Still reading through the rest of the post, but this jumped out at me. Your dad said:
convalescent sera from some patients recovered from infection with the predominant strain, while effective in neutralizing the same strain, were not effective in neutralizing the South African variant.
But you then said:
it seems highly unlikely the new strain can do much reinfection of previously infected individuals
which seems to me to be the opposite. If convalescent sera from patients who recovered from infection with the predominant strain were NOT effective in neutralizing the South African variant… doesn’t that suggest that having had the predominant COVID variant might NOT give you immunity to the South African variant?
Trying to nail this down because this point is SUPER IMPORTANT actually.
Looks like we have at least one case of reinfection with one of the new variants containing the E484K mutation (this isn’t the South African variant, rather from the Brazilian lineage where E484K independently arose).
Still reading through the rest of the post, but this jumped out at me. Your dad said:
But you then said:
which seems to me to be the opposite. If convalescent sera from patients who recovered from infection with the predominant strain were NOT effective in neutralizing the South African variant… doesn’t that suggest that having had the predominant COVID variant might NOT give you immunity to the South African variant?
Trying to nail this down because this point is SUPER IMPORTANT actually.
I’ll ask him but he was confident on the phone that immunity from prior infection would still transfer.
Looks like we have at least one case of reinfection with one of the new variants containing the E484K mutation (this isn’t the South African variant, rather from the Brazilian lineage where E484K independently arose).
Not having neutralizing antibodys doesn’t mean you’re not immune, or at least partially immune. People still have many antibodys against the virus.