This is not good - Covid immunity maybe not lasting

[CenterField]

In this small study from China involving asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic people with COVID-19, after 2 to 3 months there was a steep decline in antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6

This doesn't bode well for the efficacy of a vaccine. Darn. I've been very optimistic about a vaccine.

Oh well, maybe a vaccine will offer some protection but will have to be taken four times per year.

[CenterField]

Unrelated but interesting: when people start having COVID-19 symptoms, if they experience headaches, and especially headaches + loss of sense of smell, they seem to have milder cases of COVID-19 than those who don't experience these symptoms:

https://www.mdedge.com/neurology/art...f%20COVID%2D19

[CenterField]

Well, I'm gathering three interesting COVID-19 reports here. This one is not from a scientific source but does contain an interesting point that I've seen highlighted elsewhere, by the legitimate scientific community (in specific forums for scientists): the fact that the false positives in antibody tests can completely throw off the calculation (some estimates of the size of the infected cohort like the infamous flawed Santa Clara study contain grossly wrong conclusions due to not taking into account false positives - and in the Santa Clara study, topping it by collecting a biased sample).

Do you think if a test is 90% accurate, it gives you a 90% chance of getting it right? No, in the situation of a small percentage of the population actually having had the infection, it gives you a 70% chance of being wrong. Interesting statistics trick... and one unknown to even doctors, like this article says.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/o...gtype=Homepage

@MMC this is relevant to a discussion we were having, on how *opinions* issued even by doctors can be useless if not based on sound science.

[CenterField]

These two articles, again, lay press, talk about long-term consequences for people who recove from COVID-19.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...uding-chronic/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/revealed-...131737643.html

Scar in lungs can happen to up to 30% of patients who recover from a severe bout of illness. As a lay-person publication, this website has misinterpreted what was said, saying it applies to 30% of all cases. No, these should apply to severe cases only. Someone with a mild or asymptomatic infection wouldn't be likely to come out of it with scar tissue in the lungs.

[Peter1469]

Not good news for the Moderna vaccine

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

​

• Two Moderna executives cashed in $25 million when stock prices rose immediately following the announcement that its COVID-19 phase 1 trial showed promising results
• Stock dropped within days, as critics pointed out the results were likely misrepresented and actually quite alarming
• Twenty percent of Moderna’s phase 1 volunteers suffered severe systemic side effects. With a reaction rate of 20%, vaccinating the global population would gravely injure at least 1.5 billion individuals, and likely more, since only exceptionally healthy volunteers were included
• The most hazardous hurdle for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine lies ahead. Past attempts at creating coronavirus vaccines have failed, as both animal and human subjects would develop robust antibody responses but then become gravely ill when exposed to the wild virus. In some animal studies, all the animals died upon exposure to the wild virus
• Coronaviruses have been shown to produce two different types of antibodies: neutralizing antibodies that fight the infection, and binding antibodies that cannot prevent viral infection. Binding antibodies can instead trigger “paradoxical immune enhancement,” causing severe illness and/or death when exposed to the wild virus

[BenjaminO]

@CenterField Thanks for all the valuable information.

[BenjaminO]

Not good news for the Moderna vaccine

Crap. That is not good news at all.
Too bad they can't make the execs give back the 25 million.

[Peter1469]

Crap. That is not good news at all.
Too bad they can't make the execs give back the 25 million.

It is possible they can. If they can prove insider trading it can be clawed back.

[countryboy]

In this small study from China involving asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic people with COVID-19, after 2 to 3 months there was a steep decline in antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6

This doesn't bode well for the efficacy of a vaccine. Darn. I've been very optimistic about a vaccine.

Oh well, maybe a vaccine will offer some protection but will have to be taken four times per year.

Seriously? Dismissed out of hand.

[Peter1469]

Seriously? Dismissed out of hand.

Why?

If China was fudging numbers (again) why would they publish negative results?