Coronaviruses: No Vaccines, Herd Immunity Very Unlikely

    By NCD on Sat, 03/14/2020 - 9:12pm |

    This current highly communicable coronavirus, COVID-19, like other coronaviruses (15% of 'common colds") does not create lifetime immunity like measles virus.

    How long immunity lasts for this coronavirus is not known, but it is probably less than a year. See Fauci below, on the need for a seasonal vaccine for multiple coronaviruses. There is not now a vaccine for any of the many types of cornoaviruses. One additional problem for vaccines, is the immune response to the virus itself can be the major cause of damage to the lungs.

    SARS and MERS were more deadly, less contagious coronaviruses for which a wide pandemic was avoided by public health techniques of isolation and contact tracing.

    Why there will likely then be no herd immunity for this virus, as coronaviruses do not create long lasting ‘herd’ immunity:

    Humans can be reinfected with respiratory coronaviruses throughout life, and human volunteers can be symptomatically reinfected with the same strain of coronavirus 1 year after the first infection.

    www.sciencedirect.com/…

    From Harvard Gazette, 3/13/2020, on the need for seasonal yearly coronavirus vaccines, as getting it once does not protect you or the ‘herd’ for very long:

    “Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID, has warned of the potential of SARS-CoV-2 to become a seasonal virus like flu,” said David Dowling, instructor in pediatrics at HMS and a member of the PVP. “If so, the biomedical community may need to consider developing a multivalent yearly seasonal vaccine effective against multiple coronaviruses.”

    Comments

    Not about immunity, but about controlling spread, I found this very interesting and you might too: In China, it was true quarantine away from family and not infecting the entire health care system by seeing your doctor or going to the E.R., but being sent directly to a center dedicated to testing  after you show fever (which they had started to do with SARS) and then keeping you there if you are positive until you are well (or to ICU type care if necessary)

    First saw it explained watching this:

    Now I see it here:


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/14/2020 - 10:28pm

    Excellent points. We need that system here.

    Do we have the leadership to do it? The total European shutdowns in Italy and France are likely a recognition that this virus must be wiped out.  If it becomes 'endemic', it will be a recurring seasonal or year round disaster. Since MERS coronavirus spread in the Middle East, it would seem doubtful heat will kill this thing in the summer. Only public health measures, and since it spreads easier than the flu this may be impossible.

    If this becomes ingrained and present in a country, (with natural survivor immunity barely lasting a year, no herd immunity),  this also is bad -

    In an article two weeks ago in the New England Journal of Medicine, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, expressed concern about the spread of the disease by people who haven't yet developed symptoms, or who are only a bit sick.
     
    "There is also strong evidence that it can be transmitted by people who are just mildly ill or even presymptomatic. That means COVID-19 will be much harder to contain than the Middle East respiratory syndrome or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which were spread much less efficiently and only by symptomatic people," he wrote, using the scientific word for the disease caused by the virus.

     


    by NCD on Sat, 03/14/2020 - 10:57pm

    Australia's in summer. To go along w massive fires...


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 10:01am

    (Feigl-Ding is an epidemiologist and health economist-Harvard and ex-John Hopkins;  found retweeted by Noah Smith of Bloomberg.)


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 2:28pm

    ... The scientists’ letter, which was also signed by 33 experts outside Britain, including from Harvard, Cornell and the University of California, Berkeley, said: “We consider the social distancing measures taken as of today as insufficient, and we believe that additional and more restrictive measures should be taken immediately, as it is already happening in other countries across the world.”

    They sharply criticized the British government’s apparent embrace of the theory of “herd immunity,” under which the spread of the virus to a significant percentage of the population is viewed as acceptable, even beneficial, because it would build up immunity in the public and make Britain more resilient in the face of future outbreaks.

    The government’s chief scientific adviser laid out that theory in interviews last week, seemingly as a way to justify the country’s more relaxed approach to social distancing. But officials have since clarified that encouraging mass infections is not part of its strategy... NYT


    by NCD on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 12:58pm

    Meanwhile, here is U.S. reality update in 12 points from Andy Slavitt (he is "Former Medicare, Medicaid & ACA head for Obama. Founded @usofcare & @townhallvntrs to make health care work. Never broke a website, only fixed a big one.")


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 3:32pm

    Also this:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 3:39pm

    Go! This should get some others off their dithering:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 4:10pm

    this is big, precisely because it's flyover central shutting down.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 4:14pm

    And Ohio down with that:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 4:21pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 6:30pm

    this is actually exciting history wise, we are seeing a revolt by the Governors of the states:

    I think it's like this


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 6:34pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 6:36pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 8:04pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 9:45pm

    DeBlasio finally gives in on schools (closed til April 20 at least) and restaurants


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/15/2020 - 9:56pm

    The Guardian:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 12:08am


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 1:38am


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 1:46am


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 1:51am


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 3:29pm

    Exclusive: just the facts known on vaccine trial from the A.P.:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 5:02pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 5:10pm

    It does bother me we spend so much energy on a single idiot/savant at the top., hope and a prayer. A lot of demands when a pyramid foundation approach might be better. 


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/17/2020 - 2:47am

    Corporate leaders like this are not being good citizens because they have heart, they are SMART. Morals has nothing to do with it. Consumer economy means get with the war program or maybe end up not just have customers down the road or perhaps risk being nationalized down the road. 

     


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 5:17pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 7:34pm

    to check out further: #Plaquenil


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/17/2020 - 3:25am

    Coronavirus vaccine complications, coronovirus research from 2012 om SARS-Coronavirus:

     

    "An early concern for application of a SARS-CoV vaccine was the experience with other coronavirus infections which induced enhanced disease and immunopathology in animals when challenged with infectious virus, a concern reinforced by the report that animals given an alum adjuvanted SARS vaccine and subsequently challenged with SARS-CoV exhibited an immunopathologic lung reaction reminiscent of that described for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants and in animal models given RSV vaccine and challenged naturally (infants) or artificially (animals) with RSV. We and others described a similar immunopathologic reaction in mice vaccinated with a SARS-CoV vaccine and subsequently challenged with SARS-CoV. It has been proposed that the nucleocapsid proteinof SARS-CoV is the antigen to which the immunopathologic reaction is directed. Thus, concern for proceeding to humans with candidate SARS-CoV vaccines emerged from these various observations."


    by NCD on Wed, 03/18/2020 - 5:50pm

    In case you didn't see on my thread, I do find this meme going around to be intriguing, that no vaccine is going to be found, rather universal cheap testing and development of decent treatment is the way it may go. (I.E., we haven't cured the common cold yet!)

    http://dagblog.com/comment/reply/30494/278148


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/18/2020 - 6:19pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/18/2020 - 6:31pm

    Yo, space race allover agin:


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/18/2020 - 8:11pm

    The age thing is bullshit right now as far as CDC's numbers on "sick enough to be hospitalized" though of course that could change:


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/18/2020 - 8:49pm

    The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting more than 195 countries and territories, authorities have confirmed more than  600,000 cases of the coronavirus, 140,186 recovereds and more than 22,000 deaths
    [URL's removed, as I don't see official content on Coronavirus at online-calculator.com, so could be malware. Sign up & join us, Ben - PP]
     


    by Ben Af (not verified) on Mon, 03/30/2020 - 12:01pm

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