Its been confirmed that you can be reinfected with COVID. In some sense it is good news as the reinfection appears to possibly be weaker. The bad news is that its going to take a vaccine and that herd immunity wont work.
It also means a vaccine won't really work to achieve herd immunity, because if antibody immunity only lasts a few months we're going to be looking at multiple vaccinations per year. Beyond that, the vaccine likely won't be much more than 50% effective. What all this really means is that COVID isn't going anywhere, so we are going to have to learn how to live with it.
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Yeah, I'm guessing annual vaccinations....except for the crowd that thinks it causes cancer.
I hope we get more than one verified case of reinfection before we start making public policy decisions on it.
(08-25-2020 09:03 AM)EverydayInVA Wrote: [ -> ]Not completely the case. Now some studies showing you do build some immunity. Morale of the story, nobody knows anything.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/healt...odies.html
LOL i wouldn't say that. Folks who are researching and treating know something and only the part of the story that they are aware of and like everybody else they don't have the big picture. Putting all these valid pieces and making a sense is the thing that has been missing and even then who would know if we got all pieces of the puzzle or not.
(08-25-2020 09:03 AM)EverydayInVA Wrote: [ -> ]Not completely the case. Now some studies showing you do build some immunity. Morale of the story, nobody knows anything.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/healt...odies.html
The COVID numbers in NY and NJ would seem to indicate that there is some immunity and that it leads to some heard immunity. Florida seems to be headed in the same direction. Fact is, something is happening that causes the virus to spread through communities like wildfire and then peter out and I don't think it is the mitigation measures that are being taken, since in many cases the timelines for the virus growth and subsequent recession do not seem to line up properly with the timelines of the mitigation measures. We also see the virus run the same course in places with vastly different approaches to mitigation. Here's to hoping that communities see a single peak and then levels remain low.
I thought this piece in the WSJ was really good.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-lockd...1598281419
I'll post some snippets. PM if you want more.
Quote:In response to the novel and deadly coronavirus, many governments deployed draconian tactics never used in modern times: severe and broad restrictions on daily activity that helped send the world into its deepest peacetime slump since the Great Depression.
The equivalent of 400 million jobs have been lost world-wide, 13 million in the U.S. alone. Global output is on track to fall 5% this year, far worse than during the financial crisis, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Despite this steep price, few policy makers felt they had a choice, seeing the economic crisis as a side effect of the health crisis. They ordered nonessential businesses closed and told people to stay home, all without the extensive analysis of benefits and risks that usually precedes a new medical treatment.
Quote:Five months later, the evidence suggests lockdowns were an overly blunt and economically costly tool. They are politically difficult to keep in place for long enough to stamp out the virus. The evidence also points to alternative strategies that could slow the spread of the epidemic at much less cost. As cases flare up throughout the U.S., some experts are urging policy makers to pursue these more targeted restrictions and interventions rather than another crippling round of lockdowns.
"We're on the cusp of an economic catastrophe," said James Stock, a Harvard University economist who, with Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina and others, is modeling how to avoid a surge in deaths without a deeply damaging lockdown. "We can avoid the worst of that catastrophe by being disciplined," Mr. Stock said.
Quote:rior to Covid-19, lockdowns weren't part of the standard epidemic tool kit.
During the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, some American cities closed schools, churches and theaters, banned large gatherings and funerals and restricted store hours. But none imposed stay-at-home orders or closed all nonessential businesses. No such measures were imposed during the 1957 flu pandemic.
Lockdowns weren't part of the contemporary playbook, either. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in its 2017 community mitigation guidelines for pandemic flu, didn't recommend stay-at-home orders or closing nonessential businesses even for a flu as bad as 1918's.
So when China locked down Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province in January, and Italy imposed blanket stay-at-home orders in March, many epidemiologists elsewhere thought the steps unnecessarily harmful and possibly ineffective.
By late March, they had changed their minds. Covid-19 was much deadlier than flu, it was able to spread asymptomatically, and it had no vaccine or effective therapy.
Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong set early examples of how to stop it without lockdowns. They quickly cut travel to China, introduced widespread testing to isolate the infected and traced contacts. Their populations quickly donned face masks.
Sweden took a different approach. Instead of lockdowns, it imposed only modest restrictions to keep cases at levels its hospitals could handle.
Sweden has suffered more deaths per capita than Denmark but fewer than Britain. It has paid less of an economic price than either, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Sweden's current infection and death rates are as low as the rest of Europe's. That has prompted speculation that it is pursuing herd immunity -- the point when enough of the population is immune, due to prior exposure or vaccination, so that person-to-person transmission declines and the epidemic dies out. There is no consensus on where that point is, in Sweden or elsewhere.
Quote:The Swedish strategy was also taken off the table. Britain ditched it in mid-March after a team of experts from London's Imperial College predicted that in the absence of social distancing, 81% of the population would eventually be infected, while 510,000 people would die in Britain and 2.2 million in the U.S. Some experts think it takes less than 81% of a population to reach herd immunity. Nonetheless, such predictions helped persuade leaders in Britain and the U.S. to lock down.
Yet their goals were unclear, a confusion aggravated by the multitude of terms used, such as "flattening the curve," which originally meant spreading infections over time so the daily peak never overwhelmed hospitals. At other times they described their aims as "mitigation" or "containment" or "suppression," often interchangeably.
