Immunity To the Coronavirus May Persist for Years, Scientists Find (nytimes.com) 111
Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived. From a report: Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response. Both reports looked at people who had been exposed to the coronavirus about a year earlier. Cells that retain a memory of the virus persist in the bone marrow and may churn out antibodies whenever needed, according to one of the studies, published on Monday in the journal Nature. The other study, posted online at BioRxiv, a site for biology research, found that these so-called memory B cells continue to mature and strengthen for at least 12 months after the initial infection.
"The papers are consistent with the growing body of literature that suggests that immunity elicited by infection and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 appears to be long-lived," said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research. The studies may soothe fears that immunity to the virus is transient, as is the case with coronaviruses that cause common colds. But those viruses change significantly every few years, Dr. Hensley said. "The reason we get infected with common coronaviruses repetitively throughout life might have much more to do with variation of these viruses rather than immunity," he said. In fact, memory B cells produced in response to infection with SARS-CoV-2 and enhanced with vaccination are so potent that they thwart even variants of the virus, negating the need for boosters, according to Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York who led the study on memory maturation.
"The papers are consistent with the growing body of literature that suggests that immunity elicited by infection and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 appears to be long-lived," said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research. The studies may soothe fears that immunity to the virus is transient, as is the case with coronaviruses that cause common colds. But those viruses change significantly every few years, Dr. Hensley said. "The reason we get infected with common coronaviruses repetitively throughout life might have much more to do with variation of these viruses rather than immunity," he said. In fact, memory B cells produced in response to infection with SARS-CoV-2 and enhanced with vaccination are so potent that they thwart even variants of the virus, negating the need for boosters, according to Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York who led the study on memory maturation.
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> Children generally don't get it that bad.
This child got it pretty bad from the bus driver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I guess he wasn't a fan of her politics.
Re:Uh oh (Score:4, Insightful)
> Children generally don't get it that bad.
This child got it pretty bad from the bus driver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I guess he wasn't a fan of her politics.
Generally. Adverb.
a. in disregard of specific instances and with regard to an overall picture
b. as a rule; usually
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The problem is that "generally" when people hear that word and it fits their political outlook that the virus is a scam or the reaction to is is overblown by the government, they tweak it and they tell their friends "children are immune".
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That's because "generally" is an intellectually lazy, handwaving cop out.
Re: Uh oh (Score:1)
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Lol. No it's not. "Generally" doesn't mean much at all. It's fine for casual conversation but shouldn't ever be used for anything important.
If you want "statistically accurate" at the very least you need to provide the distribution and parameters.
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Now let's look at where it was used in this conversation:
Children generally don't get it that bad.
Let's replace it together:
Children are statistically likely, comprising at least a bare majority of cases, to not get it that bad.
Yep, that checks out: https://www.heritage.org/data-... [heritage.org]
Again, stop being pedantic. Generally works here. Moreover, by your own admission "it's fine for casual conversation" - lol what do you think a comments s
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generally if you work on a construction site and don't wear a helmet everything is fine
generally if you don't look both ways before crossing the street everything is fine
generally eating raw chicken is fine
I wouldn't do any of those things
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Yup. Magnitude, at the very least, is important.
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and more children choked to death on hot dogs than died of covid. what is your point? do you have a point? can you reason at level of ten year old?
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and more children choked to death on hot dogs than died of covid. what is your point? do you have a point?
One child in my entire state died from Wuflu (and that child had "underlying medical conditions").
That puts the fatality rate at .00005%
The percentage of children who lost an entire year of education: 100%
Except for kids privileged enough to go to private schools, which remained open 5 days a week throughout the whole pandemic. Of those, the number of Wuflu cases: Zero. None. Not a single case.
What's my point? Shuttering schools was purely a political move but it had real world consequences.
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You claim "lost an entire year of education" as if it was fact. No, they had to attend online classes, read and write and take tests.
Sure, virus mostly not a threat to kids but it's not being political to stop the spread of disease to older family members, kids are asymptotic transmitters.
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Schools closed entirely in March 2020 without warning. No virtual. Nothing. 30 minute Zoom meeting each Wednesday. That was it.
2020/2021 was 4 days virtual. Closed Wednesday for "cleaning" (I wasn't aware Wuflu spread through Google Classrooms). For my 1st and 2nd graders, it was completely worthless. Just stacks of worksheets. That doesn't work for little kids. But it's not like they missed a year of education, it was just that I had to do it myself. While trying to hold down a job.
The winner amo
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oh so you lived somewhere with lazy school system that was waste of your tax dollars? That doesn't mean the rest of the country was that way. Meanwhile our public system had school every day with homework and tests. No problem.
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This child
So, about as many points of data as your IQ.
Re:Uh oh (Score:4, Insightful)
The media spent so much time and so much effort over the last 16 months stoking panic and driving the public literally crazy, and now they seem to realize that a world full of crazy paranoiacs isn't that fun.
Story: CoVID immunity may last years. You: See! CoVID was all overblown hype by the media. Over 500K Americans died. 500,00. Why don't you explain to all those families it was panic over nothing.
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It's 600,000 now, and vastly more than estimated flu deaths (ie, it's not just like the flu as the early story was told). That's merely in the US, it's vastly larger world wide. We went to war for 20 years over the World Trade Center attack which was a far more aggressive response to a far far smaller number of deaths. Where were the conservatives back then shouting "don't screw up the economy when fewer people died than those who die crossing the street each yea!"
If 2.8M people died (I assume in the US, i
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Untrue. 600,000 deaths from covid-19 in the US, compared to "more than 480,000" deaths from smoking (estimated average for 2005-2009).
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2.8 million died from drinking water.
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Conflicting expert opinions?
That is called science. Sooner or later more knowledge surfaces, old theories are rejected/disproven and opinions converge. Thinking that experts get it right on the first try is only something science deniers believe.
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Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, for those who don't die. You know, like the plague in the MIddle Ages. Only a 1/3 of the population had to die for everyone else to get antibodies. What's a few million people among friends?
Of course, even if you do get antibodies, you conveniently leave out any side effects from being infected in the first place. Sure, people survived polio, but they had to use crutches and leg braces to get around, or maybe had to live in an iron lung the rest of their life.
In the case of covid, you have muscle weakness and brain fog, which can last for months, along with damage to lungs, heart, kidneys, and other portions of your body, some of which may require transplants for you to survive.
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Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you didn't actually read the summery and are "completely wrong" about the "completely wrong" conclusion....
Yes, that involved vaccinating those who have already had it. SMFH.
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In the case of covid, you have muscle weakness and brain fog, which can last for months, along with damage to lungs, heart, kidneys, and other portions of your body, some of which may require transplants for you to survive.
Yep, I would totally prefer the vaccine. Thanks. Sore arm for three days over diminished organ lifespan every f*cking time my friends.
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LOL, if you don't die, or maybe end up with permanent damage to your body. Vaccines were developed for a reason.
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Interesting)
The danger of mainstream media is not the spread of overt lies. It's in fooling the availability heuristic [wikipedia.org] of our brain. When you see news stories of people catching COVID twice, or a vaccinated person catching COVID, it tricks you into believing it's a common occurrence.
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From the Hindsight-is-20-20-department.
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From a Broken-Clock-Is-Right-Twice-A-Day department.
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When was there ever a credible reason to wear masks outdoors while not in a huge crowd?
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Right around the time when we knew this thing was virulent, but not precisely how virulent?
It was a minor precautionary measure that was questionably helpful but definitely not harmful. Given the lack of concrete information at the time, what credible reason was there *not* to wear a mask whenever anywhere near another person?
Re: Uh oh (Score:1)
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump was literally a jobs creator.
Example: $30 million to cleanup and repair the Capitol.
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Despite your misattribution of the blame you're still talking a fraction of the police brutality lawsuits and settlements for 2020.
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Re: Uh oh (Score:1)
Re: Uh oh (Score:1)
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Trump was literally a jobs creator.
Just ask Ivanka and Jared, Trump got them jobs easily enough.
another research paper (Score:2)
I have read through another research paper compiliation.
https://frontiersin.org/articl... [frontiersin.org]
I don't understand much of the lingo but there are tidbits in the facets of what all is covered that suggest the possibility of lasting natural immunity capability IIRC 11 years. Now it seems to be much longer, as in lifetime.
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with vaccination? that part is not mentioned in the abstract.... wonder why?
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And there are multiple different vaccines of differing types, it'll be interesting to see which vaccine types are more effective in the long term.
Right now people are being offered vaccines not to protect them but to protect the majority by reducing the R-number to less than one. Some of the vaccines offer more protection from death and long COVID than others.
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There is reason to believe having different vaccines could lead to better immune responses. It's an area of ongoing research.
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Most people are given two identical doses of a vaccine made by one manufacturer though, it'd take a huge study to follow all the variations if people were given vaccines of two different types.
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True, but given the huge number of vaccinations being made and the difficulty of procuring vaccines, there are already people getting doses of different vaccines without being part of a formal study. Follow these people to get study data. And I read a few days ago that studies are being done right now, so hopefully we will know more in the future.
Also, in most countries you don't have more than two or three vaccines being used. So there won't be that many variations to look at for any single research team.
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Do you have any evidence of this is it just an assumption? In the UK there's no messing about, you are given two jabs of the same vaccine.
I would not expect any western country to be mixing jabs because that's not tested and thus potentially not legal and more to the point the people should not be guinea pigs during a general vaccine drive. Also since it's not known if mixing jabs is effective then it'd be a b
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In some European countries the Astra-Zeneca vaccine was stopped because of the issue with blood clotting in certain age groups. But some already got their first dose of the AZ vaccine. So now they cannot get the second dose of AZ. Note that CDC recommends not mixing unless there are exceptional situations, like when the first-dose vaccine is unavailable for some reason.
So you are right that not mixing is the current recommendation. As for the legality and UK, it seems they are among the ones planning a tria
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The blood clotting issue was a non-event, covid is far more dangerous, I'm not aware of any of the vaccination halts being anything other than temporary, they did start vaccinating again. I think it was to a degree political.
I got the 1st jab of Astra-Zeneca just as the blood clot news was breaking, I looked it up and the probabilities of getting a blot clot due to the vaccine were barely any different than for the normal unvaccinated population in the same time period and of course the virus is over 1000x
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The blood clotting issue was a non-event, covid is far more dangerous,[...]
I agree, but if a country have access to more than one vaccine and you suspect that there might be a risk, why not try to minimize that tiny risk?
[...]I'm not aware of any of the vaccination halts being anything other than temporary, they did start vaccinating again.
They you are poorly informed. My (European country) have halted all use of AZ for anyone under 65 for the foreseeable future. And perhaps forever as my government have expressed the intent to not continue with Astra. It doesn't matter anyway, the deliveries were so unreliable since Astra had contracts with the UK that took priority. Our planned vaccine roll-outs
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I got the 1st jab of Astra-Zeneca just as the blood clot news was breaking, I looked it up and the probabilities of getting a blot clot due to the vaccine were barely any different than for the normal unvaccinated population in the same time period and of course the virus is over 1000x times more deadly.
Of course it would be. They stopped it as soon as a few cases popped up. These few cases wouldn't make much of a dent in the statistics, but after the debacle with the swine-flu vaccinations and narcolepsy, some governments wanted to be overly cautious to calm the public opinion.
After all, all kinds of side effects should be taken seriously. While very rare it is not non-existent, which EMA acknowledges: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/n... [europa.eu]
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Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots . . .
In other words you did not read the summary of this story.
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At last (Score:1)
This is realy _good_ news and it conforms my believes (have had it 2 times in a mild way).
Wait (Score:1)
shows ignorant CNN Chris Cillizza wrong (Score:1)
3 days ago Chris Cillizza wrote a piece mocking Rand Paul for saying exactly what one linked study said about those who in past were infected with covid. Chris Cillizza said Dr. Fauci and science contradicted what Rand Paul said. Well, he was half right and saying wrong and ignorant things about science, though the paper pusher Fauci is of course has never cured nor treated any disease so is not really a medical doctor, just a beaurocrat.
Chris Cillizza
So Chris Cillizza was utterly full of nonsense and ow
Re:shows ignorant CNN Chris Cillizza wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Um, what?
Anthony Fauci has published a shitload of papers on basic and applied medical research, did a lot of fundamental research in HIV and rheumatology, and developed therapies for several fatal diseases.
He's also a physician and qualified internist so "listen to a doctor, not Fauci" doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
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He pushed paper. He never treated anyone, never practiced medicine, never cured anyone.
Quit shilling for the paper pusher
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Re:shows ignorant CNN Chris Cillizza wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Lol. You think you can complete a residency without treating any patients? Fauci has treated patients throughout his career, and continues to do so at the present. Which is irrelevant anyway. It's his scientific credentials that are important for anything that's not related to actually treating individual patients.
You're just making shit up. You haven't even bothered to look up the man on Wikipedia, or give your posts even a basic smell test. Did he run over your dog or something?
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Oh, the inflated things about him on wikipedia recently added? you're hilarious.
Residency, making the rounds...
I'm not making anything up, his career is bureaucracy and paper pushing.
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When the shit you made up on the fly runs into facts....
Probably time to stop digging. You passed six feet with your second post.
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What "facts", the lie you are trying to push that Fauci has practiced medicine? No, he is pure bureaucrat.
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And you know this because you know him personally or what...?
Just curious since you seem so sure about someone inflating his Wikipedia entry.
In related news .... (Score:2)
There was a study in Nature last year that looked at SARS survivors 17 years later and found they still had T-cell memory response to that coronavirus. Their immune systems responded to covid-19 as well. They seemed to think that bode well for dealing with variants.
Link - https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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Common cold coronaviruses (Score:2)
Even the human common cold coronaviruses do not wipe the immunity completely every year. Instead it wanes gradually over four years or so. So antibodies from one year will still neutralize for three more years (or so), though with less potency.
If the current virus is anything like that, those who are vaccinated will need booster shots every couple of years, but even without that, any infection will be mild and not require hospitalization, since there are enough epitopes that are conserved and incur immunity
Re: Wait and see (Score:1)
Re: "coronaviruses that cause common colds" (Score:4, Informative)
The flu is caused by inFLUenza.
Most "colds" are rhinovirus. But not all. Some are coronavirus. Some are other things. It's not as precise of a diagnosis as is "flu". WebMD says 20% of colds are caused by coronavirus.