Immunity certificates for people who have had the virus?

[Peter Sarf]

Moderator note: split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ted-to-hospital-out-of-intensive-care.203116/

but he’s had the virus so likely immune now

Actually this raises a serious question. DO we allow those who are no longer unclean potentially or otherwise free reign ?. This is going to cause resentment if I can grab the bog rolls before the rest of you because I have already had it. Kind of have my bog rolls AND use them (as in not dead) .

This is an inevitable stage if we are ever going to get back to normal quickly. I can see a two tier society appearing. There will even be those endeavouring to catch Covid-19 just so that they can have freedom. It is probably why testing for antibodies (to identify people who are no longer at risk or capable of causing infection) will not be a priority. Perhaps the government would rather keep everyone in the same boat until they estimate there are not many open to infection left.

Anyway it is good to see that the pm has more or less recovered. I expect his experience will serve as a reminder to others to be careful as it could happen to them.

 

[MattA7]

Tut Tut. You cannot do that - both homes are in a smokeless zone.



Actually this raises a serious question. DO we allow those who are no longer unclean potentially or otherwise free reign ?. This is going to cause resentment if I can grab the bog rolls before the rest of you because I have already had it. Kind of have my bog rolls AND use them (as in not dead) .

This is an inevitable stage if we are ever going to get back to normal quickly. I can see a two tier society appearing. There will even be those endeavouring to catch Covid-19 just so that they can have freedom. It is probably why testing for antibodies (to identify people who are no longer at risk or capable of causing infection) will not be a priority. Perhaps the government would rather keep everyone in the same boat until they estimate there are not many open to infection left.

Anyway it is good to see that the pm has more or less recovered. I expect his experience will serve as a reminder to others to be careful as it could happen to them.

there was reports of the government giving“immunity certificates” to those who have had it to allow them to return to society However as you said concerns were raised that people may start resenting survivors or some may deliberately try to infect themselves to get such certificate. Not to mention how to prevent forgeries

 

[DaveTM]

There are conflicting reports about the possibility of reinfection with coronavirus, or even worse, reactivation. For instance: https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-catch-twice/ and more recently https://globalnews.ca/news/6805414/coronavirus-south-korea-reinfection-canada/

So, can the current Coronavirus reinfect or reactivate? No one really knows. There are annecdotal reports of ~100 cases in S Korea of people testing positive, then negative, then positive again. If it turns out that by waiting long enough we see reactivation is a part of this coronavirus's abilities, then an "Immunity Certificate" is not worth having.

Reinfection. Part of the reason we all get common colds multiple times throughout our lives is becase there are many different viruses that cause common colds, and exposure to one type of virus does not allow the body to build immunity to other types of virus. However the other part of the reason we get common colds time and time again is because for some of these types of virus the body does not develop a good long term immunity. Once the immune system has "forgotten" a particular type of virus, we can be reinfected by that same virus.

Reactivation. Anyone who has had a cold sore is likely to suffer further cold sores throughout their life. Similarly if you have ever had chickenpox, you are likely to develop shingles or even chickenpox again later in life. This is even true if you end up living to a ripe old age on a desert island without contact with anyone. This happens because the viruses that cause these diseases manage to hide away dormant for long periods in the body until the immune system is weakened or "forgets" the virus. It then reactivates and starts reproducing itself within your cells causing fresh disease.

My personal nightmare scenario is that we find out that coronavirus reactivates at a later date like chickenpox/shingles; the second time you have it is generally worse than the first time. Countries like S Korea / New Zealand / Singapore / China which have provided competent lockdown and testing measures and hence have very low infection rates per million population will be in a wonderful position post covid if they can get permenent immunity via vaccine compared to countries like the UK, which followed a strategy of letting everyone get it and will be condemned forevermore to looking after a fraction of the population each time they suffer reactivation.

