A New England Medical Journal (NEJM) study is the latest in a series of research showing that one dose of coronavirus vaccine COVID-19 survivors offers just as much protection as two doses of people who have never been infected.
“These findings suggest that a single dose of vaccine elicits a very rapid immune response in individuals who tested positive for COVID-19,” said co-author of the study and renowned vaccinator Dr Florian Krammer.
“In fact, the first dose is immunologically similar to the booster dose (second) dose in people who are not infected.”
But Dr. Anthony Fauci and U.S. health officials have insisted everyone should get two doses of vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer.
So why don’t people who have had COVID-19 give just one shot instead of two?
An expert told DailyMail.com that now that the US has more vaccine doses available from three manufacturers, the process of testing people to see if they have had coronavirus before would probably only create a ‘bottleneck’ in the deployment process, rather than the offer to protect more people faster.
Mount Sinai researchers found that people previously infected with coronavirus (yellow) had coronavirus (yellow) at 20 to 20 times higher antibody levels compared to levels after the first dose.
At least 29 million Americans have already had a coronavirus.
If they give just one shot instead of two, it could mean 29 million extra doses for the hundreds of millions of Americans who have never had the virus and developed immunity to it – or enough to vaccinate 14.5 million people completely.
The scientists behind the new study, which was published on Wednesday, also think their research may shed some light on who is likely to have a more dramatic response to vaccines, and why.
Dr Krammer, Dr Viviana Simon and their colleagues studied a total of about 240 people.
The first group consisted of 109 people, about half of whom had coronavirus antibodies in their bloodstream, meaning they had been previously infected and had developed some immunity to the infection.
Antibodies begin to form in everyone who receives a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, but it usually takes weeks to reach the peak after the first dose, and a second dose is still needed to raise antibodies to optimal protective levels.
In the study, participants who had previously tested positive for COVID-19 had 10- to 20-fold higher levels of antibodies in their blood within a few days after their first dose.
By the time they received their second dose, the antibody levels of the group had exceeded those who had not been infected before (but also had their second shot) ten times.
In other words, coronavirus survivors had approximately the same immunity after a single dose as people who had never had coronavirus but received two doses of vaccine.
Just as the first dose for covid-negative people is a ‘prime’, scientists suspect that previous infection boosts the immune system and the second dose quickly sets it in motion to fight coronavirus infection.
People whose immune systems were already ‘prepared’ to respond to coronavirus due to a previous infection (yellow) have far more side effects from the shots – especially systemic effects such as fatigue, headaches, fever and muscle or joint pain.
The study also gave a possible idea why some people have no significant reactions to vaccination against COVID-19, while others with red fields, sore arms are left behind and may lie down for days after the second shots.
The 83 COVID-19 survivors in a subgroup of 231 study participants had a much higher chance of arm pain, swelling, and redness, as well as more systemic effects such as fatigue, headaches, chills, and muscle or joint pain.
Does this mean that people with severe reactions to the shot had COVID-19, possibly without knowing it? Not necessarily, but for some it may be.
Mount Sinai researchers have gone so far as to suggest that investigating potential vaccine recipients for coronavirus antibodies could expand the supply of vaccines and reduce the percentage of people suffering from more serious side effects.
“If the screening process determines the presence of antibodies due to previous infection, a second ingestion of the coronavirus vaccine is not necessary for the individual,” said Dr. Simon said.
“And if the approach were to turn into a public health policy, it would not only be able to expand limited vaccine stocks, but also control the more frequent and pronounced responses to the vaccines experienced by COVID-19 survivors.”
The UK raced ahead of the US in the early days of their respective vaccines. Britons initially got shots faster, thanks to several factors, including the fact that they had approved vaccines earlier and had a more coherent logistics system (in a smaller country) in place.
But the country has also taken an experimental one-dose-first approach, allowing Britons to postpone their second-dose shots of Moderna or Pfizer by up to 12 weeks, and instead focus on giving as many people a first dose and ‘. get some protection, as quickly as possible.
U.S. officials have rejected this program, despite growing evidence that a single dose offers significant protection.
And now the plan proposed by Dr. Simon may have missed the opportunity to be useful.
‘Now we’re on our way to adequate supply … so I would not think the FDA would be inclined’ to accept the scheme proposed by the findings of the Mount Sinai team, president of the Center for Medicine in the public interest, Peter Pitts told DailyMail.com.
States are expected to receive 15.8 million doses of vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer this week.
The demand among qualifying people exceeding the supply is becoming less and less of a problem.
And Pitts is concerned that the strategy of examining people for antibodies before they are vaccinated could further impede the process of getting doses going, which is already a major obstacle.
Pitts quoted twentieth-century journalist and satirist HL Mencken as saying: ” For every complex problem, there is a simple solution that is wrong; ‘I think the scientists from Mount Sinai fell into that trap because it would create a big bottleneck. ‘