Uh Oh. Hong Kong Reports First Confirmed Case Of Man Infected With COVID-19 For A Second Time! Finding Suggests Some Recovered Patients May Have Only Short-lived Immunity

Hotair ^ | 08/24/2020 | Jazz Shaw

[SeekAndFind]

I have the feeling that this news may wind up slamming the brakes on a lot of the optimism about vaccines and new COVID-19 treatments that have been making the rounds lately. Doctors at the University of Hong Kong have concluded that a patient who was confirmed as being infected with the novel coronavirus and mildly symptomatic back in March came down with the disease for a second time this month. There are some complicating factors in his story that will likely need to be taken into consideration, but the overall message from that medical center is clear. If you can survive the disease once and then catch it again in that short of a period of time, it sticks a major pin in the entire plan we have for combatting this plague, whether you’re counting on herd immunity, a viable vaccine or anything else. (NBC News)

A man in Hong Kong has become the first confirmed patient to be infected with the coronavirus a second time, according to researchers at the University of Hong Kong.

The finding suggests that some patients who recover from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, may have only short-lived immunity from reinfection. The case will likely also be significant for scientists who have been working on treatments using antibodies from recovered coronavirus patients, and those who have been scrambling to develop a safe and effective vaccine.

The 33-year-old man in Hong Kong developed mild symptoms in late March when he was first diagnosed with COVID-19, the researchers at the University of Hong Kong wrote in a study that has been accepted for publication by the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The patient was hospitalized March 29, but his symptoms subsided and he was discharged April 14, according to the study.

We’ve heard rumors of this before, but they frequently involved people who were asymptomatic but produced a positive result when being tested. Given the high number of false positives we’ve seen with certain test kits, it was still entirely possible that the infected patients hadn’t actually had the disease originally, so there was reason to be optimistic about a future vaccine. That’s not the case with this man. He developed symptoms and tested positive on multiple checks. So he now appears to have contracted COVID twice.

If this is the real situation we’re dealing with, blood plasma treatments such as the one the President announced the other day aren’t going to be as much of a path to salvation as we’d hoped. Or at least they won’t produce the long-term immunity we need to see if we’re really going to beat this thing down into manageable numbers. The same may apply to the vaccines currently in testing. If they could at least last for a year we could probably deal with a situation where everyone gets vaccinated on an annual basis the same way we do with the flu. But if it’s going to wear off in as little as three months, that’s not a very good scenario.

But as I mentioned above, there are a couple of complicating factors in this patient’s story. First of all, he originally contracted the disease in Hong Kong. But this time he tested positive shortly after returning from a trip to Spain, via the United Kingdom. The second fact is that he is, at least thus far, still asymptomatic. Both of these factors could be important and make the news a bit less bad.

We already know that the virus has been mutating, potentially at an alarming rate. The variety that hit New York City so hard appears to have stopped off in Italy for a while before coming to our shores. It appeared to be significantly different than the home-grown Chinese version that hit the west coast. If the two flavors are significantly different, immunity to one may not necessarily translate into immunity for the other. But people who aren’t traveling around constantly are probably less likely to run into more than one mutation so any immunity acquired via vaccine or personal exposure may prove more resilient. (Fingers crossed.)

The second factor may play into the history I already alluded to above. Until he begins showing some symptoms or flunks a few more tests, it’s still possible that he’s producing a false positive. That would put the double infection scenario back on the shelf, at least for the time being. Still, this is one story we’ll want to keep an eye on. If all of our efforts to either develop herd immunity or produce a widely available, effective vaccine go down the tubes, the “new normal” is going to be with us for a very long time indeed.

[lurk]

Mandated masks for the world then.

[lurk]

Mandated masks for the world then.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Mandated masks for the world then.

OK, saying two times is enough. We get it. :)

[lastchance]

To me it suggests that he has a different strain. It also suggests that immunity to it is built up gradually when a person only has a mild case. We don’t expect to be completely immune from the flu even with a vaccine. So why do we expect it from SARS-2? The viruses that we do become immune to after having a series of vaccinations or the disease itself are rather more deadly than SARS-2. Think measles.

[cuban leaf]

Yeah. Sure.

[volunbeer]

This is a simple reality of this virus. Every person’s immune system is a bit different - stronger or weaker and/or more susceptible to individual viruses.

I have accepted this from the beginning. Rather than panic, we must acknowledge the successful treatment (if administered early - HCQ, Zinc, and Z-pak) and get on with our lives. I have more faith in that than I do a “vaccine”.

It also appears that many people have immunity to the coronavirus given that many health care or essential business workers have been exposed multiple times over the past many months with negative illness.

To put things into perspective - NYC has less deaths and illness from CV-19 right now than they do in an average flu season.

It is time to follow the real data and stop following the politics! The elderly and vulnerable need protection and the rest of us need to get on with our lives.

[chopperk]

Simple solution to the pandemic,,,,Make HCQ and Azithromycin OTC drugs so anyone who develops a cough and/or fever can go the nearest drug store and self medicate with the drugs along with Zinc Sulfate with correct dosage within 48 hours of symptoms and pandemic over.,,,,,instead of waiting a few days to get tested and 5 days for the results,,,,if over 60 years of age,,,,you’re dead.

[volunbeer]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.

Blame President Xi. He is the person responsible for unleashing this on the world.

[BBQToadRibs]

I was watching a YouTube documentary on virus infections, some virus’s you throw the virus and have life long immunity (Hepatitis B and C). Others, you don’t. The conservative consensus was, it’s just way too soon for us to know with COVID-19. It may be years. There’s just an awful lot of speculating going on right now and that just muddies the water.

[cuban leaf]

Love the picture. It reminds me of the Hazmat team that showed up in my building in downtown Seattle because someone found white powder on the carpet. It was powdered sugar from a dropped donut.

We live in a world of both Mr. Monks and Karens. I’m really glad I got out when the gittin’ was good. :)

[MCEscherHammer]

Or, the test was a false positive!

[Mount Athos]

I wonder why this journalist didn’t mention that there are 6 major strains of covid 19

Or the issue of false positive / false negative tests

[NicoDon]

This is how viruses have always worked. Your body overcomes it but if you are weakened by something else, another illness, exhaustion, dehydration, significant injury, a virus has the ability to reassert itself. Your body’s defenses have to keep it in check and if those defenses (t cells, i believe they are called) are disrupted by something then the virus can become an issue again. Ever heard of chicken pox? How about shingles? Same virus. Likewise herpes.

[NicoDon]

Last I heard, HCQ was over the counter everywhere in the third world.

[jmacusa]

Raise your hand the number of times any of you got the flu. Or a broken bone or a tooth pulled. Jeez. It’s going to happen.

[2aProtectsTheRest]

I don’t believe anything that CHINA reports.

But even if it turns out to be true, it’s one person out of tens (possibly hundreds) of millions who’ve been infected. That’s a fluke. There have been a handful of cases of HIV being spontaneously “cured” in certain people. Flukes happen, it doesn’t mean HIV is about to vanish from the face of the Earth. And it doesn’t mean we all suddenly lack immunity if one person tests positive twice with no symptoms.

Another article written to bang that FEAR DRUM.

[Karliner]

Uh oh everyone is dying. be ascered

[2aProtectsTheRest]

This is how pneumonia results in so many deaths each year. Yes, there’s a vaccine for it and it does work. But if your body has been beaten down to already being near death, your immune system isn’t able to mount an effective defense against much of anything, regardless of what immunity you might have developed to it.

T-cell and B-cell responses require a lot of energy. If you don’t have any energy left in your body, you don’t get much of a response.

[FreeReign]

With 23 million COVID cases in the world, what are the odds that some of those people, months later, get a false postive test?

Duh!