4 ms·

> what would it even mean for somebody to be "90% immune" to a disease? Hasn't this virus already mutated to a bunch of different strands? Could it mean you'r

> what would it even mean for somebody to be "90% immune" to a disease? Hasn't this virus already mutated to a bunch of different strands? Could it mean you're immune to 90% of the known variations of the virus?

jefftk 6y ago
The variations are enough to have differences in infectiousness and to allow us to trace the spread a bit, but as far as we know immunity to any of them is immunity to all of them.
- kbd 6y ago
  > as far as we know immunity to any of them is immunity to all of them. What are you basing that on, when there are known cases of people getting coronavirus and then still contracting the other strain of it?
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Do you know the reinfection was a different strain? Or did the immunity to the first strain weaken?
    - bipson 6y ago
      Maybe there is a slight semantic misunderstanding here, but in fact a "re-infection" is defined as such: A patient must present a infection and the particular virus must be sequenced, and then present with an infection later on where the virus is again sequenced and identified as sufficiently different from the first sample. Otherwise it cannot be deemed a re-infection. If these small differences in the genomic sequence are already a different strand, I don't know, not an expert. But all 5 (?) cases known so far had a different sequence identified the second time.
    - kbd 6y ago
      https://www.ajmc.com/view/first-case-of-covid-19-reinfection-detected-in-the-us https://www.ajmc.com/view/first-case-of-covid-19-reinfection... > The genomes of the patient’s virus samples from April and June displayed significant genetic differences between them, suggesting that the patient was infected twice by 2 distinct COVID-19 infections. I’d read of known second infections that are from different strains, but scientists also question lasting immunity from COVID-19 infection because other coronaviruses are seasonal.
      - marketingPro 6y ago
        This seriously enrages me. We knew coronavirus was going to last years and could mutate. Why did people claim lockdowns were the "Science" solution? I was censored here for pointing out the 3 options. In reality soft lockdowns seemed to be the only wrong answer. Harsh lockdowns and no lockdowns actually provide a benefit.
        bipson 6y ago
        Assuming you are really interested. Mostly because the world is not one-dimensional. "Hard lockdown" has drastic socio-economic implications. "No lockdown" has dramatic/catastrophic socio-economic implications. The easiest to understand: In very short time the ICUs are overrun and people die. A lot of people die. "Soft lockdown" depends on the people to play along. Which seems more difficult than the people in charge thought it would be (and some still don't believe). Notably I am not arguing here for what the "right" choice is. It is simply not that easy.
        marketingPro 6y ago
        Don't use words like "a lot". Is "a lot" 1% or 80%. Hard lockdown causes 100% to suffer, but we save the 1%. A soft lockdown causes the 100 to suffer, and we only save "flatten the curve" lives. Which according to NYT ventilator stats saves 12% of people. 1% times 12% is 0.12%. No lockdown and 1% of old and obese people die. As a note coronavirus is 4x more deadly than the yearly flu and kills the same demographic. Are we overreacting on a virus that is on the same order of magnitude as a flu?
- bjarneh 6y ago
  > but as far as we know immunity to any of them is immunity to all of them. OK. The longevity of the immunity is also an issue perhaps; at least they have written articles about people becoming re-infected; so even the people who do become immune may not stay that way forever...
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    The reporting on reinfection is actually a pretty positive sign. If 10% or even 1% of people could be reinfected, you’d expect to see huge numbers of reinfections, so the fact that the news is still reporting individual cases of reinfection suggests it won’t be a practical concern.
  - dtech 6y ago
    > so even the people who do become immune may not stay that way forever... In my country there have been hundreds of thousands of confirmed Covid infections. There have been <100 confirmed re-infections. It's very early to draw the conclusion that people in general don't build up lasting immunity, and there is more than enough data to support that most people do build up immunity of several months at least. If the latter wasn't true you'd see much more re-infections.
    - bjarneh 6y ago
      > there is more than enough data to support that most people do build up immunity of several months at least. OK, some (needed) good news..
- bipson 6y ago
  I think someone should clarify the strands vs. genetic variations here. Because the reports from Denmarks Mink fiasco indicated that antibodies were not as effective on the mutation that appeared there short time ago. This would contradict the one-fits-all immunity argument.
  - barumi 6y ago
    > This would contradict the one-fits-all immunity argument. I don't think that argument is being made at all. In fact, you only need to consider that the max efficiency that's advertised is 90% to acknowledge that this vaccine is not a silver bullet.
    - bipson 6y ago
      But, that's literally what was being said above..?
  - seunosewa 6y ago
    The Danish mink mutation is the exception to the rule; that's why the government is taking extreme measures to contain it.
    - bipson 6y ago
      What I was trying to say is: I think in the thread above people are talking about different things. For the "danish mink mutation" - even if the exception to the rule - some of the above statements might not be true.

