Forbes | A breakthrough Covid-19 coronavirus infection may not be “super” to have. But can it actually give you what’s being called “super immunity” on social media? In other words, can a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection after being fully vaccinated against Covid-19 bring you even greater protection? Well, a research letter just published in JAMA offered a small window into this “super” possibility.
If you search for “super immunity” on social media you will find plenty of posts such as the following:
My husband and I were boosted almost a month ago. We (unfortunately) did not gain any superpowers but we DO have super immunity against Omicron which does sound like a supervillain name so I feel like it counts. Get boosted if you are able to prevent major illness <3 https://t.co/HbzYWL2z1M
— Surena Marie 🍓 (@SurenaXMarie) December 17, 2021
You’ll also find mention of the study described by the JAMA research letter. For example, Monica Gandhi MD, MPH, a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and HIV researcher, used the terms “hybrid immunity” and “super immunity” when tweeting about the study:
This study shows this too in delta breakthrough infections from Provincetown. Of note, this study also looks at T cells; JAMA study specifically showed increase in IgA levels which are the mucosal antibodyhttps://t.co/StZ5neUFVc
— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) December 16, 2021
She called it “hybrid immunity,” because the potentially boosted immune protection may come from a combination of vaccination and then subsequent infection. Gandhi also referenced another study described in a pre-print uploaded to MedRxiv that drew blood from 35 vaccinated individuals in Provincetown, Massachusetts, 14 of whom had had subsequent breakthrough infections. This pre-print described how the blood of the breakthrough infection group had 28-fold higher levels of binding antibodies and 34-fold higher levels of neutralizing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant than the blood of the rest. This study also looked at another measure of immune protection, how the individual’s T cells responded to the virus, a measure that I described previously for Forbes. Those with breakthrough infections had a 4.4-fold higher Spike protein-specific CD8+ T cell responses against the Delta variant than the rest of the study participants. Take all the results from this pre-print with a Ugg boot full of salt though. Anyone with a laptop, an Internet connection, and opposable thumbs can upload a pre-print. It is not the same as a peer-reviewed study published in a reputable scientific journal.
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