>>14061915>antibodies are shit-tier and won't protect from old variants (and vice versa).Oops, somebody isn't keeping up with the studies.
https://www.ahri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/MEDRXIV-2021-268439v1-Sigal_corr.pdfOmicron has been shown to be highly transmissible and have extensive evasion of neutralizing
antibody immunity elicited by vaccination and previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. Omicron infections
are rapidly expanding worldwide often in the face of high levels of Delta infections. Here we
characterized developing immunity to Omicron and investigated whether neutralizing immunity
elicited by Omicron also enhances neutralizing immunity of the Delta variant. We enrolled both
previously vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the
Omicron infection wave in South Africa soon after symptom onset. We then measured their ability
to neutralize both Omicron and Delta virus at enrollment versus a median of 14 days after
enrollment. Neutralization of Omicron increased 14-fold over this time, showing a developing
antibody response to the variant. Importantly, there was an enhancement of Delta virus
neutralization, which increased 4.4-fold. The increase in Delta variant neutralization in individuals
infected with Omicron may result in decreased ability of Delta to re-infect those individuals. Along
with emerging data indicating that Omicron, at this time in the pandemic, is less pathogenic than
Delta, such an outcome may have positive implications in terms of decreasing the Covid-19 burden
of severe disease.