jefftk 6y ago

The variations are enough to have differences in infectiousness and to allow us to trace the spread a bit, but as far as we know immunity to any of them is immunity to all of them.

kbd 6y ago
> as far as we know immunity to any of them is immunity to all of them. What are you basing that on, when there are known cases of people getting coronavirus and then still contracting the other strain of it?
- mulmen 6y ago
  Do you know the reinfection was a different strain? Or did the immunity to the first strain weaken?
  - bipson 6y ago
    Maybe there is a slight semantic misunderstanding here, but in fact a "re-infection" is defined as such: A patient must present a infection and the particular virus must be sequenced, and then present with an infection later on where the virus is again sequenced and identified as sufficiently different from the first sample. Otherwise it cannot be deemed a re-infection. If these small differences in the genomic sequence are already a different strand, I don't know, not an expert. But all 5 (?) cases known so far had a different sequence identified the second time.
  - kbd 6y ago
    https://www.ajmc.com/view/first-case-of-covid-19-reinfection-detected-in-the-us https://www.ajmc.com/view/first-case-of-covid-19-reinfection... > The genomes of the patient’s virus samples from April and June displayed significant genetic differences between them, suggesting that the patient was infected twice by 2 distinct COVID-19 infections. I’d read of known second infections that are from different strains, but scientists also question lasting immunity from COVID-19 infection because other coronaviruses are seasonal.
    - marketingPro 6y ago
      This seriously enrages me. We knew coronavirus was going to last years and could mutate. Why did people claim lockdowns were the "Science" solution? I was censored here for pointing out the 3 options. In reality soft lockdowns seemed to be the only wrong answer. Harsh lockdowns and no lockdowns actually provide a benefit.
      - bipson 6y ago
        Assuming you are really interested. Mostly because the world is not one-dimensional. "Hard lockdown" has drastic socio-economic implications. "No lockdown" has dramatic/catastrophic socio-economic implications. The easiest to understand: In very short time the ICUs are overrun and people die. A lot of people die. "Soft lockdown" depends on the people to play along. Which seems more difficult than the people in charge thought it would be (and some still don't believe). Notably I am not arguing here for what the "right" choice is. It is simply not that easy.
        marketingPro 6y ago
        Don't use words like "a lot". Is "a lot" 1% or 80%. Hard lockdown causes 100% to suffer, but we save the 1%. A soft lockdown causes the 100 to suffer, and we only save "flatten the curve" lives. Which according to NYT ventilator stats saves 12% of people. 1% times 12% is 0.12%. No lockdown and 1% of old and obese people die. As a note coronavirus is 4x more deadly than the yearly flu and kills the same demographic. Are we overreacting on a virus that is on the same order of magnitude as a flu?
bjarneh 6y ago
> but as far as we know immunity to any of them is immunity to all of them. OK. The longevity of the immunity is also an issue perhaps; at least they have written articles about people becoming re-infected; so even the people who do become immune may not stay that way forever...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The reporting on reinfection is actually a pretty positive sign. If 10% or even 1% of people could be reinfected, you’d expect to see huge numbers of reinfections, so the fact that the news is still reporting individual cases of reinfection suggests it won’t be a practical concern.
- dtech 6y ago
  > so even the people who do become immune may not stay that way forever... In my country there have been hundreds of thousands of confirmed Covid infections. There have been <100 confirmed re-infections. It's very early to draw the conclusion that people in general don't build up lasting immunity, and there is more than enough data to support that most people do build up immunity of several months at least. If the latter wasn't true you'd see much more re-infections.
  - bjarneh 6y ago
    > there is more than enough data to support that most people do build up immunity of several months at least. OK, some (needed) good news..
bipson 6y ago
I think someone should clarify the strands vs. genetic variations here. Because the reports from Denmarks Mink fiasco indicated that antibodies were not as effective on the mutation that appeared there short time ago. This would contradict the one-fits-all immunity argument.
- barumi 6y ago
  > This would contradict the one-fits-all immunity argument. I don't think that argument is being made at all. In fact, you only need to consider that the max efficiency that's advertised is 90% to acknowledge that this vaccine is not a silver bullet.
  - bipson 6y ago
    But, that's literally what was being said above..?
- seunosewa 6y ago
  The Danish mink mutation is the exception to the rule; that's why the government is taking extreme measures to contain it.
  - bipson 6y ago
    What I was trying to say is: I think in the thread above people are talking about different things. For the "danish mink mutation" - even if the exception to the rule - some of the above statements might not be true.