This is a repost since last time you asked how to reach Bill Gates.
It is actually a repost of my original submission which sank without a trace. Dang asked me to repost it.
A (possible) solution to Covid-19
21–30 of 585 posts
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#22Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#23I'm glad people are realizing that all this social distancing is merely a pause button on the virus. Once we press play on society, exponential growth will happen again and we will have effectively rolled back the clock until we reach herd immunity through things like the OP's suggestion. At least this next time we'll hopefully have more PPE.
Exactly. There is also everyone in poor countries that is beyond the reach of expensive vaccines.
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#24Agreed that the risk:reward ratio here would be worth it. This sounds super promising. That being said, how is it known that having had the mutated strain provides immunity to the dangerous strain?
The reason why it would provide immunity is all the structural proteins would be the same. To our immune system it would look like the same virus as the pathogenic strains.
This is not really anything unusual and is exactly how viral live vaccines work. The vaccine for live polio and measles work exactly this way.
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#25This seems risky but worth consideration. Can you provide peer / concept review from virologists? A few items of feedback: - You could use a title that includes a distinct word to identify your proposed solution: "Using accentuated COVID-19 strains as a (possible) solution". This helps people to communicate and refer to the idea concisely. - The top three paragraphs may be known to your target audience; consider allo…
Adding to this:
While you do not recommend ZJ01 due to the potential for it to mutate back into the original strain, isn't it also quite dangerous?
That would likely remain a primary concern for many - we musn't cause large scale harm intentionally. And if we don't know what effects a strain has, it makes it ethically difficult to distribute.
From the ZJ01 Medrxiv[1] page you link to:
"We found, in our 788 confirmed COVID-19 patients, the decreased rate of severe/critical type, increased liver/kidney damage and prolonged period of nuclear acid positivity during virus dissemination, when compared with Wuhan."
[1] - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.10.20033944v...
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#26Isn't this just one of many ways to produce a vaccine, so won't it need the same long term trials for safety and effectiveness that any type of vaccine needs? Reducing this this time somehow is what I think is needed.
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#27This seems risky but worth consideration. Can you provide peer / concept review from virologists? A few items of feedback: - You could use a title that includes a distinct word to identify your proposed solution: "Using accentuated COVID-19 strains as a (possible) solution". This helps people to communicate and refer to the idea concisely. - The top three paragraphs may be known to your target audience; consider allo…
I am a virologist - well I have published many papers in this area. I have a PhD in molecular microbiology and have been a tenured professor (I now work in the biotech sector). This is not intended to be a scientific paper, but a layman’s summary of the idea so non-technical people can understand the idea. It is not risky to go looking for a naturally attenuated virus. This is the first step that needs to happen.
Thank you. I certainly get the sense from the article and your comments that you are well-informed.
My suggestion is really one around building trust - it'd help to have others in the same scientific field confirm and/or question the approach.
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#28You say > The reason why is immunity to respiratory viruses (like corona) doesn’t last long – 6 months to 2 years. I haven’t read anything like this before. It seems like you’re extrapolating from the flu vaccine, which doesn’t last because the flu mutates too quickly. Coronavirus mutate much slower and the thought is that we’ll likely only need one vaccine. Have we actually found any less deadly strains? My understa…
We we have found less deadly strains (I link to one paper in the post that found one - still too deadly) and we have found strains with large (and small) deletions. What we haven’t done is go specifically looking for strains with exactly the properties we want (yet at least).
There is no need to create any viral mutants in the lab (and all the difficulties this will involve), just use what is already out there in the community. We just need to go and look for them.
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#29You say > The reason why is immunity to respiratory viruses (like corona) doesn’t last long – 6 months to 2 years. I haven’t read anything like this before. It seems like you’re extrapolating from the flu vaccine, which doesn’t last because the flu mutates too quickly. Coronavirus mutate much slower and the thought is that we’ll likely only need one vaccine. Have we actually found any less deadly strains? My understa…
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00798-8
> If humans do develop immunity, how long does it last?
> That’s another big unknown. Immunity is short-lived for the coronaviruses that cause common colds; even people who have high levels of antibodies against these viruses can still become infected, says Stanley Perlman, a coronavirologist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
> The evidence is more equivocal for the two other coronaviruses that have triggered epidemics: those that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Perlman says his team has found that after people recover from MERS, their antibodies against the virus drop precipitously. He also says that his team has gathered data — not yet published — showing that SARS antibodies are still present in the body 15 years after infection. But it’s not clear whether this immune response is enough to prevent reinfection. “We don’t have good evidence of long-lasting immunity, but we also don’t have really good data from both SARS and MERS,” Perlman adds.
Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19
#30This seems risky but worth consideration. Can you provide peer / concept review from virologists? A few items of feedback: - You could use a title that includes a distinct word to identify your proposed solution: "Using accentuated COVID-19 strains as a (possible) solution". This helps people to communicate and refer to the idea concisely. - The top three paragraphs may be known to your target audience; consider allo…
I am a virologist - well I have published many papers in this area. I have a PhD in molecular microbiology and have been a tenured professor (I now work in the biotech sector). This is not intended to be a scientific paper, but a layman’s summary of the idea so non-technical people can understand the idea. It is not risky to go looking for a naturally attenuated virus. This is the first step that needs to happen.
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