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Florian Krammer, a Styrian virologist working at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, believes that protection after vaccination against coronavirus lasts for several years. To be sure, Krammer says there are no established facts yet. “But from the antibody response that is seen now and the data that is available so far, that is over four months, I assume once that the protection from the vaccination already lasts for several years,” he said in an interview.
Protects the lungs
The vaccines would protect the lungs and thus protect them very well from disease. But the animal model also showed that virus replication in the upper respiratory tract was usually shorter than in unvaccinated animals. The viral load was also lower. “It’s not going to be any different in humans. Now that means there are probably people who, if they’re vaccinated, they’re also protected from infection. And then again, there will be other people who, if they’re vaccinated, may also infect people.” Krammer believes there will be data on that in a few months. “Of the Moderna vaccine, yes, there was already data in the U.S. approval package that also indicated protection against asymptomatic infections, albeit less than against disease. It’s likely to be no different with the Pfizer vaccine.”
Vaccinate everyone
In his opinion, people who have already survived a coronavirus infection should also get vaccinated. “We now know that if you’ve already been infected with Covid-19, that there is some protection, and that’s why I would say you don’t have to be the first to get vaccinated. In the U.S., there was discussion about this after it was approved. But it was then decided that you’re going to vaccinate everybody because it would be too much work or too much effort to really make sure whether somebody had corona now or not.” There are now two studies that show if you have built up antibodies to the virus, the risk of reinfection is, “very, very low,” Krammer said. “But the risk is never zero, which means there are also reinfections, which are very rare, but they do happen,” the scientist explained. “There are already good studies on immunity that show that the antibody response goes down a little bit at the beginning and then starts to stabilize between five and seven months. And it may already be that these antibodies then remain stable for years. I would expect something similar from vaccination.”
Private life will normalize more quickly
According to Kramer, how one behaves in public and what rules one has to follow does not depend on whether one is vaccinated or not, but presumably on how much viral load is present in the population. “I have a hard time imagining that if we’re vaccinated and then we get on public transportation that someone is going to ask for the vaccination record and then decide whether you have to wear a mask or not,” Krammer said. However, he said, a lot of things will change in the private sector. “If I know my parents are vaccinated, my grandparents are vaccinated, then I can be relatively free with those. I believe that life in the family and among friends will normalize faster than public life.”
— Source: kleinezeitung.at/picture:pixabay.com
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