Thread by @fitterhappierAJ

T cell mediated viral control is attenuated by orf6 and orf8 in covid-19

For this reason T cell memory is not sufficient in the prevention of mild and moderate covid-19, as seen with AZN vaccine efficacy versus antibody escape variants like Beta (B1351) nature.com/articles/s4146…

This lack of effective viral control despite t cell memory means NPIs and infrastructure like clean air are required. If we could completely rely on immunological memory we would not need boosters or masks after 1 vaccine or infection

https://twitter.com/fitterhappierAJ/status/1265505689822265346

People that overstate cellular immunity in the role of disease prevention of covid-19 undermine the urgency in which these changes are required

To claim B and T cell memory completely suffice suggests that no changes are needed

We do know that B and T cell memory do not suffice given locales with common reinfections like Iran and Manaus ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/artic…

https://twitter.com/Mahan_Ghafari/status/1446196548904366092?s=20

To tie back to what a competent T cell immunity can do- when orf8 is not functional the sars cov 2 infection is much attenuated.

The virus has a much more difficult time hiding from the immune system

https://twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/1307504237048406019

People often bring up the stop codon in Alpha's orf8 and say it did not attenuate cov2.

We can reconcile that if we consider the orf8 may still be functional, something that is likely true given analysis on orf8 by zinzula

https://twitter.com/fitterhappierAJ/status/1362944468752732167