Posted on 06/28/2020 8:49:07 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
We have recently been hit with a flood of dire news reports about the rise in COVID-19 cases. Yet there is one very important statistic missing in almost all these reports: Daily deaths. Why would that be? Could it possibly be that contrary to the panicked tone of these reports, the daily deaths from the virus have been PLUNGING which gives important context to the media narrative?
Oh, and in case you think I might have edited out any mention of the daily deaths in these news reports, then do your own research and you will see that the full reports did NOT include that vital statistic.
Nobody can believe this because it does not fit the narrative.
My husband is 85 years old and in very poor health with a long list of ailments, including CHF and COPD. I was very afraid for him, and I had kept him locked up at home for a long time before the general panic hit. My goal had been to keep him from getting COVID because I was certain it was going to kill him.
On May 7, he was hospitalized for something else which had to be treated, and on May 16 he was sent to a rehabilitation facility. On June 10 he was tested and found to be COVID positive. He has had every symptom except loss of taste and smell, albeit all symptoms have been relatively mild and short-lived. Last Tuesday, he developed some shortness of breath, was given supplemental oxygen, and I was asked if I wanted them to just make him comfortable or have him sent to the hospital. I decided to have him sent back to the hospital. It’s a Catholic hospital, and I wanted some assurance they would make some effort to treat him even though he is old and ill.
Yesterday, he was returned to the rehabilitation facility.
My husband has recovered from COVID, which none of us thought would ever happen. I do not know why he has, and I want him home as we have not seen each other since May 7. We have never been separated for more than a week before this.
“””The bad news in all of this is the most recent reports suggest the antibodies only linger 8 weeks. There is more to immunity than antibodies, but that’s what we have to work with. If you had the disease and recovered, your recovery may make you immune only 8 weeks.”””
You are correct. The medical doctors I have seen interviewed are cautious about corona antibodies protection.
That being said, I would much rather have corona virus antibodies than to not have the antibodies.
So, if somebody were sick in the past and recovered, then an RT-PCR test should show negative. Right?
In other words, the big increase in testing will only reveal currently-infected people and whether they had the disease in the past is irrelevant.
I don’t see why he has banned arrivals of a lot of red state travelers. He has many, many available nursing home beds.
Again, generally correct.
A recovered patient is defined as recovered via 2 consecutive negative PCR tests 24 hrs apart. If those are the test results, Negative is the declaration. It takes more than 1 negative to be told to leave quarantine. Note this is only if there was a previous Positive.
A person that walks in with zero history and tests Negative is declared Negative. Only if Positive before that does it require 2 Negatives.
There are cases on record, not many but definitely not absurdly rare, where a Recovered patient leaves quarantine and is tested again a few weeks later and is Positive. The hope is he did not get re-infected. There is hope the swab is picking up viral segments from the original infection and not an active virus.
But . . . there are a few such cases that presented with symptoms. Those suggested re-infection and that’s very bad. It means immunity was short longevity.
Even 85+ yr olds have survival odds above 50%.
Life expectancy pre virus for 85 yr olds is several more years. Might be around a while.
It's all about power. He has to keep the crisis alive, and expand his power at the same time.
p
Thanks for your thoughtful replies and explanations.
Regarding those who might be getting re-infected...
1. I’m sure there is a half-life or time-constant for the effectiveness of antibodies. They just don’t work at full strength for eight weeks and switch off. They must gradually diminish in effectiveness or in concentration. What is the probability distribution of half-lives of antibodies?
2. I wonder what the statistical distribution of the half-lives in the population is. Is it possible that some people experience a short period of immunity but others get much longer immunity? Is it possible those we see experiencing a short immunity period are corner-cases and most of the population would get one, two or more years of immunity? What is the probability distribution of immunity period?
3. We don’t get immune to the common cold or influenza because of the large number of pathogens and their rapid mutations. Is there any reason that won’t be the case with this CV?
The study focused on loss of antibodies was Chinese, then a Korean follow up and then another Chinese input.
They did focus on the fact that it’s not 100% ON vs OFF for antibodies. The study talked about diminished antibody counts at various points in time. My recall is 40% of samples showed 0 antibodies at 8 weeks post Recover and 60% were down 80% from their antibody level at time of Recover declaration.
I recall seeing a researcher note that some of the patients were antibody monitored even prior to being declared PCR Negative and he was amazed at the low level of the antibodies. His point was that erosion of levels to 0 was far less remarkable than the recovery of the patient at all with such low antibody levels.
I will note there is too much attention and questions about antibody level with respect to age. The data is very clear very few under 65 die. This is a disease of old age. The numerators and denominators should be limited to the 65+ population. When you do that, this disease can be computed to increase the death count of 65+ folks by 8% each year. I don’t think any society will tolerate that.
Inquiring minds notice - and know the answer. Blue state governorials have enslaved their people and the MSM wants to scare the rest of us into accepting the same. This will end when the people throw off the yoke of tyranny.
It’s blatantly obvious. Unfortunately, there are a large proportion of citizens who are totally dense, i.e. RATS.
I’m close to 69, so your last point really hits home. It’s personally very upsetting that this really has thrown a wrench in our retirement plans. There probably won’t be any serious travel for quite a while, but we are chancing it with flights from California to Idaho and back. Lots of precautions in the airports and planes, of course — hand washing, masks, hand sanitizers, wipes for use on the plane sears, not touching the face.
Yikes!
* 40% of samples showed 0 antibodies at 8 weeks post Recover
* 60% were down 80% from their antibody level at time of Recover declarations
What would account for such serious loss of antibodies? What are the numbers for cold and flu viruses? Do we know?
