Covid-19 News

Here is an announcement from the Georgia Dept. of Health

COVID-19 Antibody Testing from DPH and CDC

Between the dates of April 28th and May 4th, the CDC is partnering with the Georgia DPH and the Fulton and DeKalb County Boards of Health to visit select neighborhoods in DeKalb and Fulton County to administer a COVID-19 antibody testing survey. Household members will be asked to answer survey questions and provide a blood sample to be tested for antibodies for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Teams will be identified by CDC vests and badges and an official letter from the CDC and the Georgia Department of Public Health. Participation is encouraged but voluntary.

Quote from Shane D.

Within the tight confines of an aircraft carrier, cruise ship, small town, or a 3 generation household, escaping exposure would seem unlikely, yet ~85% showed no antibodies.

If there were no antibodies, the patient would be dead. He or she would not have recovered. The body can only rid itself of a virus with an antibody response.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Doctors are not allowed to treat patients with now known working medication until the ruling free mason / rotary (pharma-) mafia (CDC) will clear them.

This is nonsense. The CDC has no regulatory authority over doctors. State health departments do. The CDC is a research organization, like the WHO, which also has no regulatory authority of any kind.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Thats what the current measures try to avoid! Idiots of WHO said it clear: We do not believe in immunity from a covid-19 infection. Thus they do not believe that a vaccine will work...

This is nonsense squared. I follow the WHO announcements. They, and some others said that in a few cases, recovered patients can be re-infected. That happens with all infectious diseases, but perhaps the rate is a little higher with COVID-19. They never said there is no immunity. They have repeatedly that they expect a vaccine will be developed, and it will work.

You should not make up nonsense and post it here. Or, if you can point to WHO announcements sayings these things, do so. Don't expect readers here to believe bullshit that you make up.

Quote from Shane D.

Possibly, they missed a sufficient viral dose to trigger their bodies defense,

The problem is that immunity is real complicated and hard to understand

even though there are some really clever people in immunology..

like von Adrian et al

For some viruses we may develop immunity without developing antibodies.

eg VSV (not yet to be shown true for Covid)

contrary to established theory

https://www.sciencedaily.com/r…/2012/03/120301143426.htm

but it is brow furrowingly complicated..

WARNING instant headache if you read this

https://www.cell.com/immunity/pdf/S1074-7613(12)00057-X.pdf

Quote from Shane D.

A new study of recovered coronavirus patients found that patients develop different levels of antibodies to the virus.

Yes, that is true of all infectious diseases. That is a major reason why some people recover better than others. (I am not suggesting this study reached an obvious conclusion so it is unimportant. It is probably an important finding because it shows the extent of variation for this disease.)

Quote from Shane D.

Ten patients of the 175 studied — 6% — didn't have any detectable coronavirus antibodies in their systems.

Which is why they died, I assume. If you do not develop antibodies, you die. Perhaps the antibodies fade away quickly in these patients, but anyway, without them you die as easily as an AIDS patient from an infection that would not hurt a normal patient. That's what AIDS does. It causes Acquired Immune Deficiency.

There is a new comparison of deaths in New York state compared to a normal year. There have been ~20,873 excess deaths, probably all attributable to the coronavirus. There have been 16,673 deaths attributed to coronavirus, so there were ~4,200 others that probably should have been. In other words, they are only counting about 80% of the actual cases. That's better coverage than they had in the first month. Perhaps this is because they have more testing.

The other day they announced an antibody study that showed a large fraction of the population in New York City had recovered from the disease. Someone in the governor's office said that it meant the mortality rate was around 0.5% (as I recall). I think they forgot to estimate unaccounted for deaths from the disease, which push mortality up to ~0.8 or ~1.2. I pointed this out the other day when the first antibody test results were reported.

The graph in this article is striking:

N.Y.C. Deaths Reach 6 Times the Normal Level, Far More Than Coronavirus Count Suggests

More than 27,000 New Yorkers have died since the start of the novel coronavirus outbreak in March — 20,900 more than would be expected over this period and thousands more than have been captured by official coronavirus death statistics.

https://www.nytimes.com/intera…deaths-new-york-city.html

Quote from JedRothwell

Which is why they died, I assume. If you do not develop antibodies, you die

This immunity stuff is complicated..it needs close reading,,

The article says the 10 of the 175 patients that recovered had no detectable antibodies..

"

Notably, there were
ten recovered patients whose NAb titers were very low, under the detectable level of
this study (ID50: <40), suggesting that other immune responses, including T cells or
4 cytokines, may contribute to the recovery of these patients. Whether these patients were
at high risk of rebound or reinfection should be explored in further studies.

This virus is challenging common assumptions about immunity..such as that it is due to B cell antibodies..

Hopefully they are immune... but how much would you need to pay these 10 patients to check that..?

Quote from RobertBryant

This immunity stuff is complicated..it needs close reading,,

The article says the 10 of the 175 patients that recovered had no detectable antibodies..

"

Notably, there were
ten recovered patients whose NAb titers were very low, under the detectable level of
this study (ID50: <40), suggesting that other immune responses, including T cells or
4 cytokines, may contribute to the recovery of these patients. Whether these patients were
at high risk of rebound or reinfection should be explored in further studies.

This virus is challenging common assumptions about immunity..such as that it is due to B cell antibodies..

Hopefully they are immune... but how much would you need to pay these 10 patients to check that..?

Display More

This article is food for thought about the length of immunity that people may receive after having Covid. Warning, you may not feel better after reading it. I sure didn’t.

https://www.technologyreview.c…eople-immune-to-covid-19/

Stephen Smith, an "Infectious Disease Expert", who slammed the VA study

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6152490232001#sp=show-clips

THe VA covid study... = Sham .. embarrassment

The authors have gone stumm.. ophthalmologist.. a few PharmDs from the eye department..no infectious disease expertise.

Did the PharmD's not know that the DOSE is important? does PharmD =PharmDumm?

I guess they will withdraw the Sham soon..or the VA will ask them to...

Quote from Shane D.

BTW, would you take a look at the latest Lancet paper: https://www.thelancet.com/jour…-3099(20)30287-5/fulltext and tell me what you think about it?

I thought the conclusions from Wuhan were valid based on the data.

For frontline workers like GPs in the health system..

and anyone dealing with the public ..

teachers, busdrivers.. its not good news

its a bit scary..

Something like 10-20% have no symptoms even after 10 days of infection..

and can be spreading the infection to close contacts.

My nurse/wife is visiting an elderly patient from the Ruby Princess today..

At least he definitely has the infection and is recovering after days in ICU at a retirement village.

So she can wear the right gear

Its the other patients ..that are more dangerous potentially

This means that ALL those who deal with the public

need to treat them ALL as VERY unwashed.

Taxi drivers may need \ the same gear as frontline healthworkers..

unless there is good contact tracing and low infection rates to reduce the possibility of exposure

I think Australia Hawaii might be OK... not sure about Florida.... definitely not Chicago..

Quote from JedRothwell

If there were no antibodies, the patient would be dead. He or she would not have recovered. The body can only rid itself of a virus with an antibody response.

Nonsense. Have you ever heard of the innate immune system that is an antigen-independent defense mechanism with no immunological memory? Of Pattern Recognition Receptors (PPRs) to detect and respond rapidly to a virus infection (in minutes not days)?

In the case of coronaviruses, type 1 interferons provide an early control of viral replication with many cells (macrophage, natural killers, dendritic cells, etc...) eradicating the virus without the need of an antigen-specific response.

In summary, no the body doesn't necessarily need to develop specific anti-SARS-COV-2 antibodies to get rid of a new virus. Many do not. Actually more and more evidence suggest that most asymptomatic people did not though the exact proportion remains unknown because of the lack of widespread testing.

Quote from Shane D.

Well you be "King for the day", and tell me how would handle it?

Pretty much like the mayor of San Diego is doing. He gives the Chief of Police wide discretion and arrests are rare. The only one so far are a handful of people who disobeyed direct orders to "move on" or parked in clearly marked closed lots -- and one protest organizer (two big events) who was arrested on a misdemeanor charge and faces possibly a $1000 fine or six months in jail (won't happen). She was released immediately on own recognizance. Nobody wants violence or injuries or arrests-- this is SoCal. But the mayor made it very clear. If people continue to ignore social distancing (masks not yet required but strongly encouraged), he will close the beaches totally again to everyone and for anything and the closing will be patrolled and enforced. San Diego is getting about 100 proven new cases per day and from 2 to 6 deaths per day- every day from an appx 3 million population. So things are not terrible and the city government wants to prevent them from being.

Next month, there will be some opening of businesses (probably not tattoo or hair styling but I don't know). And if people don't abuse them (they didn't seem to as much today), the beaches will be open to running and water sports of all kinds but not sunbathing and partying. Also, IIRC, masks will no longer be voluntary next month but will be required when within 6 feet of anyone you are not living with. Cops will have the right to check ID's in extreme conditions, for example, protests and maybe queues but I am guessing they won't do that. Maybe if the death curve starts to get more exponential.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Difficult to believe the US epidemic is nearing the end when number of cases is ticking up overall.

The curves I posted yesterday showed no change in rate of growth of cases or deaths.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Doctors are not allowed to treat patients with now known working medication until the ruling free mason / rotary (pharma-) mafia (CDC) will clear them.

That is certainly not true in the USA where doctors can prescribe essentially any drug "off label" for any indication they choose. Of course, the prescribing doctor can be cited for negligence and/or incompetence and lose their license and be sued for malpractice but that requires the most extreme of bad judgement and also serious harm to the patients. That may not be the same in other countries-- I don't know. I know in the US currently, practically everything doctors can think of is being used in patients with COVID-19 who seem to be doing badly.

Quote from JedRothwell

If there were no antibodies, the patient would be dead. He or she would not have recovered. The body can only rid itself of a virus with an antibody response.

While we don't know everything, the immune response to viruses is pretty well understood in general so Jed is almost certainly correct. Finding otherwise and an entirely new mechanism for immunity would be a Nobel worthy result and virtually impossible. I suspect that the preliminary data Shane D. cited is simply wrong.

ETA: If what JulianBianchi writes about may be a factor in COVID-19, what I wrote above would be wrong. I have not heard of a reaction being called an immune response without antibodies but maybe it does exist. I have not studied immunology for many years. If so, is it really significant in COVID-19 recovery and how do we know?