"There have been few attempts to truly define the goal, and partly it's because policy makers and epidemiologists haven't thought well enough about the vocabulary to define what they mean or want," said Dr. Mina.
The U.S. never resolved "whether we were going for mitigation or suppression," said Paul Romer, a Nobel laureate economist.
Quote:Masks may be the most cost-effective intervention of all. Both the World Health Organization and the U.S. Surgeon General discouraged their use for months despite prior CDC guidance that they could limit the spread of flu.
Will be interesting to see if NY gets another wave. It has been 5 months so it appears immunity lasts more than the 3 they are saying.
News from Hong Kong...
"Coronavirus reinfection: Hong Kong reinfection was completely asymptomatic--his immune response prevented the disease from getting worse. It's kind of a textbook example of how immunity should work," Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki told the New York Times.
(08-26-2020 10:16 AM)757ODU Wrote: [ -> ]News from Hong Kong...
"Coronavirus reinfection: Hong Kong reinfection was completely asymptomatic--his immune response prevented the disease from getting worse. It's kind of a textbook example of how immunity should work," Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki told the New York Times.
Makes you wonder if all of the asymtematic folks have already been infected in the past.
(08-26-2020 10:20 AM)MONARCHSWIN Wrote: [ -> ] (08-26-2020 10:16 AM)757ODU Wrote: [ -> ]News from Hong Kong...
"Coronavirus reinfection: Hong Kong reinfection was completely asymptomatic--his immune response prevented the disease from getting worse. It's kind of a textbook example of how immunity should work," Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki told the New York Times.
Makes you wonder if all of the asymtematic folks have already been infected in the past.
Theory is that this corona virus is recognized by some people's immune system as other coronaviruses met in the past. This does not however explain the direct correlation in age and experiencing symptoms/seriousness of the illness. Some think it's the ACE2 receptors which there are fewer of in children in the respiratory system apparently. But they have looked at viral loads in children who are both symptomatic and asymptomatic and found levels at or above those in adults. Which would mean that they could be carriers of it but studies haven't found transmissions from children in large numbers to support that. So who the **** knows.
(08-26-2020 10:20 AM)MONARCHSWIN Wrote: [ -> ] (08-26-2020 10:16 AM)757ODU Wrote: [ -> ]News from Hong Kong...
"Coronavirus reinfection: Hong Kong reinfection was completely asymptomatic--his immune response prevented the disease from getting worse. It's kind of a textbook example of how immunity should work," Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki told the New York Times.
Makes you wonder if all of the asymtematic folks have already been infected in the past.
Based on the T Cell studies it seems very possible that many of them have developed some immunity from exposure to other coronaviruses like the common cold and swine flu. I have even heard it theorized, but without much to back it up, that some common vaccinations use coronavirus as part of the delivery system and could cause some level immunity as well.
(08-26-2020 10:27 AM)mturn017 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-26-2020 10:20 AM)MONARCHSWIN Wrote: [ -> ] (08-26-2020 10:16 AM)757ODU Wrote: [ -> ]News from Hong Kong...
"Coronavirus reinfection: Hong Kong reinfection was completely asymptomatic--his immune response prevented the disease from getting worse. It's kind of a textbook example of how immunity should work," Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki told the New York Times.
Makes you wonder if all of the asymtematic folks have already been infected in the past.
Theory is that this corona virus is recognized by some people's immune system as other coronaviruses met in the past. This does not however explain the direct correlation in age and experiencing symptoms/seriousness of the illness. Some think it's the ACE2 receptors which there are fewer of in children in the respiratory system apparently. But they have looked at viral loads in children who are both symptomatic and asymptomatic and found levels at or above those in adults. Which would mean that they could be carriers of it but studies haven't found transmissions from children in large numbers to support that. So who the **** knows.
I believe that I have read that T cells are more active in children as well, which could help to explain the lack of symptoms and spread among kids. Or I could have totally made that up in my head lol. There has been so much information in my head at this point.
So, after 6 months, we agree that we know very little....are we really supposed to stay locked down until we have all of the answers? Doesn't it make more sense for us to protect vulnerable populations, try to get back to normal for everyone else, and then make adjustments as we learn?
(08-26-2020 10:33 AM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ]So, after 6 months, we agree that we know very little....are we really supposed to stay locked down until we have all of the answers? Doesn't it make more sense for us to protect vulnerable populations, try to get back to normal for everyone else, and then make adjustments as we learn?
Yes, but when the entire media and throngs of people who hang on their every word call every person who didn't do things exactly the way they said they should a murder its tough to get there.
(08-26-2020 10:33 AM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ]So, after 6 months, we agree that we know very little....are we really supposed to stay locked down until we have all of the answers? Doesn't it make more sense for us to protect vulnerable populations, try to get back to normal for everyone else, and then make adjustments as we learn?
I still don't understand how you suggest we protect vulnerable populations. around 40-45% of all Americans are considered obese. That's just one condition that makes you vulnerable. It's fine to tell retirees to stay home but most people have to work. Limiting the superspreading situations like large gatherings is the best we can do if we want to keep everything else open. What exactly do you mean by "locked down"? Are you sheltering in place?