Your understanding of RT-PCR vs. detection of IgM and IgG antibodies is incomplete.
You are attempting to dichotomize a mixed-interval condition. A positive RT-PCR test does NOT conclude the test subject just recently contracted the virus. It merely attempts to match unique viral subsequences and amplify any fractions so that it can be detected.
The only relevant dichotomy for study is the BEFORE and AFTER “state opening” conditions.
For emphasis, Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction focuses on detecting the SARS-COV-2 virus but it does not rule out the presence of IgM and IgG antibodies and vice versa.
People with IgM and IgG antibodies may still and most often do retain the SARS-COV-2 in their bodies. Conversely, those testing positive for SARS-COV-2 may have IgM and IgG antibodies.
The entire epidemic process is driven predominately by the interplay between the viral infection and its immune response. Immune response is more variable and determines the degrees and stages of SARS-COV-2 infection progressing (or not progressing) to the disease state which is COVID-19.
Many confuse, as does the media, the virus (SARS-COV-2) with the disease (COVID-19). They are not the same, they are separate conditions with intersection concerning causality. One is a lifeless broken strand of nucleic acids, the other is the effect on an organism’s biological function. It is the immune response which governs the outcome. One person can have twice as much virus as another person and be asymptomatic because their immune system is stronger against the virus. The quantity of virus is not as important as its immune response.
There are many infected with SARS-COV-2 who do not have and will not have COVID-19, in fact a super majority exists of such people. Their immune systems determine this.
The rapid test for SARS-COV-2 antibodies IgM and IgG takes about an hour.
https://www.fda.gov/media/137367/download
The RT-PCR process takes a day or more but reportedly getting faster, hopefully.
The testing policy is driven by first detecting the virus which seems logical. The antibody testing policy is left twisting in the wind, for now. The entire analysis approach is flawed and is driven by government officials shooting first and asking questions later, which by the way is, among the realm of data scientists, an appropriate first thing. What should follow is the scientific Q & A, which is outrageously impeded/muffled because of a rabid progressive insurgency that reacts to exaggerate and twist any findings to its goal of keeping people quarantined to justify mail-in voting so they can cheat their way to power.
The idea that the process of opening states is driving the SPREAD of NEW infections is ludicrous. It has been shown dozens of times that a stay-at-home quarantine policy will most certainly cause the infection to spread to all members of a residence once one member becomes infected.
But even in a state of quarantine, people have a need to get out of their residence for necessary things “essentials” and with precautions (often conflicting, confusing, changing), the spread of the virus will appear to have declined but is merely masked. Such people traveling outside their residence will eventually return to their residence and if for whatever reason they have been infected while outside, they will certainly infect those inside their residence. But statistics won’t show these at-home infections
But once there is a general opening, a phased lifting of quarantine, infected but asymptomatic people formerly shuttered in their residence, will get outside, get tested, and a ‘surge’ in positive cases will be reported.
People are at risk of hundreds of things whenever they venture outside their residences. I know MDs and scientists who have been afraid for years to touch door handles.
A policy that would quarantine people until the cows come home is disastrous. Most of those venturing out and getting tested, coming back with negative results, tested again just to be sure, and so on, will be susceptible each time to picking up the virus but they can choose to be cautious. Staying in quarantine while other members of the residence go outside will add increased risk because inside the residence, precautions are practically impossible.
Fortunately, we have an effective prophylactic for the spread of SARS-COV-2 and a cure for its early progression to COVID-19. But said cure and prophylactic are trounced with irrational ferocious intensity and outright evil lies by the rabid progressive insurgency mentioned above. I ping SeekAndfind to address this latter statement if up for it.
The time course of the immune response to experimental coronavirus infection of man
Different experimental work showed huge disparity in the concentrations of antibodies post-infection and the duration of the antibodies in the body.
I don’t think the antibody erosion numbers are thoroughly in the literature for colds and flu. So we have no comparison, but yeah, the Asian antibody erosion numbers published on this are very steep.
Antibodies are not forever. They are replenished by Memory B cells. And those cells are not immortal. They die and must be replaced, hopefully retaining memory of past infections. So the erosion of antibody levels is not entirely a question of why did they disappear. They disappear all the time. The question is why aren’t they replenished? In just the past week or so there emerged some evidence the Memory cells are attacked by the virus, which is a very HIV sort of behavior.
I sympathize re travel if you’re old. It’s a risk. All things are risks. The problem confronting the old is it’s an extra risk. 8% extra, it looks like. Personally, I think the old must wait. We’ll know more in a year and the places one wants to visit will still be there next year.
I have been looking for ANY reportage whatsoever on the antibody testing that they are supposedly doing. I did hear in the early days that the reporting agencies were stupidly adding the antibody test results together with the covid19 test results, and that’s the last I have heard about antibody testing. Has anyone seen any of the antibody testing results?
The mutations will either increase or decrease the affinity of the surface receptor for a particular antigen, a progression called affinity maturation. After acquiring these mutations, the receptors on the surface of the B cells (B cell receptors) are tested within the germinal center for their affinity to the current antigen. B cell clones with mutations that have increased the affinity of their surface receptors receive survival signals via interactions with their cognate TFH cells. The B cells that do not have high enough affinity to receive these survival signals, as well as B cells that are potentially auto-reactive, will be selected against and die through apoptosis. In addition to somatic hypermutation, many B cells will also undergo class switching before differentiation, which allows them to secrete different types of antibodies in future immune responses.Amazing...the body TESTS the efficacy of the B cells and destroys those not good enough and the cells can switch classes to most effectively fight future infections.
Too bad I’m way too old to start a new career! All of this gives me a whole new appreciation for medicine and research.
Thanks for those links!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.