Epistemic status: I’m not particularly knowledgeable about this and haven’t spent the time to dig into it to verify that my memory is correct, or to write it up well. I also don’t remember what the specific Peter Attia podcast episode is. However, I do feel pretty confident (~95%) that my memory is correct, and similarly, that the broad strokes of what I’m saying is correct.
I remember listening to a Peter Attia podcast a few months ago. He and his guests were talking, and I remember them saying how the booster doesn’t really protect against serious illness or death, just infection. They may have also been making this point about second doses as well.
Part of it was that they were saying that this is what the data show, but part of it was them saying how it makes sense at the gears level as well.
Thinking back to high school biology, the idea is that the first time your body sees something, it builds up those (memory?) B cells and T cells and stuff. If you subsequently get infected, it takes some time for those cells to mobilize, but once they do, they are extremely powerful and will prevent serious illness and death. But because they take a long time to mobilize, they won’t prevent infection itself.
On the other hand, antibodies are like the opposite. They are weaker, but are always swimming around/fast to mobilize. So they help you not get infected at all (or I guess if you do get infected they fight it off so fast that it’s like you weren’t actually infected maybe). Second shots and boosters give a boost in antibodies, and thus protect against infection. But the antibodies only hang out for so long. Eventually after some amount of months they decide they’re not needed and disappear. Hence the temporary benefits of boosters.
Epistemic status: I’m not particularly knowledgeable about this and haven’t spent the time to dig into it to verify that my memory is correct, or to write it up well. I also don’t remember what the specific Peter Attia podcast episode is. However, I do feel pretty confident (~95%) that my memory is correct, and similarly, that the broad strokes of what I’m saying is correct.
I remember listening to a Peter Attia podcast a few months ago. He and his guests were talking, and I remember them saying how the booster doesn’t really protect against serious illness or death, just infection. They may have also been making this point about second doses as well.
Part of it was that they were saying that this is what the data show, but part of it was them saying how it makes sense at the gears level as well.
Thinking back to high school biology, the idea is that the first time your body sees something, it builds up those (memory?) B cells and T cells and stuff. If you subsequently get infected, it takes some time for those cells to mobilize, but once they do, they are extremely powerful and will prevent serious illness and death. But because they take a long time to mobilize, they won’t prevent infection itself.
On the other hand, antibodies are like the opposite. They are weaker, but are always swimming around/fast to mobilize. So they help you not get infected at all (or I guess if you do get infected they fight it off so fast that it’s like you weren’t actually infected maybe). Second shots and boosters give a boost in antibodies, and thus protect against infection. But the antibodies only hang out for so long. Eventually after some amount of months they decide they’re not needed and disappear. Hence the temporary benefits of boosters.