3 ms·
From a medical perspective, 'immunity' means triggering any immune system response, not that someone will not get or have symptoms of a disease. This is an imp
by gibolt 6y ago
From a medical perspective, 'immunity' means triggering any immune system response, not that someone will not get or have symptoms of a disease.
This is an important nuance that has muddled research for lay people during the pandemic.
Edit: Definition of Immunity - https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/immunity https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/immunity
- burtonator 6y agoNo it doesn't. It means to resist harmful infection. If you catch a serious disease, like HIV, malaria, etc, and you die, you have an immune system response - it just failed. Even people that die of COVID had an immune system response. It just couldn't cope with it. The somewhat frightening thing is that our immune system, literally right now, is fighting the good fight and saving your life. One of the confusing aspects of AIDS is that you don't die from AIDS - you die from the opportunistic infections that happen from not having an immune system.
- throwaway894345 6y agoMy understanding was that the immune response was responsible for a lot of the harmful effects of covid in the first place. I thought the virus itself wasn't actually causing mass cell death?
- coding123 6y agoI'm not a doctor or anything, but there's also reports that a "vitamin D hammer" has dropped death rate from 86% intubated patients to 36%, and vitamin D triggers a huge immune response. So my guess is that it's either NOT an immune response, or a bad one, until you add the Vit. D.
- adventured 6y agoIt looks that way. It has drifted from cytokine storm to bradykinin storm (discussed not long ago here on HN). https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/88560 https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/88560 https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63 https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-...
- gibolt 6y agoTriggering a response means your body has recognized something that isn't itself. In doing so it defends itself. This is immunity, even if it fails or causes more damage than good. It is fighting the foreign agent.
- ineedasername 6y agoA response is not immunity. Immunity is more than just a response to something. That difference is actually encoded in things like vaccine testing process: earlier tests ascertain whether or not the immune system responded in any way. Later tests focus on whether or not that response produced some level of immunity.
- cryptonector 6y agoBut it also should mean that the "immune" will not spread the disease much at all -- certainly not as much as the not-immune who get sick. This is the key thing about immunity. Also, though (re)exposure of the immune may trigger an immune system response, the individual might not notice the exposure or the immune system response.
- gibolt 6y agoImmunity has nothing to do with ability to spread. It only relates to self.
- ineedasername 6y ago'immunity' means triggering any immune system response The exact definition you cite does not support this. It begins by very clearly saying it is a state of being protected: Immunity: the condition of being immune; the protection against infectious disease