Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

Random antibody tests do not indicate that by a very long way, however. The last indications from London are around 20%.

Similarly, estimates of immunity from either the virus or from other viruses which give enough immunity to CV19, are around 5%.

There is the “dark matter” theory (that for some reason most people are not capable of catching it) but as yet no evidence.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Random antibody tests do not indicate that by a very long way, however. The last indications from London are around 20%.

True, but several studies now have shown that more people have T-cell immunity than have antibodies..

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Can you point me to any references?

Maybe Swedish scientists know something the UK ones don’t, but I would think the expertise around the world is similar.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Maybe Swedish scientists know something the UK ones don’t, but I would think the expertise around the world is similar.

Who said the studies were made by Swedish scientists? I first wrote about this in post #1276. As far as I remember, it was a UK study.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 05 Jul 20:10
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Here is a current map of the “Corona risk” in Europe. IMO it clearly shows which “strategies” have worked, and which have not.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

However, such a map doesn’t tell the whole story.

For example if a given region has a lot of poor people living or working densely, they will get more deaths. The stories coming out of locked-down Leicester in the UK are quite awful, about the textile industry “sweat shops” there, full of people (mostly women) who were “imported” from Bangladesh, often for prearranged weddings, and are trapped there by cultural circumstances, including the inability to speak English. You won’t find these on the BBC… Italy has the same (according to a local I know) with Chinese working in the textile trade in specific towns in the north.

And certain ethnic communities are a lot more vulnerable, for reasons which have not yet been established fully; they certainly include cultural factors (e.g. a large family eating together) but could also be genetic.

There are definitely blood group related variations and blood group does vary somewhat geographically. Then you get claims of research showing that areas with more selenium in the soil get no cases…

I think the ability of a government to deal with these variations is limited, short of bankrupting the country by throwing some vast amount of money at it.

Some of the “no cases reported” probably means just that

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

However, such a map doesn’t tell the whole story.

No, but it shows what it shows. New cases per 100.000 during the last two weeks. To get a more usable picture you also need qualitative data, for instance how tracing is done, how testing is done, what qualifies for a test and so on. It’s the data the government use to decide to which countries/regions we can go to on recreational travel without ending up in quarantine when getting back home.

It’s far from 100% “accurate” or detailed, but it doesn’t need to be. The object is to prevent uncontrolled spreading (more than 120 cases per 100.000 per two weeks)

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Peter wrote:

And certain ethnic communities are a lot more vulnerable, for reasons which have not yet been established fully; they certainly include cultural factors (e.g. a large family eating together) but could also be genetic.

There are definitely blood group related variations and blood group does vary somewhat geographically. Then you get claims of research showing that areas with more selenium in the soil get no cases…

One always has to be carefull what one states and what the data really shows. Up until now there is little to no evidence that certain ethic communities are more vulnerable – if you control for income, education and social status there’s actually evidence that ethnicity has no influence on acquisition and progression of disease.

On AB0+RH blood group related factors, there is some but only weak evidence. Beyond that quite well known NEJM paper, that shows some variation (esp. for RH+) in disease progression and severity, there are a couple of not yet reviewed preprints. As far as I can see, all of these Preprints only loom at hospital data and therefore only cover patients that actually showed up at hospitals. This again is an indicator for a certain disease progression and not so much for primary acquisition of disease.
Therefore all we can say now is that there seems to be an influence from ABO+Rh blood group on disease severity – but little to nothing about acquisition.

Germany

Several peer reviewed studies are now indicating that the immune response to Covid would suggest that it confers relatively good longer term immunity and that the body produces multiple responses. One study suggests that even in those asymtomatic, the immune response may in fact be targeted at the mucus on the lung surface, which, if tested, shows there has been a strong immune response.

This is all very encouraging for a vaccine providing good immunity for a reasonable period of time.

Unfortunately it is behind a pay wall but the Times ran an interesting article that more strongly points towards Covid being released from the lab in China, or at least, a consequence of their research. It would seem one of their samples collected from a cave in China is at least 98% the same as the current Covid strain.

I’m might be wrong, but I thought when it came to viruses, a 2% difference was apples and oranges?

EIWT Weston, Ireland
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top