
Functional SARS-CoV-2-specific immune memory persists after mild Covid-19 - rexbee
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.11.20171843v2
======
mniak
That's some great news!

~~~
panny
There's more great news. Most of the HCQ studies show it has positive
benefits,

[https://c19study.com/](https://c19study.com/)

The only studies where results are mixed are where HCQ is administered too
late to do any good. PrEP, PEP, and Early treatment studies are all positive
or inconclusive at worst.

~~~
ageitgey
That page is very poor. It uses every trick in the book to try to make poor
science look scientific:

1\. Cherry picking: It says HCQ-using countries always have lower death rates
than non-HCQ countries, but omits countries like Brazil where HCQ is widely
used but the results are poor.

2\. Junk sources: To explain why countries are or aren't included in the HCQ
using or non-HCQ using groups, they say it is based on how widespread HCQ
usage is in that country. For example, it says Brazil isn't included because
HCQ usage is mixed. To prove this, it cities sources - which if you are refer
to the references - are "high quality sources" such as literally a guy's
Medium posted entitled "Hydroxychloroquine: the narrative that it doesn’t work
is the biggest hoax in recent human history" (since removed by Medium) and
"@CovidCrusher on Twitter". It's just junk built on top of junk. This is not
science.

3\. Totally ignoring relative study quality: Every scientist knows that gold-
standard randomized control trials provide more evidence than any number of
weak observational studies. However, this site lists tons weak retrospective
studies with tiny sample sizes and minimal effect on outcomes as "Positive" in
cheerful bold green while dismissing high-quality randomized control studies
with large sample sizes as testing the wrong thing or testing at the wrong
time ("Late") or whatever.

4\. Ignoring or changing results: If a study disagrees with their preordained
conclusions, they either mark it as "inconclusive" or literally just mark it
as positive when the authors said it was negative and then add an explanation
about how the study authors "were wrong" in their conclusions. Can't disrupt
the 100% green "Positive" rating!

Science doesn't progress by summing up bad evidence and calling it good
evidence. If you want to show that HCQ works, show a single randomized control
study with a large sample size that shows it does anything.

~~~
panny
You refute a page with scientific studies and their outcomes with talking
points. That's all I really need to know about your argument.

~~~
ageitgey
Talking points? I pointed to specific reasons why their analysis is flawed and
doesn't say what they claim it says.

------
peter_d_sherman
>"Thus, we performed a longitudinal assessment of individuals recovered from
mildly symptomatic COVID-19 to determine if they develop and sustain
immunological memory against the virus.

We found that recovered individuals developed SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG
_antibody and neutralizing plasma_ , as well as virus-specific memory B and T
cells that _not only persisted, but in some cases increased numerically over
three months following symptom onset_.

Furthermore, the SARS-CoV-2-specific memory lymphocytes exhibited
_characteristics associated with potent antiviral immunity_ : memory T cells
secreted IFN-γ and expanded upon antigen re-encounter, while memory B cells
expressed receptors capable of neutralizing virus when expressed as
antibodies.

These findings demonstrate that mild COVID-19 elicits memory lymphocytes that
persist and display functional hallmarks associated with _antiviral protective
immunity_."

PDS: In other words, having, or having once had, a mild case of Covid-19 /
CoronaVirus -- means that there's a very good chance that the individual or
individuals so affected will have antibodies protecting them (and by default,
others) from it in the future!

AKA "Herd Immunity".

Or phrased another way, once you get it or have had it and get through it,
once you're over it, the chances of you getting it again are much lower than
the first time.

But, wait, _where have I seen this pattern before?_

Oh, that's right -- this pattern is common to most diseases!

That is the generalized pattern of disease (for most diseases) is this:

Once you have a disease, and get over it, usually (but not always, but
usually), _you 've got much lower odds of getting it a second time, and if and
when you do, the odds are such that the second time will be milder or less
severe._

That's a basic rule, a basic _principle_ of disease _that every self-
respecting medical practitioner should be taught on day one in class one of
medical college_!

(Phrased another way: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." (with my
apologies to Nietzsche! <g>))

Also, the above _principle_ is the underlying principle which gives the idea
of vaccination its efficiacy, that is, it's the underlying idea of _what makes
vaccines work_.

