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An analysis of adults who recovered from moderate COVID-19 found that those under the age of 30 had lower neutralizing antibody levels than older people, suggesting that younger individuals may be less protected from a second infection.
The findings, posted to the preprint website medRxiv and announced today, ahead of peer-reviewed publication, indicate that vaccination is important even for young adults who have previously been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“I know a lot of people think, ‘I had COVID, so I don’t need to get a shot,’” said senior author John Alcorn, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. “But this study suggests that some patients, particularly young people, don’t have particularly good antibody memory after infection, indicating that immune boosting with vaccination is important for these people.”
During an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the immune system produces virus-specific antibodies and memory B cells, which stick around in the bloodstream and can help fend off a second infection from the same pathogen. But over time, that protection can wane. Researchers are still trying to understand just how durable this antibody response is after recovery from COVID-19 and whether some groups of people have longer-lasting immune memory than others.
Most studies on antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection have focused on patients who recovered from severe forms of COVID-19, motivating the researchers to investigate milder forms of the disease.
Alcorn and his team recruited 173 patients aged 19 to 79 with mild or moderate COVID-19 who visited their doctors for treatment, excluding those who were hospitalized, indicating severe disease. The researchers collected blood samples from participants several weeks after recovery, and measured SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. They also showed that the antibodies were able to inactivate, or neutralize, the virus in a lab dish and that higher antibody levels were linked with higher neutralizing activity.
Comparing patients, the researchers found that some people had high antibody levels while others had much lower responses, and these differences weren’t explained by time since infection. But when the researchers broke the participants into different age groups, they found something surprising: Patients under the age of 30 produced lower antibody levels compared with all other age groups.
“Some people, particularly young people, don’t respond particularly well in terms of immune memory to prior infection. These people may not be well protected from a second infection,” explained Alcorn. “But we now have a tool — vaccines — that can reinduce immune responses and boost protection. This study puts more evidence behind the recommendation that people who had COVID-19 should get vaccinated.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released new data showing that unvaccinated people who had a recent infection were five times more likely to get COVID-19 than vaccinated people, indicating that vaccines provide better protection than prior infection and highlighting the importance of the shot even for those who have recovered from the disease.
It’s not clear why young people had the poorest immune responses, Alcorn said. Other studies have shown that COVID-19 disease severity is linked with higher antibody levels, so the researchers suspected that low antibody responses in patients under 30 could be because these patients weren’t as sick as their older peers.
To examine this hypothesis, the team analyzed patient medical records. Using the number of days of symptoms as a proxy for disease severity, they found that people aged under 45 were less sick than older patients.
“But people aged under 30 and those aged 31 to 45 had the same symptom duration, but their antibody levels were significantly different,” said Alcorn. “These findings suggest that disease severity could influence a person’s level of protection, but it doesn’t explain everything.”
Alcorn and his team plan to follow up with the same patients to measure how neutralizing antibody levels change over longer periods of time. Because some of these patients have now received a COVID-19 vaccine, the researchers will also compare antibody levels in those who have or haven’t been immunized.
Additional authors on the study were Bo Zhai, Ph.D., Saran Kupul, M.S., and Lucas J. Schratz, M.S., all of UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; Karen Clarke, M. Patricia Nowalk, Ph.D., and Richard K. Zimmerman, M.D., all of Pitt; David L. Bauer, Ph.D., and James B. McLachlan, Ph.D., both of Tulane University School of Medicine; and Anita K. McElroy, M.D., Ph.D., UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and Pitt.
This research was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (5U01IP001035), the National Institutes of Health (UL1TR001857 and U01 AI124289), the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Human Services COVID Grant, the DSF Charitable Foundation and the University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
https://www.chp.edu/news/110921-young-adults-low-antibody-levels-after-covid19
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Another Queens school is temporarily closed by coronavirus transmission in the building, the second this week.
Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) head Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said on Wednesday (Nov. 10) that a panel of experts has decided to suspend administering second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT) COVID vaccine to children 12-17 years old amid concerns it may increase the risk of myocarditis.
