re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) ***W.H.O. DECLARES A GLOBAL PANDEMIC***

Y'all may remember that we talked recently about T cells and this paper that indicated that some people who had beaten common-cold coronaviruses might have some resistance to COVID-19 infection.

I'd like some help with this new preprint from some of the doctors here.

In this study, the researchers compared T cells from convalescent COVID patients to those from current asymptomatic people who tested negative for antibodies and also to T cells from blood banked last year. What they found is that some of the same T-cell receptors that reacted to the virus from the convalescent patients also reacted in some of the current negative people, but not in the blood banked last year.

The idea is that some of the people who had never had COVID symptoms and tested negative for antibodies had been exposed to the virus, and their T cells had fought off the virus and they weren't infected.

My question is: since those people have reactive T cells now (presumably after being exposed to SARS-coV-2 and resisting infection), does that mean that they might have some quasi-immunity?

I'm curious because, as I have said, I believe that there is a huge variation in susceptibility to infection, and that variation results in a lowering of the R value of COVID-19, because immunity quickly builds up among the people most likely to be infected. If people who have been exposed and not infected end up with some degree of immunity as a result, then that substantially increases what I think is already a very high amount of variation, and it makes it even easier for us to stop the spread.

Yes, this is the game changer we have been talking about. If these people with T cells basically can’t be infected or can’t be infected easily then they are essentially immune without having any antibodies. Suddenly, 60% of the population doesn’t need to be infected to reach herd immunity if 40% already have this T cell immunity then maybe you only need 20% to reach herd immunity.

And these patients aren’t easily detected because they don’t have antibodies.

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The accumulating data indicate that some healthy COVID-19-naive donors have T cells specific to SARS-CoV-2 antigens and S-protein in particular (32, 34, 49). Our findings are in line with that with a caveat that we observed the significant increase of SARS-CoV-2 S-protein reactive T-cells in healthy donors sampled during the COVID-19 pandemic (Fig.2c,d). Combined with the complete lack of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in that group this suggests that some of the donors may have had contact with SARS-CoV-2 before blood sampling. Due to cross-reactivity induced by other coronaviruses their T cells might have protected them from developing the full scale infection. This is illustrated by the case of p1477 who cohabited with COVID-19 patient but was negative in multiple PCR tests, did not have any COVID-19 typical or flu-like symptoms and had no detectable antibodies to any of the SARS-CoV-2 antigens. This hypothesis, although, needs to be validated on a larger cohort of donors.

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This is why about a month ago we suspected something weird was going on because your chance of being infected from someone you lived with was way lower than it should be. That was the first hint that something else was happening here.

Hopefully we continue to get good news on this because it is a total game changer for the future of this pandemic.

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Excellent point. You would expect people who live together to have similar immune exposures.

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My anecdote: I know of one married couple where one got sick and tested positive, and the other never got sick...though, I'm not sure if he ever got tested, but he did quarantine for 14 days.

And this just in....

Municipal raw sewage samples a really good indicator of impending community outbreak. R-squared 0.99, sewage provides a 7-day lead time vs. test samples as to what's going on.

MEDVRIX - Pre print

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And this just in....

Municipal raw sewage samples a really good indicator of impending community outbreak. R-squared 0.99, sewage provides a 7-day lead time vs. test samples as to what's going on.

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That's pretty interesting. Definitely a less invasive way to "test" the population for outbreaks.

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This is why about a month ago we suspected something weird was going on because your chance of being infected from someone you lived with was way lower than it should be.

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We've known something was fishy all the way back to the Diamond Princess. Carl Goldman was symptomatic and tested positive, but his wife that he obviously shared those cramped cruise ship rooms with never tested positive or had symptoms.

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Excellent national testing numbers today. * Only 19,069 positive cases, the 2nd-lowest number since March 27th * Record number of tests at 441,248. * Record low percentage of positive tests, at 4.3% * Only 523 deaths, the fewest since March 29th

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It is my understanding that weekend numbers aren't reliable because the CDC closes for weekends. Still, the trend looks good so far. I hope for a continuation of good news and a return of college football.

No there isn’t scalable lab test. They are doing complex biochemistry to identify these cells and what they react to.

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Excellent national testing numbers today.

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Didn't know we now had 56 states.
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Don't get upset, just a jab at a little humor

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No one at the CDC recommended taking COVID positive patients and admitting them to nursing homes. You keep implying that they did.

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This is from the same paragraph as the one I quoted earlier. It is from the actual CMS March 13,2020 guidelines that informed all the controversy:

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When should a nursing home accept a resident who was diagnosed with COVID-19 from a hospital?

A nursing home can accept a resident diagnosed with COVID-19 and still under Transmission-Based Precautions for COVID-19 as long as the facility can follow CDC guidance for Transmission-Based Precautions.

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https://www.cms.gov/files/document/3-13-2020-nursing-home-guidance-covid-19.pdf

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It doesn't specify that because it's friggin obvious.

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Perhaps "should" have been obvious from the CMS/CDC all the way down.

Again, I'm certainly not saying it was good idea. It obviously wasn't and state and local leaders have probably done better to ignore a lot of what's come down from the federal level throughout this.

However, CMS/CDC clearly put their stamp on nursing homes taking back patients who had tested positive and were still under Transmission-Based Precautions for COVID-19 and laid out directives for so doing.