I'm not qualified to assess the risk, but if the there's indeed ADE (antibody dependent enhancement),[1][2] people once infected with a milder strain may suffer from more severe symptom from the deadlier strains, thus killing more people in the end. I'm wondering how we may rule out this worst case scenario. [1] Is COVID-19 receiving ADE from other coronaviruses? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S128…
ADE is more a problem for the vaccine approaches. It is one reason we may never have a vaccine for this disease. Hard to rule out worst case scenarios, we just have to work with what we have and make hard choices.
>ADE is more a problem for the vaccine approaches. It is one reason we may never have a vaccine for this disease.
This is at least partly why there are no SARS/MERS vaccines. There's a paper I'll try to dig up where 4-8 (can't remember) modified vaccine candidates were tested in multiple animal species, and in each case except one, immunity was conferred but exposure to the virus lead to a dangerous autoimmune response which destroyed lung tissue.
Brilliant && simple. Why nobody is acting on it? Please correct spelling: ..I now work.. ..a number of papers.. Thank you, please spread the word (url).
No idea why nobody is acting on it - maybe nobody else has thought of it yet. While the idea of there being attenuated strains out there is nothing radical, the idea of using them is. Please everyone if you know someone you think might be able to help make this happen then spread the word. You are even welcome to steal the idea and claim it is your own :)
Have you considered sending this as a letter to a medical journal? I know it's not a "scientific article" per se, but many journals have a section dedicated to letters. For example, CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) considers such letters, and right now they're fast-tracking anything COVID-related: https://www.cmaj.ca/
It is commendable to search for solutions to the Corona virus. But the author is doing himself a disservice by saying that tens of millions of people worldwide will die. And why is it a bad thing to have to be vaccinated on a yearly basis, poor African countries have not been hit hard that is a fact. The areas being hit the hardest can afford to be vaccinated yearly and is accustomed to it with the yearly flu shot. O…
> But the author is doing himself a disservice by saying that tens of millions of people worldwide will die.
We're officially at almost hundred thousand dead now, most places on Earth haven't reached peak infections yet, and it's an open secret that deaths are being underreported everywhere. I can easily see tens of millions of dead in few weeks.
The idea that naturally mild strain of the coronavirus would provide a durable benefit, but a human-created vaccine would not, seems to me like an idea that needs a lot more explanation. The mechanism of immunity should be the same between those two.
> "No. Apart from the time it will take to develop, trial, and mass produce a vaccine (12-18 months), it is unlikely that any vaccine will be practicable. The reason why is immunity to respiratory viruses (like corona) doesn’t last long – 6 months to 2 years. We would have to keep vaccinating everyone in the world every year (or maybe every 6 months if we are unlucky). "
I am not sure I agree with this. I am taking the annual flu shot, along with all the members of my family. I would be fine with an annual, or semiannual, coronavirus shot.
This is the same thing as a vaccine (but without doing the safety due diligence). IMHO as a not-medical-professional, we’d be better off with just using one of the (dead) vaccine candidates early than with a slightly attenuated live virus. We actually started clinical trials of the Moderna mRNA vaccine in humans a month ago. We may have some early safety data. Better that than intentionally exposing people.
No it is not. There is still safety data, it has just been done by nature and not by jabbing people in the arm with some experimental vaccine.
Isn'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.
Something else to think about: This post implies that this solution would be implemented in some thoughtful and publicly-known way. We should consider the possibility that some organization (government or otherwise) could do this regardless of whether society accepts this as a solution. It's possible that this is already in the process of being implemented right now. Maybe better to ask for forgiveness than permission...
Herd immunity generally depends on having a vaccine. https://www.vaccines.gov/basics/work/protection Are there any examples of humanity developing herd immunity without a vaccine?
"How did it end?
The most popular theory of how the plague ended is through the implementation of quarantines. The uninfected would typically remain in their homes and only leave when it was necessary, while those who could afford to do so would leave the more densely populated areas and live in greater isolation.
Improvements in personal hygiene are also thought to have begun to take place during the pandemic, alongside the practice of cremations rather than burials due to the sheer number of bodies."
I'm not qualified to assess the risk, but if the there's indeed ADE (antibody dependent enhancement),[1][2] people once infected with a milder strain may suffer from more severe symptom from the deadlier strains, thus killing more people in the end. I'm wondering how we may rule out this worst case scenario. [1] Is COVID-19 receiving ADE from other coronaviruses? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S128…
ADE is more a problem for the vaccine approaches. It is one reason we may never have a vaccine for this disease. Hard to rule out worst case scenarios, we just have to work with what we have and make hard choices.
I don't see the point of this. Nature has most certainly not established the long-term effects of this virus, seeing as it has only been spreading in humans for a short while. Skirting the regulations is pointless, because the important thing is the intent of the regulations. If it were just a problem with the regulations, we could also just change the regulations and give the untested vaccine. Plus, if you want to a…
If we wait for the long term we will all get infected and we will all be broke. We need to think differently. I am not arguing that we should infect people on purpose. If people chose to become infected on their own by hanging out with those infected with an attenuated strain then that is a very different legal question. Personally I think the result would be the regulatory agency would just rush the use through base…
Well, in principle it does sound like a possibly "vaccine", but without the long-term testing I still don't see how we can be sure we have found this attenuated strain. Personally, I am youngish (30s) and healthy, so I would probably fall into the core group of those that "should" be infected. But given the choice, I don't think I'd do it, because even now, three months after this virus became big, there is still huge uncertainty about its lethality (even among young people), the number of severe cases (possibly causing long-term long tissue), and how this virus behaves in the long-term: how long would immunity even last? [seems unclear now]. There were also reports from China, and now South Korea, about possible reinfections or reactivations. Under these circumstances, I'd rather pass and keep to social distancing/masks etc. until a better solution comes along or the safety of an attenuated strain has actually been proven through a large scale, controlled trial.