Oof, that doesn't bode well for potential vaccine development.
Not necessarily. A vaccine isn't just an injection of killed virus these days, or even attenuated strains of the virus. Many of the vaccines being studies are concentrated proteins from different parts of the virus, and they are trying to determine which could engender the largest and most sustained immune response--one that is larger and more sustained than contracting a mild Covid-19 case. And vaccines often have substances that stimulate the immune system included, so the immune response is more vigorous than from getting the disease itself. I don't think we should give up hope yet.
Another thing to remember is that our adaptive immune system generally "remembers" foreign antigens (chemicals associated with the infectious agent) it has been exposed to, so even if antibody levels drop off more rapidly than with the average viral infection, there may well be populations of memory cells and plasma cells that will be prepared to "jump start" antibody production if one is re-exposed to the viral antigen again.
BUT, we shouldn't all assume we will have a vaccine soon, or that if we get one that it will be 100% effective or long lasting. They may need to be multiple boosters, and they may be very much like flu shots and fade with time (though not because covid-19 undergoes the same degree of antigenic drift as influenza, because so far it seems that it doesn't) and will work better for some people than for others, and they may reduce the severity of the illness rather than preventing it entirely.
Trump is correct in one sense. We do have to learn to "live with" the virus. But he is wrong in the actual application of this fact. Living with the virus does not mean ignoring it or pretending its bad effects will fade if we ignore it hard enough. It doesn't mean bullying people into taking risks and resuming normal activities too soon.
Sweden's little experiment has shown that the "herd immunity" hypothesis has serious flaws, even if one is willing to toss a segment of the population (vulnerable people who can't self isolate) under the bus.
Masks, social distancing, working and learning from home and providing support for those who are most severely impacted are aspects of "living with" it, as are continuing to test and collect data that will teach us more about how this disease affects survivors, and we need to refine our knowledge of who is at greatest risk, and when and how we can resume specific activities with the least risk.
Originally posted by Lizmonster
It's not clear to me how much this push to reopen schools (K-12 at least) is angry flailing on the part of an administration that's irritated this virus is still out of control.
Despite the events of the last six months, there seem to be an overwhelming number of people in government who still think confident acts of brash normalcy will cow the virus into slinking away.
I think there's a certain amount of terror on the part of some Republicans, because they've mishandled this so badly. They figure their best hope of retaining control after the election is to push for at least partial economic recovery and hope for a miracle with regards to caseloads and deaths. Plus, they are under intense pressure from their big donors to get people back to work and back to being good little consumers of more than just online products and services. Plus, of course, they have probably figured out that people like themselves are less at risk for severe disease or for being triaged in overflowing hospital corridors if they do get sick. Has a single senator or representative died of Covid-19 yet?
I've noticed that some I know on social media have moved from complete denial of covid 19 to eagerly grasping at speculation that since the virus has clearly evolved greater contagiousness (the European strain that now predominates is more transmissible than the strain that first surfaced in China), then it might eventually follow the pattern of some viral diseases and become less virulent. For this to happen, of course, there would need to be random mutations in the viral proteins that allow more people to have milder cases of this virus and for them still to be able to spread it. The logic is that people who aren't as sick are more likely to be out and about spreading the virus than someone with a high fever and feels generally crappy.
What we
don't have evidence of is that differences in symptoms we see so far derive from differences in viral strains versus patient resistance and (possibly) viral loads that led to infection (health care workers may get so very sick when they lack PPE, because they get blasted with millions of particles instead of just a few thousand). There's also the issue that people who don't show symptoms, or are only mildly ill, don't cough and sneeze as much, so maybe the virus won't spread as effectively if a less virulent strain does evolve. Again, this is not proven beyond reasonable doubt and is still debated. We don't know exactly the minimum number of viral particles must enter the body to engender disease. I've heard estimates ranging from a few thousand to a million or more.
There are tons of unknowns, and it's very speculative at this point. But of course conservative-leaning friends on social media are eagerly insisting that a leading infectious disease expert says the virus is evolving (funny how conservatives suddenly don't hate evolution) into a less dangerous strain when that person actually said it
might possibly do this, given enough time, but there's no evidence yet that this is happening (though there is evidence it has evolved into being more contagious, so wear your masks).