Two new studies give encouraging evidence that having COVID-19 may offer some protection against future infections. Researchers found that people who made antibodies to the coronavirus were much less likely to test positive again for up to six months and maybe longer.
Good news at a nasty time. My hope has been that immunity to covid would be long term much like it is with polio. Then again we will be needing continuing vaccinations as ee do with the flu because covid will mutate over time as we have seen from the new strain out of Britain.
I am well over 65 and I am looking forward to my two shots.
Combine that with kicking trump out of office and we will be having a much better 2021 than this past year. I want no repeat of what we have been thru. I hooe somebody kept a copy of Obama’s epidemic playbook.
I recall reading in multiple venues that the current vaccines are suspected (or confirmed?) to possibly offer immunity for as little as three months in some people. Yet that gets damn little play in the major media.
It was exactly one year ago when I was afflicted with symptoms that were identical to many of the markers of COVID-19: loss of taste and smell, extreme lethargy, chills, 104ÂşF temperature, cough, diarrhea, pain all over. The fever waxed and waned as some vicious cycle of breaking, followed with a fever that roared back. There was no medical diagnosis for what I had as there were no tests.
An antibody test would put my mind at ease. Reliable tests can be elusive, but hold some allure for me.
“…up to six months and maybe longer.”
Or maybe not.
I wouldn’t focus on the duration aspect yet (it will take years to fully determine how long infection or vaccination will protect). The important news in this study is that infection does confer some level of immunity, which has been presumed, but not confirmed, previously.
That means our traditional approaches (public health measures, vaccinations, etc) can work if we use them effectively.
Given that the testing has only been in progress for a few months, maybe that is as long as any sufficiently large population has been followed.
It won’t take years if a significant number of vaccinated people nevertheless suffer COVID-19 infections 3-4-5 months after vaccination.
Well, one would really hope that getting the disease would confer immunity from future infections. I mean, isn’t that normal? What viral diseases do not confer immunity for future re-infections? (Seriously: which ones?)
And I don’t mean constantly mutating, variable stuff like Seasonal Flu and colds, which are both coronoviruses, too.
Vaccinations can and do fail (hence the “95%” effective statements accompanying the recent ones), so “vaccinated” people getting later infected in months doesn’t necessarily means immunity lasts that long. It would still likely take years to confirm one way or the other.
The coronavirus’ current R0 (reinfection rate) is pretty hard to nail down, but even if it’s on the high end, the virus will die out – or at least go to very minimal background noise – when enough people are immune/resistant to it. Even if a few people only benefit from a few months of vaccination immunity, that’s still a significant benefit in the overall scheme of things. It also elides whether the vaccinations boost the patient’s natural immunological response if they do end up getting reinfected, which they probably do.
There’s likely going to be a point sometime this spring where enough people have gotten vaccinated, and enough already have already gotten sick and recovered, that the virus is going to have a harder time finding new hosts. New cases and deaths will go way down, and people are going to stop caring about getting vaccinated as a result. Government authorities are going to really have to push the vaccine on everyone else when that happens.
Covid-19 is caused by a coronavirus. Influenza is not a coronavirus caused disease however both are RNA viruses:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
… … …
The common cold we all know and have had is not caused by one virus but many different ones some of which are indeed corona viruses.
That will be hard to do, as most people are uncomfortable with having a GPS tracker flowing in their bloodstream.
It will be hard because there’s less incentive to get jabbed when the objective risk of catching the disease becomes fairly low, not because – their online shoutiness notwithstanding – “most” people are QAnon anti-vaxxers.
I’m concerned that we’ll have a period of time when people ease up on protocols and have a wave of infections from those who haven’t been vaccinated yet. I hope that people who have been vaccinated are aware enough to continue the precautions until we get herd immunity (and I’m also angry that this is another term that the Trump administration has poisoned).
Adherence to CDC guidelines as to masks, physical distancing, crowd limits in social settings and self quarantining when you suspect contact with an infected person is spotty to downright non-existent in vast swaths of the nation, most especially in red states and rural areas. The efforts of the populace to control this is shameful. You can’t read or hear any story about this pandemic without the reporter stumbling across several people that have surrendered to the disease, spouting “If it’s meant to be, it will be” bullshit. God’s will. My uncle got it and survived, so will I.
Exactly. And even with people who are careful, science only matters until it conflicts with something a person wants to do, and then “it won’t hurt to do it just this one time” prevails.
First bright spot since Biden was confirmed.
Don’t forget the changes to your DNA. QANON says it’s so and the anti-vaxxers are running with it.