Coronavirus Outbreak

[Soloist]

I had an uncle in Oregon who collapsed recently, passed out, and was brought to the hospital in an ambulance where he spent maybe a week but is also now back home. He was unvaccinated and in his late 80s. Pretty much in denial about the fact that he caught and had Covid but he did test positive when they screened him at the hospital. I have no idea what kind of treatment/medications he received but he never got to the point of being put on a ventilator.

It is kind of a reminder that even those who are at high risk of complications, or who have co-morbidities, still generally tend to get better. This is a deadly disease only in the aggregate. At the individual level 99% (or whatever the number is now) do eventually get better.

Did this uncle die not that long ago?

[Ken]

I had an uncle in Oregon who collapsed recently, passed out, and was brought to the hospital in an ambulance where he spent maybe a week but is also now back home. He was unvaccinated and in his late 80s. Pretty much in denial about the fact that he caught and had Covid but he did test positive when they screened him at the hospital. I have no idea what kind of treatment/medications he received but he never got to the point of being put on a ventilator.

It is kind of a reminder that even those who are at high risk of complications, or who have co-morbidities, still generally tend to get better. This is a deadly disease only in the aggregate. At the individual level 99% (or whatever the number is now) do eventually get better.

Did this uncle die not that long ago?

Different uncle. I also have one who died very recently of cancer not Covid.

[Dan Z]

I had a thought this AM about the Omicron variant.

We obviously still don't know enough about it, but what we need to watch for is whether Omicron is more infectious and whether it is more severe than the current Delta strain. If it is both of those, we may have a real problem on our hands. But what if it is only one of those? The early signs are that Omicron is more infectious - it is quickly outpacing the Delta variant in southern African countries. But if Omicron is less severe (which is still a possibility) then it ironically might be a good thing. If it out-competes the other variants across the world, while causing fewer deaths and hospitalizations, it could "take all the oxygen out of the room" in terms of new uninfected hosts, and essentially end this stage of the pandemic. One can only hope and pray at this point...

[Ken]

I had a thought this AM about the Omicron variant.

We obviously still don't know enough about it, but what we need to watch for is whether Omicron is more infectious and whether it is more severe than the current Delta strain. If it is both of those, we may have a real problem on our hands. But what if it is only one of those? The early signs are that Omicron is more infectious - it is quickly outpacing the Delta variant in southern African countries. But if Omicron is less severe (which is still a possibility) then it ironically might be a good thing. If it out-competes the other variants across the world, while causing fewer deaths and hospitalizations, it could "take all the oxygen out of the room" in terms of new uninfected hosts, and essentially end this stage of the pandemic. One can only hope and pray at this point...

Yes. Was listening to a news story about it this morning.

We also don't know how well current vaccinations will protect against Omicron. Scientists believe the existing vaccinations will provide protection but they don't know if the effectiveness will be lower with this new variant. Likewise, whether natural immunity from having caught one of the other variants also protects against this new one. The countries from where this is coming all have low vaccination rates so no information yet on how this variant spreads in a highly vaccinated population.

The MRNA vaccine makers like Pfizer and Moderna say it is a relatively simple process to develop targeted boosters for different variants and can do so in 3-months. So worst case scenario, that is where we are at. Playing whack-a-mole with variants and boosters.

The big problem is that we live in a global society and what happens in places like southern Africa spreads around the world quickly. We won't beat Covid here until we beat it around the whole world. In the case of South Africa, the low vaccination rate is not due to supply. They have plenty of vaccine. They have just done a very poor job of rolling it out. Reportedly South Africa has over 20 million doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca on hand that has yet to be distributed and administered.

[Josh]

The MRNA vaccine makers like Pfizer and Moderna say it is a relatively simple process to develop targeted boosters for different variants and can do so in 3-months. So worst case scenario, that is where we are at. Playing whack-a-mole with variants and boosters.

Or just don’t take the mRNA vaccines at all and let your natural immunity treat this.

[Ken]

The MRNA vaccine makers like Pfizer and Moderna say it is a relatively simple process to develop targeted boosters for different variants and can do so in 3-months. So worst case scenario, that is where we are at. Playing whack-a-mole with variants and boosters.

Or just don’t take the mRNA vaccines at all and let your natural immunity treat this.

We don’t yet know whether natural immunity conferred by having caught the original alpha variant provides immunity to the new omicron variant.

