Coronavirus Thread III: The Show Must Not Go On (READ OP)

[Rojava Free State]

To be clear: if they weren't building immunity, everyone would still have it.

Yes. The only issue is if the immune system memory related to Coronavirus fades after...let's say...a month, then it's pretty much useless in terms of allowing society to open back up again.

Does anyone know how long on average the immune system remembers a disease?

[Post War America]

Yes. The only issue is if the immune system memory related to Coronavirus fades after...let's say...a month, then it's pretty much useless in terms of allowing society to open back up again.

Does anyone know how long on average the immune system remembers a disease?

Depends on the disease, and how the antibodies are made.

[The New California Republic]

Yes. The only issue is if the immune system memory related to Coronavirus fades after...let's say...a month, then it's pretty much useless in terms of allowing society to open back up again.

Does anyone know how long on average the immune system remembers a disease?

When infection occurs, normally memory B-cells and T- cells develop, these form the basis of the immune system memory. In many cases the memory can last for the life of the person, meaning that response to reinfection by the same pathogen is much more efficient. The problem is that there is a lot that we don't know about how the immune system responds to this specific virus, so it'd be wrong to give a person who has been previously infected a free pass to go wherever they like, as some countries are doing.

[Salandriagado]

https://time.com/5810454/coronavirus-im ... infection/
TL;DR. We don't know yet if we actually build any immunity.

How do people recover at all if they don't develop the antibodies to fight the virus?

Simplifying horribly, you've got two separate immune responses: there's the generalised response, that is just stuff that works against most problems, that just hangs around doing its thing, and there's the specific response, which is developed in response to a specific infection. Antibodies are part of the latter. There have been a number of cases in which people have fought off the virus using only the former. Notably, however, they had minor symptoms (necessarily, because if it got more serious, the specific immune response would have kicked in and produced antibodies) and those of them who caught it later showed even more minor symptoms (and by that I really do mean minor: going from memory here, but a handful had a bit of a cough, and the large majority were totally asymptomatic the second time).


TL;DR: Thepeople's claim is vastly overstated.

[Salandriagado]

How do people recover at all if they don't develop the antibodies to fight the virus?

Perhaps after fighting off the virus with antibodies their immune system stops making antibodies ... for some sciency reason.

Apparently once produced, an antibody cell lives for about a month. It would vary between antibodies I expect.

OK, so there's three things here:

1. Antibodies. These aren't cells, but proteins. There are a bunch of variants, with varying half lives (though the most common subtype, IgG1, has a half life of 21 days, so your "about a month" wasn't far off.
2. Plasma cells. These are the cells that make the antibodies (simplifying horribly). They last between several months and several decades, depending on the type.
3. Memory B-cells. These are a dormant variant of plasma cells, which hang around essentially forever (decades), and are there to kickstart the immune response if you catch the same disease somewhere down the line.

[Insert the usual disclaimer about this being a massive oversimplification here - there are a whole load of other immune cells with varying jobs and lifetimes]

We know that the vast majority of people produce #1 in response to SARS-CoV-2 (indeed, that's exactly what the serological tests are looking for), and therefore necessarily also produce #2 (because that's the only place the antibodies could be coming from). We also know that the antibodies are effective (apart from having successfully cleared the infection, the serious scientific studies double-check their positive serological results by taking a sample and deliberately infecting it with COVID-19, then watch the antibodies kill it off). Some fraction of the B-cells produced will shift into memory B cells. The relevant questions are what fraction, and how effective those are, long-term.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291529/, plus a whole bunch of reading around it.

[Salandriagado]

Considering coronavirus cause many common colds, I wonder if all coronaviruses started off as deadly as Covid, and just evolved to become harmless nuisances. And if they did, that would mean that we would have to repeat lockdowns annually for the foreseeable future. God help us all. Also, it would mean that we have a cold which is prominate in the tropics. God help us all

Your second sentence doesn't follow from your first at all. In particular, we already know that SARS-CoV-2 is undergoing weakening deletions at a reasonable rate, so if that hypothesis is correct, there's no reason to expect it not to become mostly harmless relatively quickly. Notably, we don't have lockdowns every year to deal with the other six coronaviruses. This one is also the only one that we've ever invested any real effort into finding a vaccine for, and seems to be mutating much more slowly than the others (to the point that such a vaccine is likely to stay effective).

[Salandriagado]

Right. As I see it, though, reinfection must be the exception rather than the rule (ie, very rare), or it would have been reported in a lot of cases already.

And the working theory was false positives rather than reinfection.

There have been a handful of rigorously confirmed reinfections in children. All were either asymtomatic or very close to it on the second pass.

[Fartsniffage]

Perhaps after fighting off the virus with antibodies their immune system stops making antibodies ... for some sciency reason.

Apparently once produced, an antibody cell lives for about a month. It would vary between antibodies I expect.

OK, so there's three things here:

1. Antibodies. These aren't cells, but proteins. There are a bunch of variants, with varying half lives (though the most common subtype, IgG1, has a half life of 21 days, so your "about a month" wasn't far off.
2. Plasma cells. These are the cells that make the antibodies (simplifying horribly). They last between several months and several decades, depending on the type.
3. Memory B-cells. These are a dormant variant of plasma cells, which hang around essentially forever (decades), and are there to kickstart the immune response if you catch the same disease somewhere down the line.

[Insert the usual disclaimer about this being a massive oversimplification here - there are a whole load of other immune cells with varying jobs and lifetimes]

We know that the vast majority of people produce #1 in response to COVID-19 (indeed, that's exactly what the serological tests are looking for), and therefore necessarily also produce #2 (because that's the only place the antibodies could be coming from). We also know that the antibodies are effective (apart from having successfully cleared the infection, the serious scientific studies double-check their positive serological results by taking a sample and deliberately infecting it with COVID-19, then watch the antibodies kill it off). Some fraction of the B-cells produced will shift into memory B cells. The relevant questions are what fraction, and how effective those are, long-term.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291529/, plus a whole bunch of reading around it.

I think you should add in something about T Killer cells. Not because it would make things clearer, but because I only learned of their existence yesterday and they're cool as fuck. Just roaming around murdering the shit out of other human cells they don't like the look of. And they're called T Killer cells which make me think of the Terminator.

[Salandriagado]

There are different immune responses besides antibody production by B cells, so it is possible to fight an infection without them with just the T cells and NK cells, but it is not nearly as efficient.

Fair enough. Still doesn't change my original point- if you fought it the first time without antibodies, you'll fight it again without anti-bodies. Why wouldn't anti-bodies be produced anyway?

Your immune system isn't intelligent. Antibodies are produced when there's something there to stimulate their production. If the virus gets cleared up by something else first, there's nothing to stimulate that production.

[Salandriagado]

Fair enough. Still doesn't change my original point- if you fought it the first time without antibodies, you'll fight it again without anti-bodies. Why wouldn't anti-bodies be produced anyway?

The B cells will be producing antibodies during the infection, but the problem is "immune system memory", in that the length of time that the immune system "remembers" how to fight a specific invader can vary widely. Currently the WHO is saying there is no evidence that the immune system memory related to Coronavirus is long-lived, as there is currently no detailed research on it.

This, indeed, is fairly obvious - you can't really tell how long it will last without waiting long enough for it to run out.

[Salandriagado]

Considering coronavirus cause many common colds, I wonder if all coronaviruses started off as deadly as Covid, and just evolved to become harmless nuisances. And if they did, that would mean that we would have to repeat lockdowns annually for the foreseeable future. God help us all. Also, it would mean that we have a cold which is prominate in the tropics. God help us all

Viruses have a tendency to start off worse than they evolve. I know the Spanish flu did the opposite but Spanish flu was an abnormality. Fact is, evolution favors a virus that is less deadly. The virus best equipped to survive is one that kills no one (i don't think that exists but it's a hypothetical perfect ideal), because imagine how far a disease can spread if its host isn't on a time crunch before death. I believe that COVID will eventually evolve to be less lethal. That could happen anytime between next month and years from now, so I wouldn't risk doing nothing and waiting for COVID to stop killing people.

There are a whole load of viruses that don't kill anyone, or even cause symptoms. There's less research on them than the dangerous kind, but there are a few papers suggesting potential beneficial uses of them.

[Salandriagado]

Yes. The only issue is if the immune system memory related to Coronavirus fades after...let's say...a month, then it's pretty much useless in terms of allowing society to open back up again.

Does anyone know how long on average the immune system remembers a disease?

Varies to a frankly ridiculous degree. About a month is pretty much the lower bound, but it goes up from there to "literally forever".

[Ethel mermania]

Does anyone know how long on average the immune system remembers a disease?

Varies to a frankly ridiculous degree. About a month is pretty much the lower bound, but it goes up from there to "literally forever".

It also varies person to person, the reason we get measles booster shots is there is a % of the population where the immunity is 'Forgotten' by the body, but most retain their immunity.

Biology be weird.

[The Alma Mater]

So, British doctors are warning Corona might harm kids. Keyword might, since it could be a seperate illness that coincidentally emerges at the same time.

https://www.businessinsider.nl/doctors- ... =true&r=US
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 85441.html

[Kyapo]

I wonder how our Neanderthal DNA is effecting our immune response? Might explain some anomalies in some locations. It has been a subject of studies for a while.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Perhaps after fighting off the virus with antibodies their immune system stops making antibodies ... for some sciency reason.

Apparently once produced, an antibody cell lives for about a month. It would vary between antibodies I expect.

OK, so there's three things here:

1. Antibodies. These aren't cells, but proteins. There are a bunch of variants, with varying half lives (though the most common subtype, IgG1, has a half life of 21 days, so your "about a month" wasn't far off.
2. Plasma cells. These are the cells that make the antibodies (simplifying horribly). They last between several months and several decades, depending on the type.
3. Memory B-cells. These are a dormant variant of plasma cells, which hang around essentially forever (decades), and are there to kickstart the immune response if you catch the same disease somewhere down the line.

