Covid-19 antibodies: here’s how they work and how safe they make us against the new variant

It’s one of the words buzzing around out there in this strange new world of ours, where medical terms trip off our tongues with an ease we couldn’t have imagined this time last year.

This one is antibodies: a word seen by some as representing a get-out-of-jail free card, an “immunisation passport” of sorts. Because once you’ve had a virus, antibodies are what you develop – little soldiers marching about in your body, batting off infection for a while.

And it’s a comfort to people who’ve had Covid-19: you’ve been there, done that and got the antibodies to prove it.