An often quoted misconception is that vaccination offers less protection than infection induced immunity.

An overlooked aspect here is that not vaccinating is actually an implied choice of taking higher risks, because the infection may cause complications and damage to various organs. Those include blood clots, lung damage, neurological complications (brain fog), anosmia (loss of smell), heart inflammation, and more.

But even if we overlook the obvious, evidence so far points to vaccines being more effective than infection induced immunity.

This article provides an overview of virus mutations, the current variants from the UK and South Africa, how the immune system works on pathogen proteins, and whether all this has implications on the efficacy of the current vaccines.

Mutations

Mutations are a fact of life for all living beings. Viruses, due to many reasons (generation rate in hours, infecting millions of cells, ...), have a very fast mutation rate. That is just what goes on.

SARS-CoV-2, the Coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and is responsible for the 2020 pandemic, is known to enter cells via the ACE2 receptor (see this video on the Renin-Angiotensin system).

In addition to ACE2, there are other receptors that either facilitate entry into cells (making the virus more infectious) or increase its pathogenicity (causing more severe symptoms).