say that SARS-CoV-2 has an astounding ability to mutate? It’s really not that fast and as far as I know we haven’t seen (m)any significant changes in its genome so far? I think that the most commonly mentioned is the D614G mutation but I don’t think it has had a large impact on the virus’ characteristics? 
 

7 hours ago, SansNom said:

There have been an increasing number of cases around the world of people being reinfected with covid, I even know of 2 myself personally. 

Confirmed Covid-19 reinfections are very rare. (Confirmed: Positive PCR —> clinical recovery + negative PCR —> another positive PCR more than 28 days after the initial positive test * OR * positive PCR —> a new positive PCR with non-identical genome. 

There is is risk that people mistakenly identify lingering initial infections/long period of viral shedding, as reinfections and sometimes when people describe ”reinfections” the first ”bout” was never PCR verified.

This is a Corona virus.  Reinfections are to be expected. But considering the many millions of cases we’ve had worldwide, the number of verified reinfections we’ve seen are few in number. 
 

7 hours ago, SansNom said:

It seems generally accepted that once you've had it, you have antibodies in your system for about 3 months. 

I don’t think that is ”generally accepted”? We’ve lived with this virus for less than a year (as far as we know) and the jury is still out on the finer details regarding immunity. 

This is an interesting review of antibody mediated immunity to the seven Coronaviruses known to infect human beings. 
 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18450-4


But there is more to protective immunity than just antibodies. We still have so much to learn about this virus before we can say what kind of immunity and its duration, we can ”expect” to see after a Covid-19 infection. 

 

Edited to add: once a vaccine is approved and I’ve had a chance to review the data, I’ll happily take it. 

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).

@macawake You conveniently left the second part of my paragraph on the abilty of this virus to mutate itself so as to jump from species to species. It originally jumped from bat's or other species in the wet markets in China and is jumping from human's to domestic animal's and presumedly will them junp back to humans. This as I said may have an impact on the global food supply. 

Hppy

 

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1 hour ago, hppygr8ful said:

@macawake You conveniently left the second part of my paragraph on the abilty of this virus to mutate itself so as to jump from species to species. It originally jumped from bat's or other species in the wet markets in China and is jumping from human's to domestic animal's and presumedly will them junp back to humans. This as I said may have an impact on the global food supply. 

Hppy

 

No, I didn’t ”conveniently” leave anything out.

https://www.who.int/csr/don/06-November-2020-mink-associated-sars-cov2-denmark/en/

It’s absolutely warranted to keep an eye on this.

I still don’t understand your claim that the virus has an ”astounding ability” to mutate itself. Is it significantly worse than other Corona viruses?
For example, I’m reasonably certain that our seasonal influenza viruses mutate at a faster clip than SARS-CoV-2. 

But I agree, there is still so much we don’t know about this virus and I think it’s wise to be vigilant. Vigilant, but not scaremongering. 

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
7 minutes ago, macawake said:

No, I didn’t ”conveniently” leave anything out. I think it already has jumped from humans to animals and back to humans again. (I don’t have the time to look for sources right now, but I think it happened in twelve cases in Denmark for example. Humans < - > minks). It’s absolutely warrants keeping an eye on. 

I still don’t understand your claim that the virus has an ”astounding ability” to mutate itself. Is it significantly worse than other Corona viruses?
For example, I’m reasonably certain that our seasonal influenza viruses mutate at a faster clip than SARS-CoV-2. 

But I agree, there is still so much we don’t know about this virus and I think it’s wise to be vigilant. Vigilant, but not scaremongering. 

OK I see now and admit I may have used a bit of hyperbole in my statement and it may not be an astounding abilty to mutate. I agree with you about being vigilant without being fearmongering. 

Hppy

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Specializes in Critical Care.

The known strains of coronavirus, including four that are responsible for commons colds, cause short term B-cell immunity in those infected, Covid appears to confer the same short term immunity in those who recover from a Covid infection.

The vaccines currently in trials are evaluating their ability to confer T-cell (long-term) immunity, not short term immunity.  When these trials reports success, they're reporting successful rates of the vaccine conferring long-term immunity.  

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Specializes in Emergency / Disaster.

@hppygr8ful don't can meat - dehydrate it ?. I dehydrate about 8 lbs of beef for jerky every week!  I'm too afraid to try chicken or pork but I'm certainly saving up a storm of beef!

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
3 hours ago, bitter_betsy said:

@hppygr8ful don't can meat - dehydrate it ?. I dehydrate about 8 lbs of beef for jerky every week!  I'm too afraid to try chicken or pork but I'm certainly saving up a storm of beef!

I do make jerky but I want to be able to can things like soup that has meat in it. I have a pressure canner so theoretically safe canning of meat is doable.

Hppy

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Specializes in clinic nurse.
On 11/13/2020 at 8:20 AM, SansNom said:

why would our immunity derived from a vaccine last any longer than our immunity after contracting the disease?

I do not claim to be an expert either, but it could be that if we have enough people who are vaccinated, combined with a sufficient quantity who have had Covid-19, then it's possible the virus will have nowhere to go. That could be the idea. OTOH, I have also heard that immunity is fairly lasting. It's a coronavirus. If we've had one of the other coronaviruses (there are five or six, I think - that we know of), our body knows what to do, generally. Why would it be different with this one?

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Specializes in Dialysis.
45 minutes ago, hppygr8ful said:

I do make jerky but I want to be able to can things like soup that has meat in it. I have a pressure canner so theoretically safe canning of meat is doable.

Hppy

I've canned meat. It's a trying process, and realistically,  I think it changes the taste of the meat some. But I do can stews and soups, with not much change to taste 

2 nurses at work were discussing that they both heard that Dr Fauci has commented that once we receive the vaccine, we will still need to social distance and wear masks for a while-many months, a while. Has anyone else heard this, and what do we make of it? Why get a vaccine if we're still going to do what we're already doing? Just questioning, as I haven't heard it personally myself, and anyone that I ask that says yes they've heard it, really isn't able to supply more details other than it was an interview on CNN. If someone can clarify, I'd be grateful 

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