I’ve read where mild cases can have poor immune response which could set the stage for a more severe infection later
Mild infections don’t produce as vigorous of an immune response or at least that’s the current thought supported by limited data. No proof that second infections are inherently always worse or better.
Regarding CDC changing quarantine to 10 days instead of 14 days after positive exposure: new study says The probability of having a positive test fell to less than 5% after day 10. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7001a2.htm
Was going to ask pperc for his comments about this Reuters wire. https://news.trust.org/item/20210108022715-m5obt
I wouldn’t be too encouraged by that release. It’s largely propaganda from a for profit company. There are 23 known mutations. The vaccine needs to be tested against the wild strains of the virus and that has not yet been done.
what do you have questions about? all looks fine to me. go read the paper and avoid the journalist headlines. they aren't scientists and often over-interpret what the paper actually says.
That's not a release put out by either company, that's a news article trying to interpret a scientific paper put out for the scientific community to gain knowledge, with a few pretty balanced quotes thrown in from a scientist busting his ass to save ours. What the fuck are you popping off about?
Well at least I know I'm finally on someone's list to get vaccinated. Local VA told me when they get to my age group, after they check for allergies, etc they will contact me to schedule. They are on 75 and up now, only gotta get to that 40 to 45 bracket and I'm golden lol.
New to the thread so apologies if already asked and answered: is there a chance this is evidence of ADE? If so, might vaccines sensitize us to Covid ADE?
I think you're probably the only one qualified here to really interpret a high level academic paper about virology. I'm mostly wondering what do you think that the Pfizer vaccine will have a high efficacy of protection against the strain that had more mutations than some of the others? I'm assuming it's more than zero but is it above say 50%?
I’m still worried about the SA variant. We need more info. It’s good to know these single point mutations on their own arent preventing nAbs but more work needed.
Random question but does anyone know how you go about proving that you're an essential worker? Trying to get my ducks in a row as I run HR for our small company that is considered essential. Have several employees with medical conditions so want to be sure they can get the vaccine as early as possible. I have been trying to read through everything that I can but a lot of it is vague and I haven't seen any specific language on that.
Related, I think you've said that you agree that this strain is already widely circulating in the US. I can't remember if I came across it in a tweet or I heard it on the NPR, but the UK found this because they had identified over 20 something strains of COVID-19 with PCR analysis. At the same time the US had less than 10 that would be identified by PCR analysis, at least I guess with most lab companies even though there's no evidence to suggest why there would be a big difference. Given that we are continuing to set records with infections I'm hoping we'll get some good data quickly as millions get vaccinated this month.
It’s here in Houston. Had the first confirmed case here the other day and it was the first case of it in Texas. Super good timing with numbers going through the roof and the governor shitting on all city rollbacks.
The UK i think is. The SA variant, I'm less sure it's here. The U.S. is doing a far worse job on viral genome sequencing than the U.S. Which is pathetic.
To my knowledge SA has not been identified yet in the USA. That doesn’t mean it’s not here. Our testing/identification efforts are not good. I think it’s likely here and circulating . If it’s not here, it will get here.
The UK strain was identified in a guy here in Georgia who didn't have any international travel history. I'd be shocked if the SA strain wasn't circulating in most major metros to some degree.
I was referencing the quotes from the Pfizer scientist that were in all of the articles last night and this morning saying that the vaccine should be fine against the SA variant. I’m not an immunologist and don’t pretend to be one. I’m just relaying what a very high level one tells me. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. He thinks we are going to need to develop T Cell vaccines now, which only a few cellular immunologists understand. And that the South African variant is really bad news because it’s likely more deadly and causes thrombosis.
Sounds like there are mixed opinions on whether or not the South African strain is more or less deadly. I don’t claim to be in the know, but I think it’s been said there is not enough data on it yet
I don’t know enough to say either way. This person has access to everything and that’s what he said. I was relaying what he said. If no one wants to hear it, that’s fine with me too.
Which quote? I don't see any quotes from a Pfizer scientist saying what you think they are saying. I think you are misinterpreting it. Please reply with the specific quote. This particular immunologist sounds like a T-cell biologist. And all T-cell biologists think we need T-cell based vaccines for every single virus. Academics are incredibly biased to prefer whatever it is they work on. There is no ivory tower. Grant money is at stake (if you want to get into "for profit companies" - well academics are paid more the more grant money they bring in so they are themselves "for profit"). The vaccines we have already elicit T-cell responses. We need nAbs and we need T-cell responses and for them to claim that T-cells are the correlate of protection here is extremely incorrect and a massive overstatement. And no, many immunologists/vaccinologists understand T-cells based vaccines, it's not "only a few". I have not seen data that the SA variant is more deadly or has a higher rate of causing thrombosis. I would like to see such data.
The lady friend got her second pfizer injection last night. First one she just had a sore arm. This one much more arm pain and extreme nausea. I have heard that the second dose is known to be worse than the first. Thank god. If the first was like this there is no way we would get enough people to come back for the booster to ever reach herd immunity.
Another anecdote but the lady boss got her second shot on Wednesday and the soreness was lesser than the first time around and no evident side effects. So YMMV.
oh god i wish this was true and Fauci would come post on TMB. In response to his post, I did e-mail Slaoui to say happy new year to him and his family and asked his thoughts on the vaccines protecting from the SA variant.
You relaying what someone said is fine (especially if you have the balls to tell us who said it so we can decide if it’s meaningful or not). You attacking industry scientists working their asses off saying it’s propaganda is not fine. stop PM’ing me already. You don’t like me and think I’m an asshole? Fine, I don’t care. But PMing me to tell me who your friend is and then calling me an asshole at the end? The fuck is wrong with you?
To be clear for everyone: I am still concerned about the SA variant given the significant changes in the spike protein. So far, no published evidence of an issue with the vaccines against this strain though. But if there is, it’ll be a shitty set back for sure. Nothing is black and white though. We have a 95% effective at preventing Covid symptoms vaccine. That’s very good. These mutations are likely to operate on a gradient, as I doubt there is 1 or even 2 dominant nuetralizing epitopes. Likely many more. So effective dropping to 80% even is still useful. Just need to get vaccines in arms and get spread under control.
I heard back from Moncef this morning. To paraphrase, he mentioned the study yesterday as initially cautious good news. He went on to say that the NIH is extremely focused on work on this and work is ongoing. He personally feels that this will be more like RSV than flu. Maybe 2-3 “types” but not a slew of varients from an immune protection standpoint. He ends with “only time will tell”.
This is true. Wouldn’t be possible to change it yearly if we needed to. It was designed, though, against a common epitope across RSV strains. In this case, we don’t have a full picture yet of what will grow out.
I see they are investigating the determine the exact cause of death, but every anti-vaxxer I know of is sharing this story on social media.