How monoclonal antibodies work

[Halftime Hope]

On another thread there were some misunderstandings about how they work, and that's what this post is for: just basic info for anyone who is curious.

Monoclonal antibody infusions are given to fight an infection, in this case infection by the SARS-COV2 virus, in high risk patients, and occasionally, as post-exposure prophylaxis in very high risk patients.  They are not given to prevent future infection like vaccines are.  One source I read stated that antibodies from infusions linger in the body at most 3-4 weeks. 

The infusions contain many, many cloned copies of antibodies to portions of the spike protein.  (There's a whole process to make them, but we'll leave it at that.) 

Antibodies don't "teach our bodies to make more antibodies" to fight infection.  The infused antibodies are supplemental to our own antibodies, when our bodies may not be fast enough in creating them or can't create enough antibodies of our own to combat increasing viral replication. 

Antibodies don't contain spike protein, nor do they contain mRNA to make it. 

There are some side effects listed on materials describing the antibody treatments; most seem to be related to allergic reactions. 

There are many wonderful animations on YT explaining how antibodies work and the different classes of antibodies which do specific beneficial things in the body.  It's fascinating.