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Covid-19: The T Cell Story

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Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#31

Post by lymeeducator »

erentz wrote: post #25
lymeeducator wrote: post #11

T cell responses are interesting. Infectolab ( https://www.infectolab-americas.com/ ) and its originator Armin (Germany) are using T cell responses for tick borne diseases like: Borellia (Lyme), Bartonella and Babesia because antibody testing is difficult for these (broken via CDC specs as most labs won't test key proteins 31, 34 and never indicate which antibodies are present). Bartonella is very hard to test for wi…

Note that Armin Labs are considered quacks by many. For one example [1]. I will leave it to others to do your own research but just wanted to recommend caution about their use. Especially for diagnosis of Lyme, plenty of tragic stories of people getting an Armin positive test while negative on the others and then being encouraged through years of serious antibiotic treatments only to have always been negative all alo…

I mentioned Armin/Invecto since they are looking at T-cell responses to pathogens. Much of the prolonged antibiotic treatment is no longer common practice. It damages the GI, suppresses portions of the immune system and is in many cases bypassed by 2 resistant forms of Lyme (round body starvation form & biofilm colonies). Most of my testing has been through Igenex, which has a lot of experience with antibody testing that places like Quest screw up. The typical Western Blot for Borellia (Lyme) is not a frequent test for many of the labs and requires 5 - 7 IgM or IgG that won't form in the patient because their immune system is too suppressed to manifest all of them. For example, the outer protein of Lyme does not have to shift and result in another antibody presentation because the host immune system has not forced it to. The CDC spec deliberately ignores two specific antibody proteins OSP 31, 34 as do the common tests and instructs most labs not to reveal which antibodies the patient has. Therefore, that patient might have some, but not all of the "required" antibodies.

As I mentioned above, metals & mold toxins can generate a lot of inflammation in some people that manifest as "foggy brain", joint aches, etc. It takes time and diagnostic testing paired with treatment protocols. Some people cannot process Aluminum and Mercury forms out of their body without relying on Glutathione (limited detox pathways, start with HLA genetic SNPs).

It's a good thing most western medicine doctors never prescribe expensive pharmaceuticals long term ... oh wait ;-)

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#32

Post by mlyle »

MiguelVieira wrote: post #10
nodamage wrote: post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

Also this Washington choir where over 80% of the attendants were infected https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-superspreader-singing.h... This article is just wishful thinking.

"This phenomenon is called overdispersion, and it means that while on average a patient infects 2 or 3 new people, this average consists of many people infecting nobody, and then some mass spreading events infecting many more."

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#33

Post by mlyle »

nodamage wrote: post #27
thewarrior wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re being too negative here. I’m not an expert. My understanding is given that there is a pre existing T cell response that doesn’t mean that you will not be infected or that you will not have antibodies if infected. However it could totally be possible that when infected you are much less likely to show symptoms,die or spread it to others. It’s a tough hypothesis to completely verify but the dip in deaths…

I'm not sure what exactly you think is negative? The claim that infections top out at 10-20% is clearly not true. Even if it were true, we don't really know enough yet to conclude that T-cells would be the reason why. > It’s a tough hypothesis to completely verify but the dip in deaths and infections in many places in spite of lifting lockdowns lends some support to this theory. This sounds like a pretty weak correla…

> This sounds like a pretty weak correlation to be honest. Just because a lockdown is officially lifted doesn't mean everyone suddenly reverts to their old behaviors.

The behavior changes vs. policy changes is interesting. Estimates of Rt were falling before the lockdowns and continued falling at about the same rate without any apparent discontinuity through the intervention.

It makes one wonder how effective the policy measures really were-- if they were effective vs. what the population did voluntarily vs. any inherent effects from the structure of the contact network, you'd expect to be able to see some effect in a time series.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#34

Post by yig »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #16
nodamage wrote: post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

Curiously enough, after running some simulations in a supposed realistically connected population model (but much smaller n), I found linear growth occurring soon after the exponential phase. I suspect this might be a topological condition (i.e. the due to the distribution of connections) that limits the growth, in the same way a rope will burn linearly if you set fire to one end of it. Of course, a society is more c…

There are only so many people, so the growth rate can't stay exponential forever. Eventually it must look like an S-curve.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#35

Post by mlyle »

Animats wrote: post #22
Animats wrote: post #7

The author asks some questions which can be answered by gathering some data. This suggests going back and re-testing for antibodies some populations from tightly packed groups - the cruise ship passengers, warship crew, and nursing home residents. The antibody tests are more accurate than they were two months ago. The key here is to find out how many people, definitely exposed to the virus, not only did not show any…

It looks like that's already been done, and there are tightly packed groups where the infection rate was 70-100%, as mentioned above. So, no existing immunity at all, probably. That was the claim in the original article, but the data does not bear it out.

