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Medicine

Blood Tests Show 14 Percent of People Are Now Immune To Covid-19 In One Town In Germany (technologyreview.com) 146

hackingbear writes: After testing blood from 500 residents for antibodies to the COVID-19 virus in the town of Gangelt, which is a hot spot of the pandemic in Germany, scientists at a nearby university say they have determined that 14% have been infected and are therefore "immune." Some of those people would have had no symptoms at all. Scientists found that 2% of residents were actively infected by the coronavirus and a total of 14% had antibodies, indicating a prior infection. "From the result of their blood survey, the German team estimated the death rate in the municipality at 0.37% overall, a figure significantly lower than what's shown on a dashboard maintained by Johns Hopkins, where the death rate in Germany among reported cases is 2%," reports MIT Technology Review. In contrast, the 2019-2020 seasonal flu has infected up to 17% of U.S. population and killed ~0.1% of those infected. Since first emerged in late December, or purportedly as early as late November, the COVID-19 has infected over 1.6 million people and killed over 100,000.
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Blood Tests Show 14 Percent of People Are Now Immune To Covid-19 In One Town In Germany

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  • by kaizendojo ( 956951 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @09:23AM (#59932216)
    is not proof of immunity; we still don't know enough about where COVID-19 falls on the immunity spectrum. From Scientific American (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-immunity-to-covid-19-really-means/):

    It is less clear what those antibody tests mean for real life, however, because immunity functions on a continuum. With some pathogens, such as the varicella-zoster virus (which causes chicken pox), infection confers near-universal, long-lasting resistance. Natural infection with Clostridium tetani, the bacterium that causes tetanus, on the other hand, offers no protection—and even people getting vaccinated for it require regular booster shots. On the extreme end of this spectrum, individuals infected with HIV often have large amounts of antibodies that do nothing to prevent or clear the disease.

    At this early stage of understanding the new coronavirus, it is unclear where COVID-19 falls on the immunity spectrum. Although most people with SARS-CoV-2 seem to produce antibodies, “we simply don’t know yet what it takes to be effectively protected from this infection,” says Dawn Bowdish, a professor of pathology and molecular medicine and Canada Research Chair in Aging and Immunity at McMaster University in Ontario. Researchers are scrambling to answer two questions: How long do SARS-CoV-2 antibodies stick around? And do they protect against reinfection?

    • by Cy Guy ( 56083 ) *
      The article itself is more cautious about whether seropositive people are immune. The headline writer, very disappointing for an MIT publication, left off the scare-quotes the author used for immune.

      And the story itself, for example, includes this quote:
      "The test will enable us to determine which health-care workers might be at low risk for working with covid-19 patients,"

      Then again, the article then uses pull quotes without full context that seem more conclusive, but without the full quote or ability to r
    • This is science. There is no such thing as proof. Everything is merely the most likely assumption, given what we currently have. You are expected to always take information with as much salt as there are uncertainties. Because all that matters, is if it is useful.
      And this certainly is.

      By the way, regarding your wish for proof: You don't have a guarantee that you won't fall through the floor when stepping out of bed in the morning. Let alone that the person you are going to meet with, will be there. Yet you

      • by Gilgaron ( 575091 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @12:48PM (#59932732)
        Seroconversion proves exposure, not immunity. Immunity requires acheiving a specific titer. This is how vaccine dosage is determined: how much antigen do you need to get a high enough titer to protect you from future exposure. It's a lot of work to figure all that out.
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        This is science. There is no such thing as proof.

        This is physical science. "Proof" does not mean absolute proof here, unlike in Mathematics. Proof means relative proof with a margin for error and a level of confidence. Whence you get degrees: Proven, well proven, exceptionally well proven, generally accepted as true in the respective research community, etc.

        Since everybody competent _knows_ there is no absolute proof when referring to physical reality, there is no potential for misunderstanding.

    • Natural infection with Clostridium tetani, the bacterium that causes tetanus, on the other hand, offers no protection—and even people getting vaccinated for it require regular booster shots. On the extreme end of this spectrum, individuals infected with HIV often have large amounts of antibodies that do nothing to prevent or clear the disease.

      To be fair: SARS-CoV-2 is quite unlikeHIV and quite unlike Clostridium tetani. Even though the statement is technically correct, the implication that (our immune response to) SARS-CoV-2 might behave like either of those is quite a stretch. One is a frickin' bacterium and the other a retrovirus.

      It's very important that research is done to ascertain what level of immunity we can expect after having been infected with SARS-CoV-2, but given the nature of the virus it is probable that there is immunity if there

    • With some pathogens, such as the varicella-zoster virus (which causes chicken pox), infection confers near-universal, long-lasting resistance.

      Scientific American appears to be unaware of the disease shingles.

  • And I mean: Worse than the 2018/2019 one. In Germany.

    Back then 25000 people died from it, in Germany.
    I'm not looking up the numbers for the 2018/2019 one right now, but the German statistical federal agency "Statistisches Bundesamt [destatis.de]" has every statistic you can think of on their website, so go crazy. :) (Not sure if everything is available in English. E.g. the special Corona page [google.com] does not seem to be linked from the English version of the German site [google.com].)

    • Ok, did those 25000 people all die within a couple of weeks time? Did they take out medical personnel trying to treat them in the process? Did they tie up hospitals so much that people having other emergencies died from lack of treatment?

      Flattening the curve may be a little misleading by spreading out the death toll, but there is actually some good reasons for spreading it out vs. doing nothing.

      • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

        Indeed, if you have 10,000 deaths, say, over a year, then other medical procedures that save lives are more likely to be able to go ahead, so the overall cost may be 10,000 deaths. Have them all in a short period of time and the stress to the medical system may result in a number of additional deaths which will not be recorded as due to COVID-19. Looking at overall death rates may not tell you this as people will drive less and there will be fewer road deaths. On the other hand, lots of people die in accide

    • Seasonal flu is also much worse than Ebola and MERS so maybe you have to take in account how hard people are trying to stop the spread and what would happen if they didn't. COVID-19 is not spectacular in terms of how easily it kills you, let's assume 0.5% of those who get it. Tempting to just let it run its course. Normally 1% of the people die each year so you'd notice the increase of what, maybe 0.3% of the population. It would all happen in a few months too so, big peak. And there is a catch. A lot of p

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        The world won't stop turning if you're fatalistic about it but in a society with any kind of social contract you will have to avoid the full out scenario.

        And that is just it. And it has been _said_ repeatedly and from the start. Anybody that does not know that is ignorant at this time. The aim here is not to fracture society. How do you think old people would vote if they knew they will just be let to die? Or how would those vote that actually care having this done to, say, a parent? And not only vote, what do you think people would do with their money? And would the highly qualified want to stay in such a shithole country?

        Incidentally, if the medical system

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The bare numbers are meaningless. That is exceptionally obvious at this time. Only somebody that had not bothered to find out anything at all would still argue with some isolated numbers as you do.

      • The statistics of deaths give meaningful perspective. For example, on the site GP linked, you can find that 954874 people died in Germany in 2018. That's 2616 people on average every day. The 100 to 200 people who died from the virus per day make up 3 - 8% of the total daily deaths.

        Scale that up globally, and there are about 160k deaths per day, every day, for a total of about 60 million per year. (Birth rates are about double that). Global deaths to COVID-19 is currently at 114k total since January. Or to

  • based on these results, covid-19 is nearly four times as deadly as the flu, or possibly higher depending on circumstances.

    So covid-19 is not like the flu as we have been repeatedly told. It's worse.

    Got it.

  • Progress against the Coronavirus

    Antibody tests for the novel Coronavirus could be available within 'a week or so', Dr. Fauci says [cnn.com] (Apr. 10, 2020)

    "Having antibodies to the Coronavirus could mean someone is protected from getting re-infected..."

    Dr. Fauci: Coronavirus immunity cards for Americans are 'being discussed'. [politico.com] (Apr. 10, 2020)

    "... the federal government is considering issuing Americans certificates of immunity from the coronavirus ... to better identify those who have been infected and resta
    • ... the federal government is considering issuing Americans certificates of immunity from the coronavirus ...

      Ooh! Where can I get coughed on so I can get back to work? Do I have to lick an ER door handle? Faster infected faster pay! What could go wrong?

    • Remember the parable of the blind men and the elephant? Dr. Fauci is feeling under the tail, elbow deep.
  • A new report indicates 1/3 of resolved infections are showing either low or non-existent antibody response to SARS-CoV-2, indicating immunity is weak or non-existent in a significant number of people.

    https://abcnews.go.com/Health/questions-remain-covid-19-recovery-guarantee-immunity-reinfection/story?id=70085581 [go.com]
    • by DanDD ( 1857066 )

      From your referenced story:

      They also observed that elderly patients were more likely to induce higher concentrations of the antibodies than younger patients.

