3 ms·

>Nursing homes should be isolated together with some of the staff until other staff who have acquired immunity can take over Just this one sentence has a lot t

>Nursing homes should be isolated together with some of the staff until other staff who have acquired immunity can take over Just this one sentence has a lot to unpack. How do we know that a staff member immune to COVID? My understanding is that an antibody test is correlated but not necessarily indicative of immunity. What does this mean for staff members that aren't immune? Will they be furloughed indefinitely or fired? Should there be financial incentives to deliberately infect yourself?

seppin 6y ago
Also there's substantial proof COVID19 antibodies don't last forever, in some cases only a few months. This article is riddled with questions.
- timr 6y ago
  No. All recent data points to long-lasting immunity. A normal, gradual decline in antibody response is coupled with longer-lasting B- and T-cell response. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1285618977654407169.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1285618977654407169.html https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.14.20151126v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.14.20151126v...
  - seppin 6y ago
    How does that explain repeat illness (not via testing but someone that is in hospital once month and back the next?)
    - timr 6y ago
      To date, there has been one documented case of re-infection. From everything we know, this very rare. There are many reasons a person with a severe illness might have to return to a hospital (e.g. lung damage from ventilators), but this has no relationship to repeated infection from the same virus.
      - seppin 6y ago
        Multiple (confirmed) cases, meaning there are many more that are missed. https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/28/covid-19-reinfection-implications/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/28/covid-19-reinfection-imp...
arcticbull 6y ago
> How do we know that a staff member immune to COVID? Antibody tests are already quite available and easy to get. In the longer term, you'd need to test for T-cell response.

seppin 6y ago

Also there's substantial proof COVID19 antibodies don't last forever, in some cases only a few months. This article is riddled with questions.

timr 6y ago
No. All recent data points to long-lasting immunity. A normal, gradual decline in antibody response is coupled with longer-lasting B- and T-cell response. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1285618977654407169.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1285618977654407169.html https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.14.20151126v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.14.20151126v...
- seppin 6y ago
  How does that explain repeat illness (not via testing but someone that is in hospital once month and back the next?)
  - timr 6y ago
    To date, there has been one documented case of re-infection. From everything we know, this very rare. There are many reasons a person with a severe illness might have to return to a hospital (e.g. lung damage from ventilators), but this has no relationship to repeated infection from the same virus.
    - seppin 6y ago
      Multiple (confirmed) cases, meaning there are many more that are missed. https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/28/covid-19-reinfection-implications/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/28/covid-19-reinfection-imp...

arcticbull 6y ago

> How do we know that a staff member immune to COVID? Antibody tests are already quite available and easy to get. In the longer term, you'd need to test for T-cell response.