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So, correct me if I'm wrong, but a) current hypothesis is people with prior exposure to common-cold non-COVID-19 coronaviruses are by and large either asymptom
by bglusman 6y ago
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but
a) current hypothesis is people with prior exposure to common-cold non-COVID-19 coronaviruses are by and large either asymptomatic or have milder symptoms than those without such exposure
b) presumably it should be possible to test people for these antibodies much as we can test people for COVID antibodies
If people would volunteer for the b) anti-body test in reasonable numbers, and a subset of them who have them would volunteer for a modified trial, we could possibly do a double-blind intentional-exposure test on people to confirm that the vaccine confers BETTER immunity than the existing similar antibodies do, right? Would it be possible to ethically and realistically use that strategy to accelerate effectiveness testing (if not safety testing) of any vaccine candidates? or would the smaller scale of that have only made sense for something more like Phase 2 trials?
Arguably, as long as safety is near perfect, we should be willing to tolerate only moderate (say, 90%) effectiveness (and I'd read one of the vaccines took two doses to get 100% effectiveness but was 90% after a single dose), but I don't know how safety is evaluated and obviously long-term safety and short-term safety are pretty different/I imagine a lot of people will be more concerned about long term safety and I don't know how you can reassure them on that on any kind of accelerated schedule.
- DavidSJ 6y agoWhat’s your source for (a)? I think virtually every human being on the planet has been infected with some coronavirus common cold strain in the past.
- 411111111111111 6y agoIt would also be inversely correlated with age, as the likelihood of having contracted the common cold increases with the amount spend interacting with people throughout your life. This doesn't reflect reality, as its correlation isnt inverted.
- nomel 6y ago> inversely correlated with age To some degree. Immunity fades, which is the whole concept of booster shots.
- bglusman 6y agoSorry, forgot to check back here after posting... not 100% sure I have one source but here's one from a quick search: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-covid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/08/asymptomati... Specifically this line: > Or, as a paper published Tuesday in Science suggested, it could trace back to previous encounters with other coronaviruses, such as those that cause the common cold.
- HeadsUpHigh 6y agoCoronaviruses are called so because they look a certain way under an electron microscope. They don't necessarily have common proteins. So you point a does not stand. As for point b,due to the fact that antibodies are specialized and there are tons of viruses that cause the common cold, I wouldn't expect them to match or even exist at any given time in the bloodstream since they only last ~6m and after that memory takes the role of rapid production of new antibodies in case of a new infection.
- lbeltrame 6y agoThere is documented cross-reactivity in T-cell responses: individuals who had not come in contact with SARS-CoV-2 developed an immune reaction (T-cell based) against it. Whether this prevents infection (unlikely) or lessens the symptoms is still an open question. But the phenomenon exists.
- bglusman 6y agoYes my impression was that it lessened infection, not prevented it, otherwise it would basically represent a vaccine or an alternative, at least for otherwise healthy people.