Pre-existing immunity against SARS-CoV-2: What to make of the data?

SARS-CoV-2 caused an exceptionally high number of deaths and disability in a very short period of time worldwide. In contrast, infections in most results in mild disease. While age, sex, auto-antibodies (in a small proportion of people) and co-morbidities clearly modulate disease risk, we still don’t know much about the reasons for the broad range of COVID-19 clinical presentations, aside from a main role of age. Multiple research groups around the world have reported pre-existing antibody or T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 in absence of prior infection, likely to previous exposures to endemic coronaviruses. In this lecture, I will discuss some of this evidence, what to make of it (or not), and present an ongoing study to determine the impact of pre-existing immune reactivity on responses to a single SARS-CoV-2 vaccine dose in virus-naïve individuals. Dr. Pascal Lavoie is a Clinician-Scientist, Associate professor at the University of British Columbia and staff Neonatologist at BC Women’s Hospital. He completed medical school, and a PhD in human immunology at McGill University, a pediatric residency at Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal, and a fellowship in Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine at UBC, where he joined as full-time Faculty in 2008. His core research focuses on the developing immune system in early life. However, with the pandemic, a major focus of his research was re-oriented towards understanding immunity to SARS-CoV-2 at the population level, as well as two COVID-19 Immunity Task Force-funded studies on the 1) impact of pre-existing immunity on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine responses, and 2) SARS-CoV-2 infections within schools.

BC CDC Presenters

6/15/2021 7:00:00 PM