 

[Peter Sarf]

There are conflicting reports about the possibility of reinfection with coronavirus, or even worse, reactivation. For instance: https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-catch-twice/ and more recently https://globalnews.ca/news/6805414/coronavirus-south-korea-reinfection-canada/

So, can the current Coronavirus reinfect or reactivate? No one really knows. There are annecdotal reports of ~100 cases in S Korea of people testing positive, then negative, then positive again. If it turns out that by waiting long enough we see reactivation is a part of this coronavirus's abilities, then an "Immunity Certificate" is not worth having.

Reinfection. Part of the reason we all get common colds multiple times throughout our lives is becase there are many different viruses that cause common colds, and exposure to one type of virus does not allow the body to build immunity to other types of virus. However the other part of the reason we get common colds time and time again is because for some of these types of virus the body does not develop a good long term immunity. Once the immune system has "forgotten" a particular type of virus, we can be reinfected by that same virus.

Reactivation. Anyone who has had a cold sore is likely to suffer further cold sores throughout their life. Similarly if you have ever had chickenpox, you are likely to develop shingles or even chickenpox again later in life. This is even true if you end up living to a ripe old age on a desert island without contact with anyone. This happens because the viruses that cause these diseases manage to hide away dormant for long periods in the body until the immune system is weakened or "forgets" the virus. It then reactivates and starts reproducing itself within your cells causing fresh disease.

My personal nightmare scenario is that we find out that coronavirus reactivates at a later date like chickenpox/shingles; the second time you have it is generally worse than the first time. Countries like S Korea / New Zealand / Singapore / China which have provided competent lockdown and testing measures and hence have very low infection rates per million population will be in a wonderful position post covid if they can get permenent immunity via vaccine compared to countries like the UK, which followed a strategy of letting everyone get it and will be condemned forevermore to looking after a fraction of the population each time they suffer reactivation.

Afraid so. Or not. Currently it looks to me as though the UK is anticipating there being little or no re-infection / re-activation of existing infection. Even if this is true, this then relies on the build up of herd immunity at a reasonable pace. Otherwise, it might take years to build up to useful quantities.

We can only wait and see what other countries experience because the UK is not testing enough. That is OK because other countries are testing and are further into the experience that we are.

As I have said before lets wait and see what happens in Wuhan as the lockdown is relaxed. Sure there will be a rise in cases but by how much ?. Will herd immunity prove itself or alternatively have all those who are going to suffer badly had it already.

South Korea. With its judicial control might prove more effective. But then only if they cut themselves off from the rest of the world forever.

If there is no herd immunity then we will eventually reach the point where we have to take it on the chin unless a vaccine arrives soon.

For immunity certificates to work. We need the concept of herd immunity to work or be worthwhile. We then need adequate Antibody testing.

The cases in S-Korea of re-infection might be caused instead by poor test results. The tests to see if you have Covid-19 are not very reliable it seems. Acid test would be if older blood samples can be re-tested. I wonder if that is possible. However the testing in South Korea has been good enough to control the spread aiui.

 

[Mogster]

Virus’s that cause influenza type illnesses (ILIs) corona, influenza, rhino, aren‘t known to use latency and reactivate. Virus’s that reactivate tend to be those that cause chronic illness like HCV and herpesvirus’s like CMV. Our antibody response to rhinovirus’s is quite poor however there is evidence that people recovered from the SARS coronavirus with useful long lasting antibody. I think we should assume CoV2 will behave in a similar way to other coronavirus’s untill we have evidence it doesn’t.

It seems plausible that the reports of reactivations are due to people not completely clearing the virus and false negative test results due to low levels of RNA right on the test assays limits of detection. For PCR amplification to occur you have to have an RNA copy in your sample, RNA is a discrete molecule, it doesn’t have to be spread evenly in the patients body fluids. When you get down to low copies/ml it becomes pot luck how many copies you pick up if any. If you take a sample with a known copy level and test it 10 times if you find 2 of them positive, your limit of detection would be 20% at that particular concentration. These CoV2 test kits are very new they are probably evaluating them as they use them, limits of detection are an important part of validating your test. You can only validate your test with a reliable source of positive material though, this can be difficult also.

As I’ve said before I’m intrigued as to how people with a poor antibody response would be accommodated by an immunity passport system.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Deleted. Some how I managed to quote my own post ?. - so vain !.