Here’s Some Hope: People Have Lasting Immunity To COVID-19, Even After Mild Cases
After six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a body of scientific work is emerging that shows our immune system is capable of remembering COVID-19 and producing a lasting immunity. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/wp-c...n-1024x738.jpg
This immunology work also supports the theory of cross-protection, whereby the body can mount a timely and appropriate defense on the simple inference that Sars-CoV-2 is a lot like other coronaviruses.
Over the course of the pandemic, medical fears have been shaped as much by what the future holds in terms of second waves and mutations during the cold of winter, as by what has been happening in the world at any particular moment.
However, studies both peer-reviewed and not, are seeing positive changes in the human innate immune response to COVID-19 that suggest the diseases’ days of unfettered infection are numbered.
For example, in one peer reviewed study from Nature, immunologists in Singapore studied the cellular memory of T-cells, an important immune cell that weaponizes other immune responses in addition to tracking and eliminating pathogens on their own. RELATED: Single Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine Proved Successful in Pre-Clinical Study, Human Safety Trials Begin
The researchers found that:
People with or recovering from COVID-19 displayed immediate memory T-cell activation to the virus’ proteins.
People with an infection history—going back as far as 17 years—of SARS-CoV-1 which emerged in China around 2002-2003, had long-lasting memory T-cell responses that ”displayed robust cross-reactivity to the N protein of SARS-CoV-2.”
And, perhaps most interesting, SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T-cell activation was found “in individuals with no history of SARS, COVID-19 or contact with individuals who had SARS and/or COVID-19.”
The last point is certainly enough to give us hope. And yet more positive research emerges. Antibody Activation
Another study, this one not yet peer-reviewed, found that the response of antibodies—one of the primary classes of immune cells used to defend against pathogens—stayed active in saliva up to 115 days after the onset of symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
While antibody and T-cell responses in the blood have been extensively studied, this work, published in the preprint publication, has been one of the first to look at responses in mucus cells. The scientists note this is an important area of research since the virus infects in the upper respiratory tract. CHECK OUT: Possible ‘Breakthrough’ Coronavirus Treatment With Natural Protein Cuts Risk of Death and Serious Symptoms by 79%
“The immune response is doing exactly what we would expect it to,” Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto who worked on the study, told CNN. “At least at about four months, which is, as far as, most of us can measure at this point in the pandemic.”
Work on yet another kind of immune cell, the ‘helper’ T-cell as opposed to the ‘killer’ T-cell, was completed earlier in the year when several studies published in Nature and Science found that the helpers could also, more than half the time, identify COVID-19 and sound the alarm, and that these helpers were present in patients that had never been exposed to COVID-19.
The evidence of re-infection is, at this point, non-existent, which suggests humanity’s collective immune system is working well to combat it. MORE: Jewish People Who Have Recovered From COVID Have Donated Half of All the Plasma Used in US Treatments
“So that is all good news,” Gommerman said. ”That means that people who are infected with this novel coronavirus should have the capacity to mount what’s called a memory immune response to protect themselves against infection.” Need more positive stories and updates coming out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more uplifting coverage, click here.
09-02-2020, 07:42 PM
geomancer
Re: Some good news about Covid-19
A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged
Earlier this summer, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee set about crunching data on more than 40,000 genes from 17,000 genetic samples in an effort to better understand Covid-19. Summit is the second-fastest computer in the world, but the process — which involved analyzing 2.5 billion genetic combinations — still took more than a week.
---------------------------------- According to the team’s findings, a Covid-19 infection generally begins when the virus enters the body through ACE2 receptors in the nose, (The receptors, which the virus is known to target, are abundant there.) The virus then proceeds through the body, entering cells in other places where ACE2 is also present: the intestines, kidneys, and heart. This likely accounts for at least some of the disease’s cardiac and GI symptoms.
------------------------------- The end result, the researchers say, is to release a bradykinin storm — a massive, runaway buildup of bradykinin in the body. According to the bradykinin hypothesis, it’s this storm that is ultimately responsible for many of Covid-19’s deadly effects. Jacobson’s team says in their paper that “the pathology of Covid-19 is likely the result of Bradykinin Storms rather than cytokine storms,” which had been previously identified in Covid-19 patients, but that “the two may be intricately linked.” Other papers had previously identified bradykinin storms as a possible cause of Covid-19’s pathologies.