Finding densely connected subgroups in special populations (prisons, cruise ships) with high infection rates doesn't mean that that specifies the equilibrium herd immunity threshold in other populations.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#36

Post by lsllc »

nodamage wrote: post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. But I see more human activity out and about than ever (at least compared to March/April and mask wearing / social distancing is has been pretty obviously in decline for a number weeks now). The state is now well into it's re-opening phase 2 and even with the recent protests, there were only a handful of new infections.

Could this not be some version of "herd immunity"? So in cramped conditions such as a warship, cruise liner or prison the virus just spreads so damn quickly (given the 5-14 day incubation) that we see most people getting infected really barely before the incubation is over for the index patient).

However in "normal" societal conditions (i.e. where people go to their jobs and are back to their homes at night and are only exposed "occasionally", e.g. on the commuter rail or maybe in a store) that the virus spreads much more slowly and coupled with asymptomatic carriers who (controversially may not "shed" the virus as much, or at all) that reduces the overall input to R0 such that it spreads more slowly and "fizzles out" with R0 Presumably "herd immunity" isn't a binary thing ... we don't just go from 59% with raging infections at R0 = ~5-6, then suddenly at 60% infected R0 drops to <1? (or whatever numbers you believe "herd immunity" happens at). Maybe the R0 curve just flattens more quickly than we thought?

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#37

Post by xmichael0 »

So... Does this mean that we can "self" vaccinate by going maskless and running around the city and in and out of grocery stores every few days? I am mostly joking here, but I am also serious, the post implies that we can develop immunity by getting minor exposures over a period of time. I read the article twice and probably need it twice more to fully understand it, but please enlighten me.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#38

Post by erentz »

lymeeducator wrote: post #31
erentz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Armin Labs are considered quacks by many. For one example [1]. I will leave it to others to do your own research but just wanted to recommend caution about their use. Especially for diagnosis of Lyme, plenty of tragic stories of people getting an Armin positive test while negative on the others and then being encouraged through years of serious antibiotic treatments only to have always been negative all alo…

I mentioned Armin/Invecto since they are looking at T-cell responses to pathogens. Much of the prolonged antibiotic treatment is no longer common practice. It damages the GI, suppresses portions of the immune system and is in many cases bypassed by 2 resistant forms of Lyme (round body starvation form & biofilm colonies). Most of my testing has been through Igenex, which has a lot of experience with antibody testing…

Curious about your thoughts on a patient that tested both the Quest and IgeneX immunoblots at the same time. The Quest showing 5 positive bands. And the IgeneX no positive bands. Then repeated the same two tests four months later at the same time with the same results. So Quest repeatedly CDC positive, IgeneX repeatedly negative. How would you interpret that?

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#39

Post by remote_phone »

lsllc wrote: post #36
nodamage wrote: post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. But I see more human activity out and about than ever (at least compared to March/April and mask wearing / social distancing is has been pretty obviously in decline for a number weeks now). The state is now well into it's re-opening phase 2 and even with the recent protests, th…

I think what you’re seeing is exponential growth. Meaning, after crushing the curve, things start all over again with slow growth and then pick up again in 2 months. We are beginning to see the exponential growth explode in Arizona, Texas and Florida now I think.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#40

Post by guscost »

doliveira wrote: post #29
rpiguy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly as tedious as listening to experts in lab coats make wild projections that were wildly off and basing policy on it. I’m very happy that we get lots of opinions from non-experts.

Yeah, experts won't get everything right so let's listen to the ignorants... Pretty sure there is a phallacy that describes this line of thought. Multiple ones, probably.

Why don’t we listen to the information too, and decide for ourselves by thinking critically? Maybe even change our own minds sometimes? None of that is beyond my reasoning abilities, and I have a hard time believing that it is beyond yours.

By the way the GP is criticizing the “appeal to authority” fallacy, and you are criticizing a form of the “argument to moderation” fallacy.

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