Antibody escape, the risk of serotype formation, and rapid immune waning: Modeling the implications of SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion.

ABSTRACT: As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, widespread community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has ushered in a volatile era of viral immune evasion rather than the much-heralded stability of "endemicity" or "herd immunity." At this point, an array of viral strains has rendered essentially all monoclonal antibody therapeutics obsolete and strongly undermined the impact of vaccinal immunity on SARS-CoV-2 transmission. In this work, we demonstrate that antibody escape resulting in evasion of pre-existing immunity is highly evolutionarily favored and likely to cause waves of short-term transmission. In the long-term, invading strains that induce weak cross-immunity against pre-existing strains may co-circulate with those pre-existing strains. This would result in the formation of serotypes that increas

SUBMITTER: Albright C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10584102 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature