
Coronavirus: 8% of recovered patients in one study didn't develop antibodies - pseudolus
https://www.businessinsider.com/study-recovered-coronavirus-patients-antibodies-2020-4
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sciencewolf
Sensationalist headline.

1\. Sample size was 130

2\. Hasn't been peer-reviewed

3\. "What this will mean to herd immunity will require more data from other
parts of the world," Huang Jinghe, the leader of the research team behind the
report.

Only interesting part: Interestingly, the levels of antibodies patients
produced seemed to correlate with their ages: Middle-aged and elderly
recovered patients had higher levels of antibodies. Nine of the 10 of the
patients who did not develop detectable levels of coronavirus antibodies were
40 years old or younger.

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mrandish
> Nine of the 10 of the patients who did not develop detectable levels of
> coronavirus antibodies were 40 years old or younger.

So, a small number of the people who are most likely to have asymptomatic,
mild or sub-clinical bouts of CV19 don't immediately develop immunity or
measurable resistance on their first exposure. This finding (if confirmed)
won't have a significant impact on hospital surges or fatalities.

The other thing to remember is that the same effect is seen in vaccines and
other viruses. Nothing is ever 100% because humans are different. Also,
serological tests for antibodies aren't perfect either. My understanding is
the very best reach 95% accuracy.

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kian
This is also the same group of people governments seem to be relying on to
provide herd immunity - so it could still be a major issue

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rogerkirkness
It's an indication of mild disease if your body can fight it using generic
white blood cells rather than specialized antibodies.

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kian
Yes - but if we're concerned about people who are asymptomatic transmitting,
and we need herd immunity in order to prevent transmission in general to the
most vulnerable, then you 'getting it' and then getting better without
producing antibodies means you can get it again, and thus still act as a
transmission vector.

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londons_explore
Possible explanations:

* Maybe those patients never had coronavirus in the first place? Just because there is some viral DNA in your nose doesn't mean you're infected - you might have just breathed in some infected air and the mucus up there is doing its job of getting it out.

* Many different antibodies might be involved in fighting an infection. Perhaps there are other as-yet unidentified antibodies?

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stefanix
The only suprising thing here is that some journalist seem to assume these
tests are 100% acurrate. Assume they are less than 100% accurate and many of
these kind of headlines can be dismissed.

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acd
It has impact for antiserum blood plasma transfusion, where you take blood
from a recovered Covid19 patient and give to one with a severe case. If 8%
does not have anti bodies you may need to get blood plasma from several donors
to hedge the statistical odds of 8% do not develop anti bodies. Say you get
blood plasma from three donators is that 0.08 times 0.08 times 0.08? At least
it would be safer with two middle aged donors.

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travisporter
For perspective: At a New Jersey hospital "Of more than 3,000 people who have
offered to be donors, only 38 have met the initial screening criteria. "

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/nyregion/coronavirus-
anti...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/nyregion/coronavirus-antibodies-
nj-doctor.html)

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hedora
How do they know the antibody test they used finds all of the antibodies that
patients develop to fight off COVID-19?

There are many proteins on the surface of any given virus for your immune
system to target. This is why vaccines produce weaker immunity than catching
the disease would.

Also, what is the baseline false positive / false negative rate of the test?
The widely-available antibody tests aren’t particularly good. (They’re mostly
useful for random testing and epidemiology, from what I can tell.)

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raarts
My take is that if a serious disease existed for which you don't develop
immunity we'd all be long dead by now.

