Thread by @michaelmina_lab

@apoorva_nyc @TakeWeightOffMD Seen a lot of responses talking about partial immunity here.

But, Unlike antibiotics, the comparison has to consider even greater “only partial immunity” among those who have had no vaccine by the time they get infected.

1/x

@apoorva_nyc @TakeWeightOffMD The immune response is going to develop whether you’ve been vaccinated or not. If you’ve had no vaccine, then there is going to be much more “only partial immunity” that the virus gets to play around with and “test out”

2/x

@apoorva_nyc @TakeWeightOffMD We have to very careful to not forget what the baseline is here. W antibiotics, the Bacteria is only exposed to a partial dose if youre on antibiotics. With immunity, the virus is exposed to a partial dose whenever you’re not already protected while immunity builds up.

3/x

@apoorva_nyc @TakeWeightOffMD So, it’s not a straightforward answer. Is it better to give single/smaller doses and have fewer ppl not have to start from zero at infection and instead have swifter responses - or is it better to have more people start from zero while a smaller number have “full protection”

4/x

@apoorva_nyc @TakeWeightOffMD This get further involved if we then assume that a single dose can in fact block transmission decently. Then you start getting reduced viral transmission swifter w a single dose - fewer infxns overall and thus fewer chances for escape mutants to arise overall.

5/x

@apoorva_nyc @TakeWeightOffMD Even if durability is less, may get a reprieve when seasonality begins to help again. Since probability of escape is largely driven as a population parameter, and since it can happen from natural or vaccine derived immunity, worrying about limiting spread is probably most crucial