4 ms·

There is evidence that people can become re-infected, so antibodies aren't enough.

by throwaway2048 7y ago

erentz 7y ago
There’s not good evidence of that. There have been cases of people testing negative then positive again but that doesn’t mean they had cleared the virus and got reinfected. It more likely means they had a false negative. (E.g. I have a friend in hospital right now with COVID-19 that has had four tests, one positive, two negative, then one positive again, all tests within the space of four days.) It also can be the case if you are immune compromised that you may clear the virus through good luck, drugs, and your innate immune response. But you never developed a good adaptive immune response and so don’t show a strong antibody response. Immunity to this virus may not last 10+ years, but it’s seeming unlikely that is lasts less than 6 months.
- nroets 7y ago
  Wouldn't it then make sense to have camps where young, healthy adults can go to get immunity by intentionally getting infected and recover ? Then they can go back to having normal lives. The epidemiology version of a controlled burn. If someone take the gamble of intentionally getting the virus, his/her life expectancy is reduced by 3 months (a ballpark figure). If someone stay in isolation until a vaccine arrives, he/she may consider it a greater loss.
  - macintux 7y ago
    The problem is that with such a high rate of hospitalization or even death, even for young healthy adults, that’s a risky approach. It might be necessary at some point, however.
  - mynegation 7y ago
    I am pretty sure some entertained this idea. The real problem is tail risk is huge. If a youth gets complications or dies from the virus - is the camp organizer responsible?
- obmelvin 7y ago
  > It also can be the case if you are immune compromised that you may clear the virus through good luck, drugs, and your innate immune response. uh, how? Perhaps this is tangential, but it's important that anyone who is immunocompromised takes this seriously. Don't just think you'll be ok with a bit of luck. If you are immunocompromised your immune response is by definition weak and we have no working therapeutics. Yeah, yeah, I know there are 2 promising ones but its not really clear. The Gilead one is fairly legit, but the protocol used to compare Chloroquine for covid is fucking bullshit. They compared people across hospitals, way too many things different, you can't actually draw any valid scientific conclusion - it's purely anecdotal (as thankfully Fauci made more clear to the public today).
  - erentz 7y ago
    I don’t think you read my comment in the context of what it was replying too. It was a response to someone saying people can get reinfected. The reports of this appears not to the case for the reasons I and others explained (false positives/negatives). I speculate it might possibly happen for real though in the case of immune compromised people who are lucky enough to survive, but due to being immune compromised do not mount a proper adaptive response. Thus develop no antibodies and and thus are able to be reinfected. Obviously that would be rare. (But so are these case reports that are driving these rumors of “reinfection” overall.) Not really sure how you read that as somehow advocating immune compromised people do not need to take this seriously.
crispyporkbites 7y ago
Citation? IIRC all of the examples were either false positive re-tests or atypical patients (i.e. with some immune issue that only supressed the virus when they tested negative)
xsmasher 7y ago
Citation? I saw the one story about people "testing positive again" but that seemed to be a testing abnormality, not people getting sick a second time.
- eps 7y ago
  https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-japan-korea-coronavirus-reinfection-test-positive https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-...
  - xsmasher 7y ago
    Time will tell, but from that article: >Scientists in and outside China agree that reinfection is a highly unlikely explanation for the patients who retest positive. They say testing errors are more likely to blame — either false negatives that resulted in patients being discharged too early, or false positives when they retested and were taken back into hospital.

There is evidence that people can become re-infected, so antibodies aren't enough.

There’s not good evidence of that. There have been cases of people testing negative then positive again but that doesn’t mean they had cleared the virus and got reinfected. It more likely means they had a false negative. (E.g. I have a friend in hospital right now with COVID-19 that has had four tests, one positive, two negative, then one positive again, all tests within the space of four days.) It also can be the case if you are immune compromised that you may clear the virus through good luck, drugs, and your innate immune response. But you never developed a good adaptive immune response and so don’t show a strong antibody response. Immunity to this virus may not last 10+ years, but it’s seeming unlikely that is lasts less than 6 months.

nroets 7y ago
Wouldn't it then make sense to have camps where young, healthy adults can go to get immunity by intentionally getting infected and recover ? Then they can go back to having normal lives. The epidemiology version of a controlled burn. If someone take the gamble of intentionally getting the virus, his/her life expectancy is reduced by 3 months (a ballpark figure). If someone stay in isolation until a vaccine arrives, he/she may consider it a greater loss.
- macintux 7y ago
  The problem is that with such a high rate of hospitalization or even death, even for young healthy adults, that’s a risky approach. It might be necessary at some point, however.
- mynegation 7y ago
  I am pretty sure some entertained this idea. The real problem is tail risk is huge. If a youth gets complications or dies from the virus - is the camp organizer responsible?
obmelvin 7y ago
> It also can be the case if you are immune compromised that you may clear the virus through good luck, drugs, and your innate immune response. uh, how? Perhaps this is tangential, but it's important that anyone who is immunocompromised takes this seriously. Don't just think you'll be ok with a bit of luck. If you are immunocompromised your immune response is by definition weak and we have no working therapeutics. Yeah, yeah, I know there are 2 promising ones but its not really clear. The Gilead one is fairly legit, but the protocol used to compare Chloroquine for covid is fucking bullshit. They compared people across hospitals, way too many things different, you can't actually draw any valid scientific conclusion - it's purely anecdotal (as thankfully Fauci made more clear to the public today).
- erentz 7y ago
  I don’t think you read my comment in the context of what it was replying too. It was a response to someone saying people can get reinfected. The reports of this appears not to the case for the reasons I and others explained (false positives/negatives). I speculate it might possibly happen for real though in the case of immune compromised people who are lucky enough to survive, but due to being immune compromised do not mount a proper adaptive response. Thus develop no antibodies and and thus are able to be reinfected. Obviously that would be rare. (But so are these case reports that are driving these rumors of “reinfection” overall.) Not really sure how you read that as somehow advocating immune compromised people do not need to take this seriously.

crispyporkbites 7y ago

Citation? IIRC all of the examples were either false positive re-tests or atypical patients (i.e. with some immune issue that only supressed the virus when they tested negative)

xsmasher 7y ago

Citation? I saw the one story about people "testing positive again" but that seemed to be a testing abnormality, not people getting sick a second time.

eps 7y ago
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-japan-korea-coronavirus-reinfection-test-positive https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-...
- xsmasher 7y ago
  Time will tell, but from that article: >Scientists in and outside China agree that reinfection is a highly unlikely explanation for the patients who retest positive. They say testing errors are more likely to blame — either false negatives that resulted in patients being discharged too early, or false positives when they retested and were taken back into hospital.