Nature's clever way of restoring disturbed ecosystems often puts the simplistic conclusions of short-sighted scientists to shame.

I recently bumped into the following publication: ‘Repeated Omicron exposures redirect SARS-CoV-2–specific memory B cell evolution toward the latest variants’ (https://x.com/ejustin46/status/1827223937677185346?s=12).

This is what I call steric immune refocusing! It seems that scientists are finally providing more evidence about this fascinating phenomenon. What’s new to me is their interesting discovery that the redirected antibodies (Abs) don’t result from de novo synthesis, but from redirecting previously primed memory B cells away from the original strain and toward newly emerging variants. This makes a lot of sense to me, as I hypothesized that immune refocusing is driven by previously primed T helper (Th) cells (see my book at https://bit.ly/3NYokkE). So, it’s not surprising that these Th cells drive somatic hypermutation of memory B cells—previously primed by ancestral strain-based mRNA vaccines—to shift their specificity from the ancestral strain to newly emerging variants.

Although repeated vaccine breakthrough infections with Omicron descendants redirect SARS-CoV-2-(SC-2) specific memory B cell evolution toward the latest variants, the authors don’t seem to recognize that what they describe as ‘resilience to viral adaptation’ actually refers to the generation of new Abs that target more conserved spike-associated epitopes but have suboptimal neutralizing/infection-inhibiting capacity! As a result, these Abs promote viral immune escape and contribute to the (co-)emergence of more infectious (sub)variants.

It’s unbelievable that scientists go to great lengths to unravel complex immunological mechanisms but have no clue about the impact these mechanisms have on the virus’s evolutionary dynamics when they operate at the level of entire (highly C-19 vaccinated) populations. Their conclusion that their findings support the continued use of updated SC-2 vaccines is therefore short-sighted and only underscores their ignorance of the effects of collective immune pressure on the virus’s evolution.