Ho's team found that although many patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 produce significant quantities of antibodies, the quality of those antibodies varies. In the patients they studied, those with severe disease requiring mechanical ventilation produced the most potently neutralizing antibodies.
"We think that the sicker patients saw more virus and for a longer period of time, which allowed their immune system to mount a more robust response," Ho says. "This is similar to what we have learned from the HIV experience."
