Dropping Antibody Levels

[biobook]

OMG @TimT!  HOW DID YOU DO THAT?? 

[Lurker]

Not sure how that can be ascertained. Do you mean comparing patient outcomes with/without mutations when all other conditions are equal?

Hard to do, because when these mutations are in the present strain, they present in everyone infected in that particular population. Also, you'd have to sequence all test subjects in the population, which is costly.

Yea, I'm not sure it's even possible to do properly, just curious. Barring any comprehensive data, which we're unlikely to have for a very long time, if ever, vaccination is still the best bet.

[biobook]

Referring to this one ?

IOW, yes, thanks!  But really:  How did you do that?

Time of day is just one factor that could potentially be relevant, but my point is that in general, most things we measure in the blood are kept at a certain level, but there can be wide variations in these measurements in a single person over time.  At one extreme, blood glucose is tightly controlled within narrow limits, at the other extreme, women's hormones fluctuate greatly over the month.  Most things we measure in the blood are somewhere in between, with "normal" values being given within a certain range, and fluctuations within that range aren't considered real changes.  Fluctuations could be influenced by time of day, food and drink, stress, temperature, season, as well as conditions during the blood withdrawal and lab testing.  So when a value increases numerically, it doesn't necessarily reflect a biologically-significant increase. 

[AsherO]

Yea, I'm not sure it's even possible to do properly, just curious. Barring any comprehensive data, which we're unlikely to have for a very long time, if ever, vaccination is still the best bet.

I'm all for vaccination too, but what we were talking about is exposure parties and I'm not sure that's better than booster shots. Now that we have approved vaccines, I'm hoping there's a relatively short timeline for ascertaining what the lowest dose needed for booster is, and get that dosage/formulation approved as a booster. My hunch is that especially for young people, the current mRNA doses are higher than necessary for use as a booster.

Also wondering the same about formulating dosage/regiment for vaccinating those who recovered from COVID, there's already been talk of potentially requiring only a single mRNA dose, so closer study of the same. Granted it isn't in the interest of vaccine manufacturers, but it might improve vaccination/booster rates.

[TimT]

OMG @TimT!  HOW DID YOU DO THAT??

But really:  How did you do that?

”With half my brain tied behind my back - just to make it fair”, of course.

[Dan]

Thanks for this very interesting article! 

It does say that 90% of people have antibodies to coronavirus, but they mean the general class of coronavirus, not  the novel coronavirus that causes covid-19.   

The body fights infections by making antibodies that can neutralize a particular infectious agent, so each antibody is made to neutralize a very specific bacteria or virus. (In rare cases, an antibody may "cross-react" with something else, but we'll ignore that for now.)  So for the 4 different types of coronaviruses they studied, there were 4 different types of antibodies, each with a somewhat different structure.  These coronaviruses have been going around for years and cause typical cold symptoms, especially in children.  They did this study in 2016-2018, and apparently published it now because it might give us an indirect clue about what to expect for the novel coronavirus. 

Of 86 people who had a positive nasal swab test for one of those 4 coronaviruses, 12 had a second positive test for that same  coronavirus within the next year or so, indicating that they were re-infected.  One second positive test occurred just 4 weeks after the first, but most were 9-12 months later. 

So the bad news: This suggests that immunity to a coronavirus may last less than a year, so it's worrying that this might be true for the novel coronavirus, too. 

The more hopeful news:  Only 12 of the 86 (14%) people who got sick were reinfected, so perhaps immunity lasts longer for most people.  And re-infections occurred for only 3 of the 4 coronaviruses they looked at, so perhaps some coronaviruses produce a longer-lasting immune response.  Remember they only looked for about a year, so we don't know how long immunity lasts for that 4th coronavirus they studied.  But it at least raises hope that the novel coronavirus might produce longer-lasting immunity.

The somewhat-good news:  In their records of the cold-symptoms people reported over this time, they found that people who got sick twice had similar symptoms both times.  If they had a mild cold the first time, they had a mild cold the second time.  If they had a severe cold the first time, they had a severe cold the second time.  Interestingly, those who were asymptomatic with the first infection, were asymptomatic with the second infection.  So it's reassuring to hear that the re-infection did not cause worse symptoms the second time around.  And if we extrapolate to the novel coronavirus, it makes us hopeful that those who have a positive virus test but had no symptoms, may really be unlikely to get infected in the future.

Interesting news:  Some families (children and parents) reported mild symptoms, others families had more severe symptoms.  The researchers think severity of disease depends on some unknown genetic factors.

Wow, this post was on point.

[biobook]

Wow, this post was on point.

Long time ago!  Remember when we had to say "the novel coronavirus" each time we mentioned it? 

I'm not sure that the "somewhat good news" holds up.  There have been cases of people who were reinfected with covid and died of the second infection.

[MOSES]

What is the best antibody test to take now?

I got my first set of vaccines in June / Jul. 2021, and had Covid in Dec 2021.

I am going on a vacation next week and they are requiring that I have a booster.

I wanted to do an antibody test before I get a booster to just see what's doing and I remember reading about a specific kind of test. Can someone clarify whats the best antibody test to get and where to get it? I am in NYC. Thank you