If I may cheat on the T cell for a moment and tell you about memory B cells and how excellent they are, I would appreciate it if no one told my T cells. Memory B cells also form part of the adaptive immune system; they develop after an infection, go and hide out in your "germinal
centers" (like your lymph nodes) and then they quietly sit there and also quietly circulate for a very long time but are able to be stimulated to produce active antibodies if they see that infection again. One of my favorite papers ever took a cohort of 32 nature.com/articles/natur…
people born before 1915 who had been exposed to 1918 flu. Nearly 90 years later (this paper published in 2008), they found circulating B cells that could generate potent neutralizing antibodies to the 1918 strain of flu (by the way, the influenza virus mutates WAY faster than
coronavirus. As we said before, coronaviruses actually don't mutate very fast compared to that "leaky" influenza polymerase. So, these antibodies generated in these individuals 90 years (!) after they got 1918 flu could neutralize virus in test tube and protected mice when
injected into mice who were then given the infection. So, humans can sustain memory B cells to viruses for many many decades after exposure. Okay, put on top of that this amazing paper that actually biopsied the lymph nodes of 12 people who got the researchsquare.com/article/rs-310…
Pfizer vaccine 3, 4, 5 and 7 weeks after the first shot. Lymph nodes in armpit were biopsied and then they essentially stained them with fluorescently labeled spike protein probes to find spike protein binding B cells in these germinal centers. They found high levels
of B cells in these lymph nodes that were generated against the spike protein of #covid19 just after the first shot even. So, okay, if memory B cells can last decades and we already know we form memory B cells after the 1st shot of vaccine, AND we got reassured about variants
today with our T cell responses being intact against them, I am not sure we need to worry this much about yearly boosters. So, let's get vaccinated, believe in the immune system, understand that nothing but immunity to a new pathogen can free humankind from a pandemic, & watch
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