      From this rises the possibility that younger people who likely experienced few or no symptoms are less likely to develop immunity, but older, more vulnerable people are more likely to develop immunity.

      In other words, healthy young people will continue to unknowingly re-infect each other, while at some threshold, older people either develop immunity or die.

      Combined with a much lower rate of infection than originally anticipated - 15% instead of 80%:

      https://spectator.us/covid-ant... [spectator.us]

      • Is it possible that for some people, particularly young people, COVID is simply irrelevant? They aren't producing antibodies to Dutch elm disease either, yet nobody is concerned about that.
  • by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @10:58AM (#59932444) Journal

    In other words, we don't know how lethal this thing really is.

    You can bet your butt that we are counting every possible death - and even not so possible ones. The incentives are overwhelming to do so.

    We also know for sure that we are not counting every infection - we can't, for one thing.

    So it's certainly less lethal than the official numbers so far suggest, but we have no idea how much less lethal.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • We are definitely not counting every death.

      That being said, we are MASSIVELY undercounting actual cases (so many people have mild or no symptoms), so I do agree with you; true lethality is overestimated.

    • by rew ( 6140 )

      A friend reported: "I have to go to my grandmother's funeral". I asked him:
      * how did she die? COVID-19?
      * No, just nasty case of pneumonia.
      * Isn't that what you get from COVID-19?
      * We don't care.... She's dead."
      She wasn't tested, isn't in the statistics. Now I'm not close enough to figure out more in this case. Just that it is likely that not everybody is getting counted. Not even the deaths... (But yeah, the ratio is much higher than with "infected").

  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday April 11, 2020 @12:07PM (#59932624)

    As always for Coronaviruses.

  • by OpinOnion ( 4473025 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @12:25PM (#59932660)
    They have short term immunity for an unknown number of months and maybe long term increased immune response. It's very unlikely they are immune for life with a coronavirus. With thinks lie chickenpox or even the flu you get antibodies for life. With coronaviruses antibody detection drops off in a matter of months and varies a lot per person. We don't know the antibody lifespan yet on this exact cornavirus nor more importantly the effective immunity. Detection of weak antibodies at 2 years doesn't mean you will be immune, but you might have increase resistance for life once you get the virus. The best we should hope for is increased resistance, not immunity since there are not antibodies that last decades like the Flu or Chickenpox. The reason the Flu comes back seasonally is much different and due to it's high rate and total volume of genetic materials that can change. All viruses mutate pretty rapidly, but the flu operates in much larger chunks of genetic material which rapidly produces new strains. HOWEVER each strain still produces antibodies that last your lifetime AND you can some cross strain resistance from those previous similar antibodies. With corona virus you have to assume short lived antibodies will have a major negative impact on anything like true immunity which more or less suggests long term/life long complete immunity. That is not the likely scenario with this virus. It should be able to infect people multiple times after several months, similarly to the common cold coronaviruses which you never get immune to, you just develop short term immunity.
    • You are talking out of your ass. If the world's leading scientists don't know if the antibodies will last a long time or not, neither do you. So shut your ignorant virtual mouth and let's wait for the science.

  • One thing to remember is that the official infection and death rates are NOT accurate, and may never be so. At best we will get estimates.

    Too many people were not tested. Many got sick and recovered without ever seeing a doctor.

    As for deaths, each day NYC has about 200 dead taken from their home and those dead were never tested for the Corona Virus. This time last year, that number was about 25 dead people per day. These dead are being buried without testing.

    In the US, it is possible that eventually e

  • That means they are _not_ reliable.

  • It's not clear that having had COVID-19 yields immunity to reinfection. One reasonable interpretation of existing data is that it doesn't. Another is that people who are rated "clear of it" often aren't, they've only suppressed the disease, and it will re-emerge when an opportunity arises. And, of course, another is that the tests have a high error rate (which they do...but THAT high? That was supposed to have been allowed for).

    At this point one should be careful about jumping to conclusions on limited

  • OK, so the claim is:
    "From the result of their blood survey, the German team estimated the death rate in the municipality at 0.37% overall,
    a figure significantly lower than what's shown on a dashboard maintained by Johns Hopkins, where the death rate in Germany among reported cases is 2%,"

    Wow, huge discrepancy there...
    Oh wait, they aren't comparing similar figures: "overall" =/= "among reported cases".
    English may be vague and complicated language sometimes, but I don't think anybody can claim that here, Amer

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