> Natural immunity should be better because you are exposed to all the same proteins in the vaccine plus more
This directly contradicts what immunologists seem to be finding as in the "Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection" [1] study.
Summarized by the director of the NIH [2]:
> antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD compared to antibodies elicited by an infection, which more often targeted other portions of the spike protein. Importantly, the vaccine-elicited antibodies targeted a broader range of places on the RBD than those elicited by natural infection.
If there's one thing we should learn from this pandemic it seems like the complexity and non-intuitiveness of the immune system is amongst them.
Early epidemiology is showing better immunity from natural infection.
A receptor binding domain is the place the on the virus that the virus uses to bind to cells.
However antibodies can bind to any part of the virus causing the virus particles to be attacked by the immune system. It is good to bind to the receptor binding domain, but it is good to bind to other parts of the virus too.
As the virus mutates, having antibodies that react to as much of the virus as possible is better than only having antibodies targeted towards the RBD
This directly contradicts what immunologists seem to be finding as in the "Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection" [1] study.
Summarized by the director of the NIH [2]:
> antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD compared to antibodies elicited by an infection, which more often targeted other portions of the spike protein. Importantly, the vaccine-elicited antibodies targeted a broader range of places on the RBD than those elicited by natural infection.
If there's one thing we should learn from this pandemic it seems like the complexity and non-intuitiveness of the immune system is amongst them.
1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/
2: https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/22/how-immunity-genera...