This is a pretty good video. She makes some statements that I wouldn't personally make, though. The ones that jump out at me are:
-"dead" virus vaccines mentioned. I don't think this is an adequate way to describe inactivated virus vaccines. Virus particles are more like seeds, and I don't think it's apt to describe popcorn as "dead" corn, for example. It's not like it was alive before you popped it. It was replication-competent, and popping inactivated it. Similar thing with inactivated virus in a vaccine.
-mRNA being "unstable" as the explanation for why the Pfizer vaccine has a cold ship temperature. The Moderna vaccine can survive for weeks above freezing, at refrigerator temperatures, and it is also an mRNA vaccine. Lab people get this misimpression that RNA is a super unstable molecule, and it's a common myth among scientists. RNA is very unstable *in lab environments* and we have to be very careful to pretreat surfaces to remove enzymes, called RNAses, that can digest it. This is because lab environments are full of such enzymes. A lot of lab protocols call for digestion of RNA before you work with proteins or DNA, so labs tend to be full of RNAses, and RNAses are very stable. Thus when you work with RNA in a lab you need to clean any residual RNAses off your surfaces.
RNAs are also unstable in cells and tissue samples because cells and tissue samples contain RNAses, and those RNAses can be activated by cell stress.
They're not very unstable out in the world on a random surface, though--we've learned this from a lot of studies where virus RNA has been retrievable from things like surfaces in cruise ships for weeks after the actual virus structure has become inactivated.
Instead, I think the reason for the ship temperature of the Pfizer vaccine has to do with its formulation. As the presenter here mentions, these vaccines use lipids and other types of "vehicle" preparations to help get the RNA into your cells to produce the spike protein. Those vehicles can be finicky sometimes, and maybe that's what's going on with the Pfizer vaccine.
-She skips over the fact that these trials will continue not just to monitor efficacy but also safety. The possibility remains that there will be safety events 6 months or a year out, and we will need to watch for those.
With the exception of these items I think this is a nice video that explains the vaccine well.
If someone developed natural immunity, and, as the Times article suggests, that immunity is long-lasting, is there any benefit or need for that person to be vaccinated?
Yes; I cannot add it here because of the limitations of the comment box, but in the original vaccine Phase 2 trials, there was a comparison published showing antibody levels in response to vaccination as compared with antibody levels in plasma from people who recovered from infection. As I recall, the vaccine-induced antibody levels were all quite high and all quite consistent. The convalescent plasma antibody levels were not. They were all over the map. If antibodies turn out to be a correlate of protection, and I suspect they are, then it would indicate that you will get more consistent and strong immunity from a vaccination than from natural, infection-induced immunity. In that case, I would feel that the vaccine would be a useful way to at least boost immunity in a person who was previously infected.
I imagine that medical guidelines will explore this topic and that the American Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will provide recommendations on the use of these vaccines in people who have recovered from COVID-19. I look forward to seeing what they have to say, and I'll note that it's their advice and the advice of your physician(s) that you should follow--I'm not a licensed practitioner.
I liked this video about RNA vaccines. Dunno if you have seen it already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aILLJOa13CA
This is a pretty good video. She makes some statements that I wouldn't personally make, though. The ones that jump out at me are:
-"dead" virus vaccines mentioned. I don't think this is an adequate way to describe inactivated virus vaccines. Virus particles are more like seeds, and I don't think it's apt to describe popcorn as "dead" corn, for example. It's not like it was alive before you popped it. It was replication-competent, and popping inactivated it. Similar thing with inactivated virus in a vaccine.
-mRNA being "unstable" as the explanation for why the Pfizer vaccine has a cold ship temperature. The Moderna vaccine can survive for weeks above freezing, at refrigerator temperatures, and it is also an mRNA vaccine. Lab people get this misimpression that RNA is a super unstable molecule, and it's a common myth among scientists. RNA is very unstable *in lab environments* and we have to be very careful to pretreat surfaces to remove enzymes, called RNAses, that can digest it. This is because lab environments are full of such enzymes. A lot of lab protocols call for digestion of RNA before you work with proteins or DNA, so labs tend to be full of RNAses, and RNAses are very stable. Thus when you work with RNA in a lab you need to clean any residual RNAses off your surfaces.
RNAs are also unstable in cells and tissue samples because cells and tissue samples contain RNAses, and those RNAses can be activated by cell stress.
They're not very unstable out in the world on a random surface, though--we've learned this from a lot of studies where virus RNA has been retrievable from things like surfaces in cruise ships for weeks after the actual virus structure has become inactivated.
Instead, I think the reason for the ship temperature of the Pfizer vaccine has to do with its formulation. As the presenter here mentions, these vaccines use lipids and other types of "vehicle" preparations to help get the RNA into your cells to produce the spike protein. Those vehicles can be finicky sometimes, and maybe that's what's going on with the Pfizer vaccine.
-She skips over the fact that these trials will continue not just to monitor efficacy but also safety. The possibility remains that there will be safety events 6 months or a year out, and we will need to watch for those.
With the exception of these items I think this is a nice video that explains the vaccine well.
If someone developed natural immunity, and, as the Times article suggests, that immunity is long-lasting, is there any benefit or need for that person to be vaccinated?
Yes; I cannot add it here because of the limitations of the comment box, but in the original vaccine Phase 2 trials, there was a comparison published showing antibody levels in response to vaccination as compared with antibody levels in plasma from people who recovered from infection. As I recall, the vaccine-induced antibody levels were all quite high and all quite consistent. The convalescent plasma antibody levels were not. They were all over the map. If antibodies turn out to be a correlate of protection, and I suspect they are, then it would indicate that you will get more consistent and strong immunity from a vaccination than from natural, infection-induced immunity. In that case, I would feel that the vaccine would be a useful way to at least boost immunity in a person who was previously infected.
I imagine that medical guidelines will explore this topic and that the American Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will provide recommendations on the use of these vaccines in people who have recovered from COVID-19. I look forward to seeing what they have to say, and I'll note that it's their advice and the advice of your physician(s) that you should follow--I'm not a licensed practitioner.