would explain why little kids don't seem to even catch the bug

This is completely separate from the antibody response right? Explains the reasoning for long term resistance even if antibody levels decline after a couple months?

but how do you get +50% AB prevalence in areas of Italy?

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This is completely separate from the antibody response right? Explains the reasoning for long term resistance even if antibody levels decline after a couple months?

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That is my understanding. But with this virus, there are more unknowns that knowns currently. Still lots to learn.

No clue. Tons of stuff about this that don't make sense. Bad tests? Not sure

How does one get the t cells without the virus? Or is it that other cov viruses are so similar already?

This is a good article:

T cells may help COVID-19 patients and people never exposed to the virus

culdeus said:

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How does one get the t cells without the virus? Or is it that other cov viruses are so similar already?

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T cells recognize viral epitopes (think of it as a "feature" specific to that virus). Basically what they are saying is that exposure to other coronaviruses may generate cross-reactive T cell epitopes. Specifically in this paper they compared it to the 4 seasonal coronaviruses that cause the common cold.

The two main types of T cells here are:
- CD4 positive (which aid B cells in the production of antibodies)
- CD8 positive which directly kill virus infected cells.

The limitation of this study is obviously that no one knows if the presence of those cross-reactive T cell epitopes actually provides any kind of immunological advantage. But it could be one explanation for the wide variety of symptom severity across people with otherwise similar demographics.

They also noted in the paper that there were a significant number of people (~16%) who showed little or no detectable antibody response after infection. About half of the antibody negative people showed T cell responses.

All these things suggest T cell mediated immunity may be important for long term immunity, and can inform potential vaccine design targets.

From that article

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-t-cells-patients-immune-system

It's "tempting to speculate" that the cells could help people never exposed to the new coronavirus, the researchers write. But to know for sure, experts would need to test T cells from someone both before and after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.


Exposing a person to a virus to measure before and after impacts is similar to the idea of live challenge trials to determine treatment or vaccine efficacy. With so much at stake, anyone suspect this type research is going on somewhere?



Here is a recent editorial arguing against the idea of human challenge Covid vaccine trials.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/23/challenge-trials-live-coronavirus-speedy-covid-19-vaccine/

Keegan99 said:

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Yes, it would explain why children seem largely unaffected. It would also explain the large number of asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic PCR positives, and it would explain why "herd immunity" seems to be reached at puzzlingly low levels of seroprevalence.

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There's no evidence we've reached herd immunity anywhere. Just that the sum of environmental (weather, immunity, etc.) and preventative actions have dropped R0 below 1 in some specific areas. Doesn't mean it won't come back if any of those variables change. The fall has the potential to be terible if we haven't reached anything close to "herd immunity".

The study is good news though, because just getting some immunity could dramatically change the potential fall outcome. Hopefully we consider making a vaccine with the virus that could provide some form of immunity in the fall. It could make a huge difference if we all had some sort of immune response.

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Hopefully we consider making a vaccine with the virus that could provide some form of immunity in the fall. It could make a huge difference if we all had some sort of immune response.

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yeah

I also hope they consider doing the moon shot Manhattan project in six months that they're pouring billions of dollars into as well

cone said:

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Hopefully we consider making a vaccine with the virus that could provide some form of immunity in the fall. It could make a huge difference if we all had some sort of immune response.

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yeah

I also hope they consider doing the moon shot Manhattan project in six months that they're pouring billions of dollars into as well

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Injecting weakened cold virus could be done with pretty minimal risk. But I really appreciate your constructive comments. I know I didn't say cold virus specifically in my comment even though I was responding to discussion about that. But hey, it doesn't take a lot of effort to be a ******bag on the internet.

lol good luck with your phase 3 trials there

cone said:

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lol good luck with your phase 3 trials there

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Scott Gottlieb, you know former head of the FDA, has said before that a weakened virus drug that didn't have any serious side effects could potentially be fast tracked in time for the fall even if it was likely to only provide partial immunity... This would make a "huge difference". A weakened cold virus would fit that criteria don't you think?

Unfortunately he's done so many interviews for CNBC I'm having a hard time finding the exact day he said that.

I never said it was likely to happen, but really, appreciate the thoughtful commentary especially since I wasn't even the first person on this thread to talk about the subject.

hmmm

I wonder if Scott thinks your pet project will be ready before the Regeneron treatment he's been pumping for three months

Something like this is what I have been thinking since March, when no matter what it seemed like the maximum amount of people infected was typically 20% (when testing everyone to find asymptomatic positives).

https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-than-tests-have-shown

More information from the professor here.

The whole thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1277885591376535553.html