Coronavirus

[sighyoung]

I thought there were tons of instances of people catching COVID19 multiple times? How would that be true if that were the case?

Maybe never fully being recovered in the first place?

I recall hearing anecdotes about a few medical workers catching the virus twice, but I'm seeing a lot of skepticism online about those reports.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

We can only hope that this turns out to be true:

We now have the best evidence yet that everyone develops long-term coronavirus immunity after infection — and it's not just about antibodies

• Some early studies have suggested that coronavirus antibodies fade relatively quickly, but that doesn't mean immunity vanishes.
  
  A new study found that all people infected with COVID-19 — even those with asymptomatic or mild cases, and patients who don't have detectable antibodies — develop virus-specific T cells.
  
  T cells identify and kill infected cells, and B cells create new antibodies. Those cells can attack the virus if it ever returns.
  
  So the new finding is strong evidence that all patients likely develop long-term immunity.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/now-best-evi ... 00113.html

Not that it’s relevant bc no one is questioning the validity of the findings, but this study is from Stockholm, Sweden.

It also makes the point, on top of long term immunity via T cells, which is in line with what was seen in sars-cov-1, using antibodies as a manner of determining if someone had exposure to sars cov 2 is not sufficient. From the study the 3rd highlight is this: “ Detection of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses also in seronegative individuals”

As such, any serology survey of a population (eg the one that showed 20% or so of nyc was exposed to SARS cov 2) is going to underestimate and likely grossly underestimate the amount of people infected.

Not sure if it’s this study or another one that came out along the same lines, but med community is also finding out it’s not just T cells and B cells that are killing the virus, entirely possible for the other arm (innate) of the immune system to kill the virus. Patients where antibodies aren’t made are more likely to be mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic.

Lastly, some percent of the population (I’ve seen up to 40% though don’t quote me) already has this T cell immunity they talk about in the study. Or put another way, a lot of people’s T cells already have the code to fight Sara cov 2. No idea how.

All that to say, it’s incredibly encouraging news lately...mostly. Bad in that a lot more people probably had it than we realized, even the cdc guesstimate of 10x confirmed cases looks low, but good that perhaps we will eventually eradicate this and not just live with it perpetually.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Here's a video of a doctor that gives near daily talks on covid ranging from the biochemistry to the general outlook to the therapeutics to the vaccines and anything else under the sun. He's been a wealth of information for me and has been painstakingly apolitical following only what he believes is correct. He's been critical of the WHO/CDC on their mask position among other things, disagrees with sending kids back to school, criticizes the US response despite being a citizen, etc etc etc.

Anyway, he goes over this study and gives his thoughts. The tl;dw: is basically my post above.

Also included is a similar study talking about how the t-cells memory when triggered can jump start the innate arm of the immune system into action. The guy doesn't do it often, but he specifically talks about how he said this was likely to be found months ago and an immunologist told him he couldn't say that because it hadn't been proven for sars-cov-2 yet. And, dr been basically said it is a known biomechanical function of these cells, so the type of virus is likely irrelevant.

This has been a major complaint of mine throughout the pandemic; the vast majority of doctors sit back and wait for studies to tell them what to think as opposed to thinking critically and using their knowledge to understand what is happening and using said knowledge to inform decisions in an imperfectly studied virus. This was at the heart of my disagreement with lipp months ago in this thread.

It's almost like med school could have consisted of all the biology and then a series of classes called "How to interpret a study" 101-846.

Regardless, here's the video.

[CardsofSTL]

Free COVID testing

[Joe Shlabotnik]

A member of our team from Pune, India lost her father to covid this week. First fatality I'm personally aware of.

[Leroy]

I now know three people that have gotten it and recovered which seems like quite a few for the population we have in Dakota. One said it was nothing, the other said it was like the flu, and the other said at times while he had it he wished he would just die (probably exaggerated, but said he was miserable). It is the oddest thing.

One person is a restaurant owner, one moving person/drummer, and one bass player. If it starts infecting fiddlers, I'll be really worried. Of course I really don't know any other fiddlers around here.

[cardsfantx]

I thought there were tons of instances of people catching COVID19 multiple times? How would that be true if that were the case?

Maybe never fully being recovered in the first place?

I recall hearing anecdotes about a few medical workers catching the virus twice, but I'm seeing a lot of skepticism online about those reports.

hong kong reporting a reinfection

good news is his immune system kicked in/was asymptomatic

bad news is you can get reinfected and transmit to someone else

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/heal ... ction.html

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Where does it say he was infectious? You can test positive and not be infectious, fwiw. Asymptomatic patients can have high viral loads and spread the disease. But, I didn't see where the article said you can get reinfect and transmit to somoene else....just that you can get reinfected. It's a nitpicky point, but a pretty big deal and one I wouldn't just assume.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

If you believe in science, then you'd know you (humans) don't have and will not have immunity to this.

look at viruses such as the flu, common cold, etc...your body will build up short immunity to the same strands again...but it's very short lived (a few months)...which is why you have to get a flu shot every year for example...and why a reinfection is just showing up now (they've had a short immunity towards it, but are now getting reinfected)...I'd bet a lot of $ we will start to see these reinfections in the US now that it's been around 6ish months that we know of.

the good news is that yes, his body in this COVID19 case, recognized the virus and fought it when he was infected (how he showed now symptoms)...but he WAS reinfected which means he can pass it on.

but to your original point, there will be no "immunity" to COVID19. ever. just as we have none to the flu, common cold (which can be a strand of the coronavirus)..we can just hope/wait for a vaccine similar to the flu shot and get it annually to hope that we don't get a bad case of it.

There are many viruses we don't have immunity to. This is true. But, this isn't similar to the flu (which mutates quickly). Sars-Cov-2 is not mutating quickly. While there are some changes over the past 6 months, it's not classified as a rapidly changing so there's that. And, we know that humans exposed to Sars-Cov-1, the most similar virus, did produce long term immunity. And, it's looking increasingly likely that will follow suit with Sars-Cov-2 which is basically what that (and there is more than 1) study I previously posted talk about. Even in humans that didn't create antibodies, such as the guy that was re-infected, the response to the virus is in fact learned such that the body can fight it off.

The response is stored in the t cells which do take a few days to a couple weeks to kick in. So, the question becomes, imo, will those t cells kick in and is there enough communication between the t cells and innate arm of the immune system which kicks in automatically to prevent the virus from replicating to the point where the person becomes infectious?

And, if not, will it eventually do so either with the help of vaccines, boosters to the vaccine, or natural exposure?

I tend to think the answer is yes.

[mikechamp]

Health officials are still trying to figure out the fallout from Sturgis:

Revved by Sturgis Rally, COVID-19 infections move fast, far

The hundreds of thousands of bikers who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have departed western South Dakota, but public health departments in multiple states are trying to measure how much and how quickly the coronavirus spread in bars, tattoo shops and gatherings before people traveled home to nearly every state in the country.

From the city of Sturgis, which is conducting mass testing for its roughly 7,000 residents, to health departments in at least six states, health officials are trying to track outbreaks from the 10-day rally which ended on Aug. 16. They face the task of tracking an invisible virus that spread among bar-hoppers and rallygoers, who then traveled to over half of the counties in the United States.

An analysis of anonymous cell phone data from Camber Systems, a firm that aggregates cell phone activity for health researchers, found that 61% of all the counties in the U.S. have been visited by someone who attended Sturgis, creating a travel hub that was comparable to a major U.S. city.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/revved-s ... 46950.html