As case rates fall, health experts are taking a moment to reflect on what we learned from the omicron surge in regards to COVID-19 immunity.
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While speaking to KCBS Radio's "As An Expert," Dr. John Wherry, director of the Institute for Immunology and director of the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at the University of Pennsylvania, broke down the multiple take-aways of the recent coronavirus surge.
"We learned a couple of important things," he said. "We learned the difference between immunity to infection and immunity to disease in a real first-hand way, we learned about how well our vaccines are protecting us against evolved and variant viruses and then we learned a good bit about general immunology."
When omicron was first detected in early December, it quickly became apparent that the virus was able to evade our first line of defense as case numbers spike. However, the antibody second line of defense was still intact, Wherry said.
"The vaccines and our immunity from infection has a back-up plan and generates memory B cells and memory T cells. While they don't prevent initial infection, they jump into action really quickly within maybe a couple of days and they're actually what are protecting us from severe disease," he explained.
This is a main reason why the omicron variant, while much more contagious, resulted in a less severe infection.
"About 80% of your T cell response is preserved and can recognize omicron just as well as it can recognize the virus that you were immunized with," Wherry said.
"The COVID-19 vaccine, and in fact no vaccine, is going to go from you're at risk to now zero risk. It's all about mitigating and figuring out how far you've gone from having a very high risk to having a low risk," he said. "The vaccines are doing a good job, but they're not completely full-proof."
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