[GaryK]

The MRNA vaccine makers like Pfizer and Moderna say it is a relatively simple process to develop targeted boosters for different variants and can do so in 3-months. So worst case scenario, that is where we are at. Playing whack-a-mole with variants and boosters.

Or just don’t take the mRNA vaccines at all and let your natural immunity treat this.

We don’t yet know whether natural immunity conferred by having caught the original alpha variant provides immunity to the new omicron variant.

Actually, we know very little about Covid natural immunity in general. For some reason, studying natural immunity doesn't seem to be very high on the priority list of things to study.

[Dan Z]

Or just don’t take the mRNA vaccines at all and let your natural immunity treat this.

We don’t yet know whether natural immunity conferred by having caught the original alpha variant provides immunity to the new omicron variant.

Actually, we know very little about Covid natural immunity in general. For some reason, studying natural immunity doesn't seem to be very high on the priority list of things to study.

There are a number of pretty decent studies out there on natural immunity - most show a robust level of reinfection protection, and a small chance of hospitalization and death for those re-infected. For example, a large study out of Israel (cited earlier I'm sure) showed natural immunity was a better protectant than the Phizer vaccine - although both vaccinated and previously infected had a low prevalence of severe COVID. Another one out of Qtar found that “Reinfections had 90% lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections.” Here is another large study that had similar results.

Bottom line - there seems to be pretty good evidence that surviving symptomatic COVID offers good protection - as good as, and sometimes better than the vaccine. It is still much less risky to not get COVID in the first place of course - and that's where the vaccine is most effective. Also most health authorities are still recommending at least a booster-level vaccine for those previously infected as a way of beefing up antibody response and limiting further spread to the vulnerable.

[GaryK]

We don’t yet know whether natural immunity conferred by having caught the original alpha variant provides immunity to the new omicron variant.

Actually, we know very little about Covid natural immunity in general. For some reason, studying natural immunity doesn't seem to be very high on the priority list of things to study.

There are a number of pretty decent studies out there on natural immunity - most show a robust level of reinfection protection, and a small chance of hospitalization and death for those re-infected. For example, a large study out of Israel (cited earlier I'm sure) showed natural immunity was a better protectant than the Phizer vaccine - although both vaccinated and previously infected had a low prevalence of severe COVID. Another one out of Qtar found that “Reinfections had 90% lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections.” Here is another large study that had similar results.

Bottom line - there seems to be pretty good evidence that surviving symptomatic COVID offers good protection - as good as, and sometimes better than the vaccine. It is still much less risky to not get COVID in the first place of course - and that's where the vaccine is most effective. Also most health authorities are still recommending at least a booster-level vaccine for those previously infected as a way of beefing up antibody response and limiting further spread to the vulnerable.

I should have been more clear that I was speaking primarily about studies within the USA. I listened to an interview with Dr Fauci a few months ago and the question of natural immunity came up and he said something to the effect that he doesn't have much data on natural immunity. It doesn't seem to be a high priority here in America.

[Dan Z]

Actually, we know very little about Covid natural immunity in general. For some reason, studying natural immunity doesn't seem to be very high on the priority list of things to study.

There are a number of pretty decent studies out there on natural immunity - most show a robust level of reinfection protection, and a small chance of hospitalization and death for those re-infected. For example, a large study out of Israel (cited earlier I'm sure) showed natural immunity was a better protectant than the Phizer vaccine - although both vaccinated and previously infected had a low prevalence of severe COVID. Another one out of Qtar found that “Reinfections had 90% lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections.” Here is another large study that had similar results.

Bottom line - there seems to be pretty good evidence that surviving symptomatic COVID offers good protection - as good as, and sometimes better than the vaccine. It is still much less risky to not get COVID in the first place of course - and that's where the vaccine is most effective. Also most health authorities are still recommending at least a booster-level vaccine for those previously infected as a way of beefing up antibody response and limiting further spread to the vulnerable.

I should have been more clear that I was speaking primarily about studies within the USA. I listened to an interview with Dr Fauci a few months ago and the question of natural immunity came up and he said something to the effect that he doesn't have much data on natural immunity. It doesn't seem to be a high priority here in America.

Ahh - that makes sense. I'm guessing Research Universities and the CDC are likely to be enticed to go after the project, but the Pharmaceutical companies are probably disincentivized to go after something that might undercut the need for their product. Also, Faucci sometimes seems hesitant to cite research that he thinks might discourage vaccine receptivity.