The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Re: Antibody levels Archived Message

    Posted by Alan Haynes on October 27, 2020, 8:10 am, in reply to "Antibody levels"

    Interesting…

    The virus is endemic, it is in the community.
    If immunity decreases over a small period of time and you can catch the virus again and again then where does this leave us?
    Taking this BBC piece at face value, are we now destined to live under these present conditions e.g. masks, hand washing, lock-downs, shops and businesses closing, disrupted lives etc… not to mention the levels of deaths and infection rates for the long-term future, or not? Are those at most risk to be locked away indefinitely? If people catch this virus repeatedly, then will the amount of tissue damage they receive be cumulative?

    Humans may be infected by and suffer clinical consequences from numerous different viruses, and in most instances the infection is resolved with or without tissue damage. Reinfection is usually subclinical, and for many viruses we have effective vaccines; classic examples include measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus and varicella zoster viruses. Other viruses, such as HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV) and some herpesviruses, can cause substantial tissue damage in some or all individuals they infect, and lesions can become chronic. These viruses usually have one or more properties that allow them to diminish the efficacy of host adaptive or innate immunity, and we lack effective vaccines against most of these agents. Infection with viruses such as influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has a variable outcome. Most individuals may suffer mild or subclinical infection, but others experience severe disease that can be lethal.

    And…

    Whether a virus infection results in severe, sometimes prolonged, lesions or is resolved with minimal bystander tissue damage depends on numerous factors. Some viruses (for example, HIV and HCV) have intrinsic properties that make immune control difficult, and attempts by the host immune system to achieve control results in notable tissue damage. Other infectious agents (for example, many herpesviruses) are successfully controlled in most individuals, but tissue damage occurs in those individuals that have predisposing genetic or acquired problems affecting one or more components of innate or adaptive immune system. Finally, some infections that are normally well controlled can cause extensive tissue damage under unusual circumstances. These might relate to the dose or route of exposure, the age of infection, host genetics and priming with cross-reacting viruses or co-infection with other agents.

    I’m not a virologist… this article from the NIH is pretty dense but might help?

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899649/


    Message Thread: