Ending the COVID-19 pandemic will require long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Here, we evaluate 254 COVID-19 patients longitudinally up to 8 months and find durable broad-based immune responses. SARS-CoV-2 spike binding and neutralizing antibodies exhibit a bi-phasic decay with an extended half-life of >200 days suggesting the generation of longer-lived plasma cells. SARS-CoV-2 infection also boosts antibody titers…
Tag: Herd Immunity
Business Insider reports “A Johns Hopkins professor predicts the US will reach herd immunity by April, but many experts aren’t so optimistic”
The US’s daily coronavirus cases have declined 65% in the last month — a record drop in the course of the nation’s outbreak. New cases reached an all-time high of 312,000 on January 8. Since then, they’ve fallen to a weekly average of around 73,000 per day. Dr. Martin Makary, a professor of surgery at…
Market Watch reports “Sweden has developed herd immunity after refusing to lock down, experts claim. Its coronavirus infection rate is falling”
Leading Swedish health experts claim the country has a falling coronavirus infection rate because it was one of the few that didn’t go into lockdown and has rejected the use of masks. Arne Elofsson, a professor in biometrics at Stockholm University, thinks the population has developed a form of immunity: “Strict rules do not work…
Business Insider reports “We now have the best evidence yet that everyone develops long-term coronavirus immunity after infection — and it’s not just about antibodies”
Some early studies have suggested that coronavirus antibodies fade relatively quickly, but that doesn’t mean immunity vanishes. A new study found that all participants infected with COVID-19 — even those with asymptomatic or mild cases and patients who didn’t have detectable antibodies — developed virus-specific T cells. T cells identify and kill infected cells, and B cells create new antibodies. Those…
University of Oxford study reveals “Covid herd immunity may be much lower than previously thought”
Here, we demonstrate that HIT may be greatly reduced if a fraction of the population is unable to transmit the virus due to innate resistance or cross-protection from exposure to seasonal coronaviruses. The drop in HIT is proportional to the fraction of the population resistant only when that fraction is effectively segregated from the general…
Business Insider reports “Sweden’s coronavirus death toll is now approaching zero, but experts are warning others not to hail it as a success”
By all accounts, Sweden’s high rate of coronavirus deaths was evidence that the country had made a horrendous error. Sweden — which did not impose a strict lockdown — suffered 543 deaths per million of its population, compared to just 105 in neighboring Denmark. The Swedish death toll has been roughly 11 times worse than Norway’s,…
The Telegraph reports “If there is a second wave of Covid, the Swedish approach will have been right all along “
Not going into lockdown was described as “a mad experiment” at the time, but Sweden can look to the winter with less trepidation than most One country can look to the winter with less trepidation than most. Last week, a study suggested that 30 per cent of Swedes have built up immunity to the virus….