[Insert the usual disclaimer about this being a massive oversimplification here - there are a whole load of other immune cells with varying jobs and lifetimes]

We know that the vast majority of people produce #1 in response to SARS-CoV-2 (indeed, that's exactly what the serological tests are looking for), and therefore necessarily also produce #2 (because that's the only place the antibodies could be coming from). We also know that the antibodies are effective (apart from having successfully cleared the infection, the serious scientific studies double-check their positive serological results by taking a sample and deliberately infecting it with COVID-19, then watch the antibodies kill it off). Some fraction of the B-cells produced will shift into memory B cells. The relevant questions are what fraction, and how effective those are, long-term.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291529/, plus a whole bunch of reading around it.

I was sufficiently vague that I wasn't outright wrong. Except about antibodies being cells ...

Anyway now I'm confused in a much better-informed way! Thanks for that.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

So, British doctors are warning Corona might harm kids. Keyword might, since it could be a seperate illness that coincidentally emerges at the same time.

https://www.businessinsider.nl/doctors- ... =true&r=US
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 85441.html

I'm disappointed Kawasaki Disease doesn't turn kids into motorbikes. That would be welcome to some ...

It doesn't look all that serious and the first link mentions that it's been recorded in kids who tested negative for covid. Nonetheless it makes me think twice about my call for kids to be sent back to school. Gonna wait on that one.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Oops world. Looks like we are now completing the Black Death memes collection people.

[Greed and Death]

So here is a sum of the questions doctors have been asking.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04 ... ng-us.html

It appears to attack the immune system, mutates extremely fast, and kills via silent hypoxia.

[Vetalia]

Viruses have a tendency to start off worse than they evolve. I know the Spanish flu did the opposite but Spanish flu was an abnormality. Fact is, evolution favors a virus that is less deadly. The virus best equipped to survive is one that kills no one (i don't think that exists but it's a hypothetical perfect ideal), because imagine how far a disease can spread if its host isn't on a time crunch before death. I believe that COVID will eventually evolve to be less lethal. That could happen anytime between next month and years from now, so I wouldn't risk doing nothing and waiting for COVID to stop killing people.

As far as I know, the coronaviruses that cause the common cold are exactly that kind of virus. I don't think anyone has ever died from an infection by one of those...maybe pneumonia from a secondary infection but not from the virus itself.

[Knask]

The right approach for Sweden may not be the right approach for the rest of the world.

For an example, let's compare Sweden and Haiti.
They have similar populations (10 million vs 11 million), but Sweden's population is spread across 450,295 km². Haiti's 11 million, meanwhile, is spread across 27,750 km². Haiti is much more densely populated, and also poorer.

Sweden's strategy might work because the population is so spread out. In Haiti, Sweden's strategy means that the virus would ravage the population, overwhelming the healthcare system.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure even America couldn't handle Sweden'a strategy. Props to Sweden for finding something that worked but my country's hospitals would be overwhelmed and people would die who could otherwise be saved.

Yeah, props to Sweden for letting people die who could otherwise be saved because the hospitals in Stockholm got overwhelmed. Props all around! Remarkable success there, celebrated by the minister for social affairs calling their attempts at protecting the vulnerable and elderly "a huge failure, without any doubt". Props and kudos both.

[San Lumen]

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/us-cor ... 350a24aa8b

Governor Cuomo has announced the stay at home order will be extended past May 15th in my many parts of the state. I fully expect many businesses will go bankrupt at this point.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ty ... LajvJwaoOk
The CEO of Tyson Foods is warning there will soon be food shortages

[Greater vakolicci haven]

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/us-coronavirus-update-04-27-20/h_90529aef671483ea8ec94b350a24aa8b

Governor Cuomo has announced the stay at home order will be extended past May 15th in my many parts of the state. I fully expect many businesses will go bankrupt at this point.

But didn't you know? Every person possible must be saved from the nasty horrible virus at any cost.

[Free Ward Marchers]

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/us-coronavirus-update-04-27-20/h_90529aef671483ea8ec94b350a24aa8b

Governor Cuomo has announced the stay at home order will be extended past May 15th in my many parts of the state. I fully expect many businesses will go bankrupt at this point.

I'm like how the politicians are like Nah you won't go bankrupt we'll just throw taxpayer money at you like throwing money at it will fix the problem

[San Lumen]

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/us-coronavirus-update-04-27-20/h_90529aef671483ea8ec94b350a24aa8b

Governor Cuomo has announced the stay at home order will be extended past May 15th in my many parts of the state. I fully expect many businesses will go bankrupt at this point.

I'm like how the politicians are like Nah you won't go bankrupt we'll just throw taxpayer money at you like throwing money at it will fix the problem

Yes we will just print money. That’s the solution.