Beyond just this study, which doesn't give the whole picture of immunity, I think there is conflicting evidence. Given that vaccine effectiveness seems to be going down in Israel, I think there are legitimate concerns about the robustness of vaccine-based immunity - but the question is always "relative to what?". If it ultimately sets you up similar to or better than natural immunity from an infection (which also wanes, as we get, e.g., colds over and over throughout our lives), that's the best you can hope for.
> For spike proteins. Not for the other targets you get with natural immunity
From the article: "the new evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying 'single letter' changes in a key portion of their spike protein compared to antibodies acquired from an infection." The study discussed in the article unequivocally states that vaccine-induced immunity is more robust than that from infection.
> unequivocally states that vaccine-induced immunity is more robust than that from infection.
It absolutely does not make such a strong claim - a more accurate takeaway is that vaccination using the current mRNA based formulations induces an immune response highly targeted toward the S protein RBD. This has not been conclusively proven to provide better or worse protection than immunity acquired through natural infection.
> At first glance, the RBD targeting of the vaccine sera neutralization might seem likely to increase susceptibility to viral mutations, but the rest of our results SUGGEST that this MAY not be the case.
> We found that the specificity of the mRNA-1273 vaccine-induced RBD-binding antibody response often narrows over time. In contrast, the infection-elicited RBD-binding antibody response often broadens over time
> The vaccinated individuals in our study were relatively young (18–55 years) and healthy, whereas the convalescent individuals were older (23–76 years, median 56) with a range of comorbidities (13).
> Additionally, we did not examine effects of mutations or deletions to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, which can also affect neutralization by vaccine sera (7).
> Our experiments assayed binding of antibodies to isolated RBD expressed by yeast, and so cannot capture mutational effects on trimer conformation or antibodies with quaternary epitopes
> Evidence from multiple experimental studies showing that single RBD point mutations can lead to resistance to neutralizing convalescent plasma from multiple donors suggests that specific single mutants may be able to evade spike-targeting vaccinal immunity in many individuals and rapidly lead to spread of vaccine-resistant SARS-CoV-2. [1]
The quote you're highlighting is specifically referring to 'single letter' variants of the spike protein. Immunity from infection gives a wider variety of protections beyond just the narrow targeting of the spike protein.
The RDB portion of the spike protein is the part that allows the virus to latch onto your cells. We therefore expect strong limitations on how much this portion of the virus can change while still remaining infectious.
Beyond just this study, which doesn't give the whole picture of immunity, I think there is conflicting evidence. Given that vaccine effectiveness seems to be going down in Israel, I think there are legitimate concerns about the robustness of vaccine-based immunity - but the question is always "relative to what?". If it ultimately sets you up similar to or better than natural immunity from an infection (which also wanes, as we get, e.g., colds over and over throughout our lives), that's the best you can hope for.