------------------------------------ The bradykinin hypothesis could also explain some of the broader demographic patterns of the disease’s spread. The researchers note that some aspects of the RAS system are sex-linked, with proteins for several receptors (such as one called TMSB4X) located on the X chromosome. This means that “women… would have twice the levels of this protein than men,” a result borne out by the researchers’ data. In their paper, Jacobson’s team concludes that this “could explain the lower incidence of Covid-19 induced mortality in women.” A genetic quirk of the RAS could be giving women extra protection against the disease.
---------------------------------------- Interestingly, Jacobson’s team also suggests vitamin D as a potentially useful Covid-19 drug. The vitamin is involved in the RAS system and could prove helpful by reducing levels of another compound, known as REN. Again, this could stop potentially deadly bradykinin storms from forming. The researchers note that vitamin D has already been shown to help those with Covid-19. ----------------------------------------- Other compounds could treat symptoms associated with bradykinin storms. Hymecromone, for example, could reduce hyaluronic acid levels, potentially stopping deadly hydrogels from forming in the lungs. And timbetasin could mimic the mechanism that the researchers believe protects women from more severe Covid-19 infections
09-03-2020, 10:14 AM
geomancer
Re: Some good news about Covid-19
Steroids Can Be Lifesaving for Covid-19 Patients, Scientists Report New data in hand, the W.H.O. recommended that doctors give the drugs to critically ill patients worldwide.
International clinical trials published on Wednesday confirm the hope that cheap, widely available steroid drugs can help seriously ill patients survive Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Based on the new evidence, the World Health Organization issued new treatment guidance, strongly recommending steroids to treat severely and critically ill patients, but not to those with mild disease.
“Clearly, now steroids are the standard of care,” said Dr. Howard C. Bauchner, the editor-in-chief of JAMA, which published five papers about the treatment.
The new studies include an analysis that pooled data from seven randomized clinical trials evaluating three steroids in more than 1,700 patients. The study concluded that each of the three drugs reduced the risk of death.
---------------------------------------- Corticosteroids should now be the first-line treatment for critically ill patients, the authors said. The only other drug shown to be effective in seriously ill patients, and only modestly at that, is remdesivir.
Steroids like dexamethasone, hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone are often used by doctors to tamp down the body’s immune system, alleviating inflammation, swelling and pain. Many Covid-19 patients die not of the virus, but of the body’s overreaction to the infection.
09-03-2020, 10:25 AM
geomancer
Re: Some good news about Covid-19
Is a Bradykinin Storm Brewing in COVID-19?
Excess of the inflammatory molecule bradykinin may explain the fluid build-up in the lungs of patients with coronavirus infections. Clinical trials of inhibitors are putting this hypothesis to the test.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-o...ovid-19--67876 ----------------------------------
A common theme that underpins many of the disease manifestations of COVID-19, such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), is inflammation and edema, or fluid build-up. An assorted cast of leaky blood vessels, immune cells (as well as the cytokines and other molecules produced by them), and plasma proteins such as clotting factors, bradykinin, and other kinins assume center stage in this spectacle of acute inflammation.
-------------------------------- Currently, there are two approved drugs that target the kinin system: icatibant (a B2R blocker) and the monoclonal antibody lanadelumab, which inhibits plasma kallikrein (there are no drugs yet approved that inhibit tissue kallikrein). van de Veerdonk contends that targeting the kinin system early in the disease, soon after a patient is hospitalized, and is hypoxic, but hasn’t yet developed ARDS, might be helpful.
That is what his group found in a small exploratory study published this month. COVID-19 patients taking icatibant showed marked improvement in oxygenation as evidenced by a substantial decrease in need for supplemental oxygen, compared to control patients.
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09-06-2020, 10:48 AM
geomancer
Re: Some good news about Covid-19
A small, randomized study showed that vitamin D3 therapy (along with several other drugs) significantly reduced the severity of COVID-19. Calcifediol is a V D3 metabolite that is immediately metabolically available.
"Effect of Calcifediol Treatment and best Available Therapy versus best Available Therapy on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Pilot Randomized Clinical study"
The vitamin D endocrine system may have a variety of actions on cells and tissues involved in COVID-19 progression especially by decreasing the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Calcifediol can rapidly increase serum 25OHD concentration. We therefore evaluated the effect of calcifediol treatment, on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality rate among Spanish patients hospitalized for COVID-19.
------------------------------------------------------- Our pilot study demonstrated that administration of a high dose of Calcifediol or 25-hydroxyvitamin D, a main metabolite of vitamin D endocrine system, significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of patients requiring hospitalization due to proven COVID-19. Calcifediol seems to be able to reduce severity of the disease, but larger trials with groups properly matched will be required to show a definitive answer.
