Our COVID-19 vaccines have passed their first tests with flying colors. They work unbelievably well, and they’re helping to slow the spread of disease in countries where they’re widely available. Now, scientists are turning to the next key question: how long will they work that well?
In people who were sick with COVID-19 and then got UFABET, new research shows that they probably work for years. That group has powerful memory cells in their bone marrow that produce new antibodies when they’re needed. And they work so well that they can even block variants of the virus, studies show. These people may not even need vaccine boosters to stay protected long term.
Protection may be different for people who got vaccinated but never had COVID-19, Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York
Luckily, other research is charging ahead to figure out exactly what those potential boosters might look like. Scientists are honing in on the levels of antibodies someone needs to be protected against COVID-19. That benchmark, known as the immune correlate of protection, will give them an idea of the safety threshold — if someone’s antibodies drop below it, they might be more vulnerable to infection again.
Zeroing in on that threshold does two things. First, it gives scientists a way to monitor protection in people who have already been vaccinated. They can watch to see how long it takes for antibodies to decline below it, and get an idea of when people might need that booster shot. Antibodies naturally decline over time, and they’re not the only measure of protection (those long-lasting memory cells in bone marrow are another, for example). But they’re an early look at how immunity might be changing.