Cases of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the outer lining of the heart) have been reported after BNT vaccination of children between 12 and 17 years of age. According to U.S. statistics, the risk of youths experiencing myocarditis after receiving the second BNT dose is 10 times higher than after the first dose, CNA reported.
Some countries have adjusted their policies regarding administering COVID-19 vaccines to adolescents. For instance, Hong Kong has changed from two doses of BNT to only a single dose for those aged 12-17. The U.K. has done something similar, recommending only one shot for children between 12 and 18 years of age, per CNA.
Chen said that the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) has decided to halt administration of second BNT doses to this age group for two weeks, during which time experts and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) physicians will look at the 16 cases of myocarditis among adolescents after BNT vaccination before making a final decision on whether to go ahead with the second shot.
International data will also be consulted before the final decision is made, the CECC head said, adding that currently, children between the ages of 12-17 are being vaccinated with two doses worldwide except in Hong Kong and the U.K.
As for whether COVID-19 vaccines will be approved for children aged 5-11, Chen said the matter will not be considered until the second dose issue with 12 to 17-year-olds is settled.
South Korea may not further ease its coronavirus restrictions, the country's top public health official warned Thursday, amid a spike in COVID-19 cases.
South Korea began easing virus curbs in November in the first of the three-phase "living with COVID-19" scheme. It had planned to move to the second phase in mid-December after a two-week evaluation period.
Jeong Eun-kyeong, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said it may be difficult to move to the second phase of the scheme if new cases continue to grow.
The country reported 2,520 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total caseload to 388,351, the KDCA said.
Thursday's tally marked a slight hike from the previous day's 2,425, which marked the first time in six days that daily infections exceeded 2,400.
The daily infection tally has stayed in the quadruple digits since July 7, including the record high of 3,272 cases on Sept. 25.
"If the current trend continues, we will need to maintain the first phase or tighten virus restrictions," Jeong said during a parliamentary session.
Under the first of the three-phase scheme, people are allowed to gather in groups of up to 10, regardless of vaccinations. Still, basic preventive measures like wearing masks indoors remain in effect.
Operation hour curfews for businesses that cover restaurants, cafes and movie theaters are fully lifted, except for entertainment facilities.
High-risk facilities, such as bars and nightclubs, have introduced a "vaccine pass" system that requires visitors to be fully vaccinated or have a negative test result.
The death toll rose by 21 to 3,033 on Thursday, health authorities said. The fatality rate came to 0.78 percent.
The number of patients in serious or critical condition came to 473, up 13 from the previous day.
Later in the day, health authorities said 2,153 new cases had been confirmed as of 9 p.m. on Thursday, up 13 from the same time the previous day. The daily tally is counted until midnight and announced the following day.
Daily cases are expected to reach around 2,500 on Friday.
The health authorities warned there could be more cluster infections under the eased social distancing scheme meant to bring the country gradually back to pre-pandemic normalcy.
As of Thursday, 41.76 million people, or 81.3 percent of the country's 52 million population, had received their first COVID-19 vaccine shots. The number of fully vaccinated people came to 39.73 million, or 77.4 percent.
The health authorities predict full vaccination rates to reach 80 percent around mid-December.
In Seoul, the bed utilization rate for coronavirus patients in serious or critical condition stood at 74.8 percent Thursday.
South Korea also reported its first death after a patient received a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine. Health authorities said they will need to investigate the case to determine the cause of death.
Knowledge of the origin and reservoir of the coronavirus responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is still fragmentary. To date, the closest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 have been detected in Rhinolophus bats sampled in the Yunnan province, China. Here we describe the identification of SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses in two Rhinolophus shameli bats sampled in Cambodia in 2010. Metagenomic sequencing identifies nearly identical viruses sharing 92.6% nucleotide identity with SARS-CoV-2. Most genomic regions are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, with the exception of a region of the spike, which is not compatible with human ACE2-mediated entry. The discovery of these viruses in a bat species not found in China indicates that SARS-CoV-2 related viruses have a much wider geographic distribution than previously reported, and suggests that Southeast Asia represents a key area to consider for future surveillance for coronaviruses.
