Old fashioned, moi?!
Interesting - so a long way from herd immunity:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/2018...ibody-testing/
But that study only looks at people with antibodies. There have been a number of studies showing that some people with Covid don't develop anti-bodies but use T-cells to fight off the infection. I linked to an article yesterday from a Swedish doctor. He said:
"The media have been proclaiming that only a small percentage of the population have antibodies, and therefore it is impossible that herd immunity has developed. Well, if herd immunity hasn’t developed, where are all the sick people? Why has the rate of infection dropped so precipitously? Considering that most people in Sweden are leading their lives normally now, not socially distancing, not wearing masks, there should still be high rates of infection.
The reason we test for antibodies is because it is easy and cheap. Antibodies are in fact not the body’s main defence against virus infections. T-cells are. But T-cells are harder to measure than antibodies, so we don’t really do it clinically. It is quite possible to have T-cells that are specific for Covid and thereby make you immune to the disease, without having any antibodies. Personally, I think this is what has happened. Everybody who works in the emergency room where I work has had the antibody test. Very few actually have antibodies. This is in spite of being exposed to huge numbers of infected people, including at the beginning of the pandemic, before we realised how widespread Covid was, and when no one was wearing protective equipment."
Obviously the author is talking about Sweden and they are probably further down the line than we are but still it is likely that a lot more have had the virus in this country than the Imperial Study estimates.
I'm not so sure as in the days pre lockdown we probably had it here earlier, had a more regular supply of new spreaders adding on almost a daily basis, and so by Mid March we could have been ahead of Sweden even if in % terms.
and if lockdown has little - no effect..... then it's fair to sya we could be well ahead of Sweden.
Remember even our lockdown, whilst long, was "lockdown light" compared to some. In Spain kids weren't allowed to leave the home.
No exercise.
We really had limitations, but many still worked and most were still out and about.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
Neither my daughter nor son-in-law who worked in A&E throughout the peak have developed antibodies. And yet they both think they must have had it, possibly asymptomatically. The antibody test is not looking like a very accurate way to assess immunity or infective history at all.
Simon Blease
Monmouth
Antibodies were found in almost all (96%) of those who had a previous infection confirmed by a swab test. If T cell immune response was important without B cell help - antibodies - I would have expected that % to be rather lower. It is important to differentiate between immunity - implying resistance to infection - and immune response, where infection may still occur but may be milder/asymptomatic.
A Royal College of Physicians survey showed that 25% of doctors who replied had tested positive, despite most having had face to face contact with many cases. So, either PPE works, or test results are falsely low - probably a bit of both. But rising cases in many countries suggests that documented herd immunity has yet to be reached anywhere, apart from perhaps some boroughs in New York.
A Swedish immunologist has been quoted as saying that opening schools would help achieve herd immunity, and that opening schools would be safe - both cannot be right. Sweden has had 3 to 7 times the deaths of its neighbours per head of population.
Last edited by Mike T; 13-08-2020 at 07:58 PM.
What I would be interested in knowing is how many of those 300 develope symptoms, felt ill, became ill, became seriously ill (hospital visit), very seriously ill, ages, general health etc.
None of this is ever forthcoming, all we ever have from the news are basic figures of infection and deaths.
Don't roll with a pig in poo. You get covered in poo and the pig likes it.
Because we did so little testing, especially in the key early months, ironically our identified case to fatality ratio is the worst in the world - see here -> https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Indeed because without this information, one cannot say "Another example of very little resistance to covid in the general community".
In fact the resent spikes in Leicester, Blackburn etc would suggest there is significant resistance as there have been no increase in admissions.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell