Covid vaccine, Burioni: “No variant exceeds immunity”

At this time “no variant” of covid exceeds “vaccine-induced immunity”. This was highlighted by Roberto Burioni, full professor of Microbiology and Virology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, during a live event on the Facebook page and on the channels of the San Donato Group, entitled ‘Covid-19: a battle that science is winning ‘. “This virus has encountered something totally unexpected: the vaccine it elicits, at least we are certain for the mRna vaccines for which there is more data, a much more powerful immunity than that aroused by the disease. We who study viruses have always said: the best vaccine is disease. For this virus it is not true: the best vaccine is the vaccine. They hear all sorts of things about vaccines that ‘work’ and other things. ‘there is no variant “of Sars-CoV-2” capable of overcoming immunity induced by vaccines “, Burioni remarks.” It is a very recent fact that we have from England: the ability to protect from hospitalization, therefore from serious illness , is over 90% for both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, used in that country. There is talk of 92% for AstraZeneca and 96% for Pfizer. vaccine barrier. Will he succeed? I don’t know we can predict it. I am optimistic “. Why?” When a virus mutates to avoid a vaccine, are we sure it will be able to mutate while maintaining its replicative capacity? “, Burioni wonders.” Today – explains the virologist – there are variants of Sars-CoV -2 which give the virus an advantage, in the sense of being much more transmissible. We are facing a different disease from the one we saw last year, during those two waves that hit us. The virus that exists today is much, much more contagious. Because the English variant, now dominated by us, has come out, which is 60% more contagious, and now there is this Indian variant which is even 60% more contagious than the English variant. So it became a very contagious virus “. This year, he stresses,” there was no flu because the masks and the spacing blocked it. Covid is much more contagious and has become even more so “. But, Burioni points out,” we have the vaccine and it was not taken for granted. Having succeeded is a victory for science that is difficult to describe. Being able in 10 months to make a safe and effective vaccine, capable of blocking the disease, is something close to a miracle “.