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"Perhaps California could have attempted a middle ground strategy. Let the virus spread just a slight amount more than occurred during the initial lockdown in o

"Perhaps California could have attempted a middle ground strategy. Let the virus spread just a slight amount more than occurred during the initial lockdown in order to gradually spread immunity." It's not even clear yet whether exposure to this virus confers immunity, nor how long such immunity would last if it does exist. From the newest episode of This Week in Virology[1]: Daniel Griffin: The tough thing, right, is that if you look at the "common" coronaviruses, they don't give us long-lasting immunity. Traditionally you could be reinfected multiple times in the same year. ... We've known this for the other coronaviruses, that if you get OC43 or 229e or any of the other, you don't get lifelong immunity, you can get sick again, and it's not clear that that second infection is milder than the first. My word of caution is to be careful about, you know, when we hear that 5 or 10 percent of the population is seropositive, I don't know what that means yet. [1] - starting at about 14'34" in to episode 638: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-638/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-638/

standardUser 6y ago
Though it has not been conclusively proven, literally all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Dozens of vaccines are being developed on this assumption, and there have been zero confirmed instances of reinfection of a fully recovered individual.
- jhowell 6y ago
  > all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Here is a story from CNN via the Mercury News about 3 teachers sharing a classroom. Anecdotal, but makes me think these are signs of a lack of immunity. A positive, negative, positive test. > A month after they caught the virus that killed their colleague, Martinez and Skillings are still struggling. > Martinez says fatigue is lingering, she still has a cough, and she continues to take breathing treatments to relieve tightness in her chest. She recently tested negative and retested. > Skillings says she thought she was getting better, but recently her cough returned full force. She tested a week ago and it came back positive again. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/12/three-arizona-teachers-who-shared-a-classroom-got-coronavirus-one-of-them-died/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/12/three-arizona-teacher...
  - standardUser 6y ago
    Right, when millions and millions of people become infected with an illness there will be a wide range of edge cases. But if reinfection within 6 months was anything other than exceptionally rare it would be obvious by now. Now if you had a peer reviewed study to link instead of media reports, I would be very interested.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Seropositive tests have show the vast majority develop an immune response, how long that lasts we don’t know, but even if it’s only 6 months, that will reduce spread. You don’t create an epidemic plan based on edge cases. And it’s important to note that the tests are looking for viral RNA. Viral RNA can be found even if virus are inactivated in the absence of an active infection or the shedding of active viruses.
      - pmoriarty 6y ago
        No one yet knows whether the antibodies detected in seropositive tests actually confer protection against getting sick from this virus. For some viruses, like, say, HIV, you can have lots of antibodies against it, but still be sick with HIV. It is not yet clear whether SARS-CoV-2 is like HIV in this sense or if the antibodies produced by the body after infection with the virus actually confer protection against future infections.
        standardUser 6y ago
        There was a study where they tried to reinfect monkeys with the virus after they had developed a prior immune response. Even in laboratory setting, they could not reinfect the monkeys. https://www.livescience.com/monkeys-cannot-get-reinfected-with-coronavirus-study.html https://www.livescience.com/monkeys-cannot-get-reinfected-wi... That, plus every case of supposed reinfection that has occurred so far is either inconclusive or proven to be a case of false positives. The big one was in South Korea, where the KCDC later determined that their test was picking up dead virus fragments. It gets hard to keep pretending people can get COVID-19 over and over again. Maybe if had been documented 1000 times out of 13 million cases, but we haven't even seen anything close to that.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  I agree, I think there is likely meaningful immunity. But, it is very much up in the air on how long that immunity will last. SARS immunity lasts a few years (1-3 years I believe). On the other hand, several extant coronaviruses contribute to the common cold, and my understanding is that immunity for these is only a few months or less. This is partly why one can catch a cold multiple times in a year.
  - standardUser 6y ago
    It's also worth remembering that the common cold has many different sources, and only some of those are coronaviruses.
- hatenberg 6y ago
  This comment has not aged well at all with several study preprints released in the last 12h indicating rapid loss of immunity and secondary infections
  - technics256 6y ago
    Do you have a source?
  - standardUser 6y ago
    My comment has held true for 5 months and I have not seen or heard anything to convince me otherwise. Link? Or just more random media reports?
  - abstractbarista 6y ago
    The immune system remembers. Some people's better than others. It'll all be OK.

standardUser 6y ago

Though it has not been conclusively proven, literally all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Dozens of vaccines are being developed on this assumption, and there have been zero confirmed instances of reinfection of a fully recovered individual.

jhowell 6y ago
> all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Here is a story from CNN via the Mercury News about 3 teachers sharing a classroom. Anecdotal, but makes me think these are signs of a lack of immunity. A positive, negative, positive test. > A month after they caught the virus that killed their colleague, Martinez and Skillings are still struggling. > Martinez says fatigue is lingering, she still has a cough, and she continues to take breathing treatments to relieve tightness in her chest. She recently tested negative and retested. > Skillings says she thought she was getting better, but recently her cough returned full force. She tested a week ago and it came back positive again. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/12/three-arizona-teachers-who-shared-a-classroom-got-coronavirus-one-of-them-died/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/12/three-arizona-teacher...
- standardUser 6y ago
  Right, when millions and millions of people become infected with an illness there will be a wide range of edge cases. But if reinfection within 6 months was anything other than exceptionally rare it would be obvious by now. Now if you had a peer reviewed study to link instead of media reports, I would be very interested.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Seropositive tests have show the vast majority develop an immune response, how long that lasts we don’t know, but even if it’s only 6 months, that will reduce spread. You don’t create an epidemic plan based on edge cases. And it’s important to note that the tests are looking for viral RNA. Viral RNA can be found even if virus are inactivated in the absence of an active infection or the shedding of active viruses.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      No one yet knows whether the antibodies detected in seropositive tests actually confer protection against getting sick from this virus. For some viruses, like, say, HIV, you can have lots of antibodies against it, but still be sick with HIV. It is not yet clear whether SARS-CoV-2 is like HIV in this sense or if the antibodies produced by the body after infection with the virus actually confer protection against future infections.
      - standardUser 6y ago
        There was a study where they tried to reinfect monkeys with the virus after they had developed a prior immune response. Even in laboratory setting, they could not reinfect the monkeys. https://www.livescience.com/monkeys-cannot-get-reinfected-with-coronavirus-study.html https://www.livescience.com/monkeys-cannot-get-reinfected-wi... That, plus every case of supposed reinfection that has occurred so far is either inconclusive or proven to be a case of false positives. The big one was in South Korea, where the KCDC later determined that their test was picking up dead virus fragments. It gets hard to keep pretending people can get COVID-19 over and over again. Maybe if had been documented 1000 times out of 13 million cases, but we haven't even seen anything close to that.
dwaltrip 6y ago
I agree, I think there is likely meaningful immunity. But, it is very much up in the air on how long that immunity will last. SARS immunity lasts a few years (1-3 years I believe). On the other hand, several extant coronaviruses contribute to the common cold, and my understanding is that immunity for these is only a few months or less. This is partly why one can catch a cold multiple times in a year.
- standardUser 6y ago
  It's also worth remembering that the common cold has many different sources, and only some of those are coronaviruses.
hatenberg 6y ago
This comment has not aged well at all with several study preprints released in the last 12h indicating rapid loss of immunity and secondary infections
- technics256 6y ago
  Do you have a source?
- standardUser 6y ago
  My comment has held true for 5 months and I have not seen or heard anything to convince me otherwise. Link? Or just more random media reports?
- abstractbarista 6y ago
  The immune system remembers. Some people's better than others. It'll all be OK.