6 ms·

What I don't understand is this: with tens of millions of people already vaccinated, why aren't we seeing a huge drive to collect plasma from vaccinated people

What I don't understand is this: with tens of millions of people already vaccinated, why aren't we seeing a huge drive to collect plasma from vaccinated people with high level of antibodies? In the early days of the pandemic (about 1 year ago), I remember China sent a large amount of plasma to Italy. Why can't the US do the same now? The US is sitting on millions of AstraZeneca vaccines (that are not even approvad by the FDA), and doesn't want to share. How about sending plasma?

sm4rk0 6y ago
Maybe because it's not profitable?
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Here the billboards are advertising $700 for plasma donation.
xadhominemx 6y ago
Because it’s a lot easier to manufacture and distribute the vaccines
- gizmo686 6y ago
  Vaccines and plasma serve 2 different purposes. A vaccine will provide long term protection, but do nothing to help a patient who is sick now [0]. In contrast, plasma will help a patient who is infected now, but provide no long term protection. [0] Or, at least, the Covid vaccine has not been proven to do anything to help a patient who is sick now. There are cases (such as rabies) where getting vaccinated after being infected is still beneficial.
  - xadhominemx 6y ago
    At any point there are millions or tens of millions of people with COVID. Can’t really make much of a dent with plasma.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The FDA won't allow convalescent plasma collection from vaccinated people (https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/investigational-covid-19-convalescent-plasma https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...), on the grounds that their antibody response might be different than the response from a natural infection. (I don't know enough to judge whether or not this could be expected to cause practical issues.)
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  Perhaps they could make some allowances like they did with the vaccine approval method. Wasn’t the fastest vaccine ever previously a 4+ year endeavor with animal testing?
nradov 6y ago
So far convalescent serum treatment using plasma donated by recovered COVID-19 patients hasn't been very effective. There were high hopes for this treatment at the beginning of the pandemic but so far study results have been disappointing. I doubt that serum from vaccinated people would be any more effective.
Avshalom 6y ago
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.21252736v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.21252736v... >>There was no significant difference in 28-day mortality between the two groups:
015a 6y ago
The United States has administered 2.3 million vaccination doses. Oh, lol no, not cumulatively. I mean Yesterday. We administered 2.3 million doses in about 14 daytime hours on March 12th. Naturally, the number of vaccinated individuals grows every day. That's what vaccinations do. But the number of doses we are administering every day is growing every day. One week ago, on March 8th, we administered about 2.05 million. There's no point to harvesting plasma. Why would we, as a society, try to do that on any meaningful scale when we have working vaccines, produced and administered on a global scale that humanity has in our entire history as a species never before reached? People give Trump shit for his statement that, one day, the virus will just magically disappear. He deserves it, but not because it won't disappear; it will disappear, but it won't be because of magic. The effort that the Trump administration, the Biden Administration, Project Warp Speed, the CDC, and other Federal and State Health Agencies, have put into this is something that, in 100 years, our history books will write paragraphs about. Its invisible to most of us. We still feel the legitimate and necessary fear that kept people isolated and society going over the past year. That fear isn't forever; the US was hard-hit, but the US will be one of the first countries back to normalcy, and the rest of the world will quickly follow.
- Aaronstotle 6y ago
  Really like the last part of your comment. the fact that (collectively) we created, tested, released, and are now distributing vaccines in less than a year is an incredible achievement.
- Izkata 6y ago
  > People give Trump shit for his statement that, one day, the virus will just magically disappear. He deserves it, but not because it won't disappear; it will disappear, but it won't be because of magic. The "magic" part, I think, was about perception: Infection rates have been dropping almost worldwide for two months (more, in some places), but people seem to think infections are steady or still increasing despite vaccinations (concern about variants, old messaging (we still have signs up from November here), etc). For a lot of people, it will look like magic when it's suddenly no longer a concern.
- mhh__ 6y ago

sm4rk0 6y ago

Maybe because it's not profitable?

mensetmanusman 6y ago
Here the billboards are advertising $700 for plasma donation.

xadhominemx 6y ago

Because it’s a lot easier to manufacture and distribute the vaccines

gizmo686 6y ago
Vaccines and plasma serve 2 different purposes. A vaccine will provide long term protection, but do nothing to help a patient who is sick now [0]. In contrast, plasma will help a patient who is infected now, but provide no long term protection. [0] Or, at least, the Covid vaccine has not been proven to do anything to help a patient who is sick now. There are cases (such as rabies) where getting vaccinated after being infected is still beneficial.
- xadhominemx 6y ago
  At any point there are millions or tens of millions of people with COVID. Can’t really make much of a dent with plasma.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

The FDA won't allow convalescent plasma collection from vaccinated people (https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/investigational-covid-19-convalescent-plasma https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...), on the grounds that their antibody response might be different than the response from a natural infection. (I don't know enough to judge whether or not this could be expected to cause practical issues.)

luxuryballs 6y ago
Perhaps they could make some allowances like they did with the vaccine approval method. Wasn’t the fastest vaccine ever previously a 4+ year endeavor with animal testing?

nradov 6y ago

So far convalescent serum treatment using plasma donated by recovered COVID-19 patients hasn't been very effective. There were high hopes for this treatment at the beginning of the pandemic but so far study results have been disappointing. I doubt that serum from vaccinated people would be any more effective.

Avshalom 6y ago

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.21252736v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.21252736v... >>There was no significant difference in 28-day mortality between the two groups:

015a 6y ago

The United States has administered 2.3 million vaccination doses. Oh, lol no, not cumulatively. I mean Yesterday. We administered 2.3 million doses in about 14 daytime hours on March 12th. Naturally, the number of vaccinated individuals grows every day. That's what vaccinations do. But the number of doses we are administering every day is growing every day. One week ago, on March 8th, we administered about 2.05 million. There's no point to harvesting plasma. Why would we, as a society, try to do that on any meaningful scale when we have working vaccines, produced and administered on a global scale that humanity has in our entire history as a species never before reached? People give Trump shit for his statement that, one day, the virus will just magically disappear. He deserves it, but not because it won't disappear; it will disappear, but it won't be because of magic. The effort that the Trump administration, the Biden Administration, Project Warp Speed, the CDC, and other Federal and State Health Agencies, have put into this is something that, in 100 years, our history books will write paragraphs about. Its invisible to most of us. We still feel the legitimate and necessary fear that kept people isolated and society going over the past year. That fear isn't forever; the US was hard-hit, but the US will be one of the first countries back to normalcy, and the rest of the world will quickly follow.

Aaronstotle 6y ago
Really like the last part of your comment. the fact that (collectively) we created, tested, released, and are now distributing vaccines in less than a year is an incredible achievement.
Izkata 6y ago
> People give Trump shit for his statement that, one day, the virus will just magically disappear. He deserves it, but not because it won't disappear; it will disappear, but it won't be because of magic. The "magic" part, I think, was about perception: Infection rates have been dropping almost worldwide for two months (more, in some places), but people seem to think infections are steady or still increasing despite vaccinations (concern about variants, old messaging (we still have signs up from November here), etc). For a lot of people, it will look like magic when it's suddenly no longer a concern.
mhh__ 6y ago