That is because vaccines are typically based on injecting weakened strains of
a disease into the body, such that the body's own defense systems "learn" how
to fight this weakened strain!

That is, if you say you believe in vaccines and you say you don't believe in
the above principle (of disease in the body at an earlier point in time
causing immunity to that same disease later) -- then you are in self-
contradiction!

Either you say that the above principle does work (in which case you must also
believe in Herd Immunity, because Herd Immunity is _based on the same
principle_!), or you're saying that you DO NOT believe in vaccines (because
you do not believe in this underlying _principle_!)

All I know is that many in the media, social, news and otherwise -- will be
shown to be _inconsistent_ in their beliefs via this.

You cannot have the concept of vaccination working -- without the equal-and-
opposite concept of Herd Immunity also being valid.

And if Herd Immunity works -- then what's the necessity for those so immunized
to be vaccinated?

There isn't!

Logic 101...

~~~
Fjolsvith
This is why I tell people I'm practicing my herd immunity when I don't wear a
mask.

~~~
shadowgovt
It works the other way. The mask mostly blocks particles leaving you if you
already have COVID.

You're not "practising herd immunity," you're forcing it on others without
their consent.

~~~
Fjolsvith
This well-stated argument shows how you're forcing other's social
responsibility to protect themselves on me:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24290681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24290681)

~~~
shadowgovt
Correct. This is SOP during a pandemic. It's something that happens sometimes
when we live in a society and are faced with a disease with chance of
permanent injury or death and no cure.

In some cultures, a person who was sick had to live outside of town and yell
"UNCLEAN!" to warn the uninfected if they had a transmissible disease. And
hell, this country exiled Typhoid Mary to a relatively small island for the
protection of everybody else. This disease isn't quite infectious enough to
necessitate that, but a piece of cloth is a pretty simple and effective
compromise until we have widely distributed efficient enough testing to know
with some certainty in a short timeframe whether a person is infected or not.

If it's too much a burden to bear, you can always remove yourself from the
presence of mainstream society until such testing is available.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Or, those vulnerable (and we cannot now pretend we don't know who they are)
can remove themselves and not place the risk of their infection in the hands
of others.

Quarantine is where you lock up sick people.

Tyranny is where you lock down healthy ones.

And, as far as SOP during a pandemic, I disagree. This is the first time in
the last 50 years (that I've been alive) that I've seen this happen in the US.

~~~
shadowgovt
> Quarantine is where you lock up sick people

Due to the long asymptomatic infectious period for this disease, lacking a
quick and accurate testing solution, we don't know who the sick people are.
That's one of the major challenges of this particular outbreak.

History's memory is longer than 50 years. The word _quarantine_ derives from
the practice of requiring that ships entering harbor from infected ports stay
at anchor off the coast for 40 days. Unfortunately, in the era of modern air
travel, and given the long incubation period for this illness, it passed the
ports and got into cities and countrysides before it could be contained.

You also continue to conflate quarantine with the simple public health
practice of wearing a cloth to catch droplets in case you are sick. The two
are not the same thing. nobody in the United States, at least, is going around
welding people's doors shut to keep them at home (though it is, perhaps, worth
noting that the countries that did that have already gotten back to life as
normal ;) ).

~~~
Fjolsvith
Additionally, it occurred to me that the sick people on the ships were locked
down, not the cities with the ports.

~~~
shadowgovt
The sick and the healthy were quarantined together on the ships. In the days
of ship quarantine, germ theory of medicine and understanding of communicable
disease wasn't where it was now; they understood disease communication but not
the mechanism. The best solution they had was to have the inbound stay
separated from the general populace, because whatever the mechanism, no
disease had ever taken as long as 40 days to show up.

Once a disease got into a city, entire cities were, indeed, cut off---the sick
and the healthy together---because nobody could be sure how the disease would
spread if free commerce were allowed into the surrounding cities and towns.

(There's an interesting parallel to COVID-19, in that while we do understand
germ theory of medicine, we don't have accurate enough testing to determine if
the average healthy-looking person is a carrier. So the practical solutions
lean towards the conservative side of safety. More accurate, higher-speed
testing could decrease the need for general behavioral constraints in the
population... If, for example, there was a 'forehead scanner' to tell us if
someone had COVID-19 to 99.999% accuracy, instead of merely had a fever, we
could install it at every store entrance and forego masks).

