Why ‘waning immunity’ from COVID-19 vaccines isn’t as bad as it sounds – CBC
Long-term immune protection against severe COVID-19 remains strong, data suggests
Oct 23, 2021
Canadians concerned over waning immunity from COVID-19 vaccines, breakthrough infections and the need for booster shots in the general public could benefit from a dose of some important context, experts say.
Antibodies, your first line of defence against COVID-19 infection, do decline — and may even be doing so as you’re reading this — but that’s not unexpected.
While one aspect of your vaccine-induced immunity to COVID-19 is technically “waning” in the weeks and months after vaccination, that’s not necessarily a bad thing — because it’s not your immune system’s only form of protection against the virus.
“I don’t even like the term,” said University of Toronto immunologist Jennifer Gommerman. “And the reason I don’t like the term is that it implies that the immune response in its entirety is declining.”
It’s “entirely normal” for antibody levels to drop initially after vaccination and your immune response to the virus to become “contracted” over time, she said. But your body is also creating “highly efficient” memory B cells to fight off COVID-19 long term.
