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Herd immunity isn't possible when antibodies are as transient as those seen for COVID-19. Only a massive public push with an actually effective vaccine will con

Herd immunity isn't possible when antibodies are as transient as those seen for COVID-19. Only a massive public push with an actually effective vaccine will control this pandemic.

anoncake 6y ago
There have been what, three cases of people being infected twice? And they barely got sick?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kjaftaedi 6y ago
  The antibodies from infected people are being shown to last somewhere on an average of 3 months. Kinda hard to be immune if you have nothing to protect you. How sick you get from the disease is irrelevant in this context.
  - anonuser123456 6y ago
    Your understanding of the immune system is not quite correct. Just because you can't detect antibodies doesn't mean you lack immunity. B-cells can stop producing antibodies and reactivate production in response to an antigen. T-cell memory appears to be quite robust for coronaviruses (and this one in particular) To establish a lack of durable antibody response, challenge trials would need to be done, where the host is challenged by the virus (or something that looks like the virus like it's spike protein). These trials have not been run.
    - kuhewa 6y ago
      We can only guess without data specific to SARS-COV-2, but for seasonal coronaviruses, antibodies disappear after ~6 months and reinfection with the same strain can occur after 1 year.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    It isn't entirely irrelevant. If you can get reinfected but not get sick twice, it's as if we reached herd immunity at 100%. And it's perfectly normal that antibodies don't stay in the bloodstream forever. The immune system remembers how to make them and can produce new ones when needed.
- ferryman 6y ago
  Reinfection is problematic for herd immunity strategy as it keeps the transmission rate , R high. This keeps the less healthy vulnerable.
logicchains 6y ago
That's just flat out wrong. If that were the case, than the Spanish Flu would still be killing millions of people per year.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  SARS-CoV-2 and A/H1N1 aren't even in the same phylum. It would be silly to expect them to have precisely the same effect. Besides, when people gush about "herd immunity" they don't usually include the caveat "of course it's going to kill fifty million people first!"

Herd immunity isn't possible when antibodies are as transient as those seen for COVID-19. Only a massive public push with an actually effective vaccine will control this pandemic.

anoncake 6y ago

There have been what, three cases of people being infected twice? And they barely got sick?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kjaftaedi 6y ago
The antibodies from infected people are being shown to last somewhere on an average of 3 months. Kinda hard to be immune if you have nothing to protect you. How sick you get from the disease is irrelevant in this context.
- anonuser123456 6y ago
  Your understanding of the immune system is not quite correct. Just because you can't detect antibodies doesn't mean you lack immunity. B-cells can stop producing antibodies and reactivate production in response to an antigen. T-cell memory appears to be quite robust for coronaviruses (and this one in particular) To establish a lack of durable antibody response, challenge trials would need to be done, where the host is challenged by the virus (or something that looks like the virus like it's spike protein). These trials have not been run.
  - kuhewa 6y ago
    We can only guess without data specific to SARS-COV-2, but for seasonal coronaviruses, antibodies disappear after ~6 months and reinfection with the same strain can occur after 1 year.
- anoncake 6y ago
  It isn't entirely irrelevant. If you can get reinfected but not get sick twice, it's as if we reached herd immunity at 100%. And it's perfectly normal that antibodies don't stay in the bloodstream forever. The immune system remembers how to make them and can produce new ones when needed.
ferryman 6y ago
Reinfection is problematic for herd immunity strategy as it keeps the transmission rate , R high. This keeps the less healthy vulnerable.

logicchains 6y ago

That's just flat out wrong. If that were the case, than the Spanish Flu would still be killing millions of people per year.

jessaustin 6y ago
SARS-CoV-2 and A/H1N1 aren't even in the same phylum. It would be silly to expect them to have precisely the same effect. Besides, when people gush about "herd immunity" they don't usually include the caveat "of course it's going to kill fifty million people first!"