T-cells from common cold coronaviruses can provide protection against COVID-19, an Imperial College London study has found. Reuters reports on the findings, which were published in Nature.
The study, which began in September 2020, looked at levels of cross-reactive T-cells generated by previous common colds in 52 household contacts of positive COVID-19 cases shortly after exposure, to see if they went on to develop infection.
It found that the 26 who did not develop infection had significantly higher levels of those T-cells than people who did get infected. Imperial did not say how long protection from the T-cells would last.
“We found that high levels of pre-existing T cells, created by the body when infected with other human coronaviruses like the common cold, can protect against COVID-19 infection,” study author Dr Rhia Kundu said.
The researchers suggest vaccines based on imitating the internal virus proteins that T-cells target may be more resilient to mutations and new variants as those proteins, unlike the spike protein targeted by the current vaccines, “mutate much less”.
Cross-immunity to SARS-CoV-2 from other coronaviruses has been proposed since early on in the pandemic as an important element in reaching herd immunity and endemicity (for example, it was mentioned in this Scientist article from March 2020), and became a particular focus of interest in the autumn of 2020 as evidence of it accumulated (see here, here and here). It’s good to have further confirmation of this from Imperial (and also recently from UCL), but it has to be said it’s pretty late to the party, and it’s not clear why a study which began in September 2020 during a public health emergency has taken 16 months to report, particularly when vaccines were brought to market in 10 months. The emphasis of the researchers is on the potential usefulness of the findings for developing new and more resilient vaccines, which contains a tacit admission that the existing vaccines are failing, but also leaves one wondering whether the research has only been published now that it is useful for making new pharmaceutical products. It might be added that the studies on the efficacy of generic off-label medicines against Covid are taking an awfully long time to report.
As Dr. Mike Yeadon explained in his October 2020 piece for the Daily Sceptic, “What SAGE Has Got Wrong“, the assumption of a lack of pre-existing immunity and hence universal susceptibility was one of the great errors made by Government advisers throughout the pandemic and which led to an over-reaction that continues to this day. Now that Imperial researchers have acknowledged the existence of prior immunity, will Neil Ferguson’s modelling team update its assumptions?
At the start it was constantly repeated that we have no immunity to this virus, which supposedly made it much more deadly. For example, on January 24th 2020, at a point when there were only 17 deaths reported globally, the Daily Mail quoted Oxford’s Professor Peter Horby saying: “Novel viruses can spread much faster through the population than viruses which circulate all the time because we have no immunity to them. Most seasonal flu viruses have a case fatality rate of less than one in 1,000 people. Here we’re talking about a virus where we don’t understand fully the severity spectrum. But it’s possible the case fatality rate could be as high as 2%. … Two per cent case fatality rate is comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 so it is a significant concern globally.”
The Mail, like other outlets, was already by then routinely referring to the virus as a “killer infection” and “deadly disease”, and the WHO had just commended China for implementing the first lockdown in Wuhan. Is it any wonder there was hysteria? In that light, it’s remarkable the British Government stuck to the pandemic plan as long as it did. We often blame Neil Ferguson’s modelling, published on March 16th 2020, for precipitating a shift in Government policy, but it can be easy to forget that prior to that the WHO itself (among many others) had already repeatedly criticised the Government for refusing to lock down and for talking about herd immunity.
The missing piece of the modelling jigsaw was pre-existing immunity. Government advisers expected everyone to be susceptible and everyone to be infected unless drastic action was taken (though even then they only thought action could slow the spread, not stop it). In truth, infections began falling in the U.K. before the lockdown came in, and they also fell in Sweden without a lockdown, and have fallen in every jurisdiction where no lockdown was implemented ahead of a surge, including Florida, Texas and South Dakota – and in each case a similar proportion of the population was infected as in lockdown jurisdictions. This confirmed the pattern seen on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in February 2020, where an uncontrolled outbreak infected just 19% of those on board. Similarly, there have been no exit waves when restrictions have been lifted in Texas, Mississippi, the U.K. and elsewhere. The evidence is that, just as with flu in winter, only a relatively small proportion of the population gets infected when the bug goes round, typically 5-20%. Similarly, the household secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 (the proportion of household contacts an infected person infects) is around 10-15%, even for new variants, indicating low levels of susceptibility. This suggests that almost everyone is exposed during the epidemic, but only a certain percentage are highly susceptible. Exposure to pathogens has been shown to reinforce the immune system against pathogens without infection-proper occurring, and some experts have suggested social distancing may have weakened our immune systems through reduced exposure.
Further evidence of near-universal exposure to an epidemic virus was provided last month by the rate at which Omicron displaced Delta in the U.K. and around the world. If instead of universal exposure, what was actually happening was only a small proportion of people were being exposed to each virus, then the displacement process should have taken far longer. That’s because Delta would have continued spreading in the networks it was moving through while Omicron would have spread primarily in the networks it was moving in. The fact that instead within weeks Delta almost disappeared shows that the two variants must have been going head-to-head, in direct competition and trying to infect the same individuals and communities in almost all contexts, so that many susceptible people were being exposed to both but Omicron, with its greater infectiousness, was repeatedly winning out. As evidence of universal exposure, this is also evidence of the presence of pre-existing immunity in many of those exposed, keeping the secondary attack rate and overall prevalence down.
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Restaurant/stadium/etc asks potential customers to present a “vaccine passport” before entry. As a potential customer I would first demand to see the vaccine passports of all the workers in that facility. Only fair, right?
Liberal Democrats it is then.
I have never voted for the Liberals, Lib Dems or whatever believing them to be a cowardly safe haven for those who cannot decide between Conservative and Socialist.
New, one issue, parties will achieve nothing except to waste money and split the anti authoritarian vote.
With a voice already in Parliament and the media and with their current 100% record why vote for anyone else, except those honorable notable Labour, Conservative and Other MPs that just outed themselves as champions of liberty ?
Yes Ben Bradshaw, that includes you, surprisingly.
76 is a good number to start with three years to build up the anti momentum.
Makes sense, if only because it is the only way to obtain Proportional Representation; and PR is the only way forward for small new parties to grow.
We need new parties in order to protect minorities from the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
PR is a disaster. It guarantees nothing will ever get done. That’s why ZZ Top run Israel. Strangely enough the most effective is a three party where the opposition plus the ‘third’ can stop the worst excessives of government.
The Liberal Democrats have always been a bit weak on actual liberalism. But to judge by their actions they are right on this and will get my vote unless there is an even more explicitly anti-lockdown party on offer.
Does anybody know how they voted for the 3 lockdowns and the previous covid bill?
The Liberal Democrats are not anti-lockdown; they are not opposed to the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
I suspected that. It’s just this specific extension they are against
Yup, I got a bit excited at that too, then I saw this https://www.libdems.org.uk/s21-covid-motion – they are firmly part of the ‘lockdown earlier and harder’ and ‘close the borders’ brigade. And it seems some of the labour MPs didn’t think the bill went ‘far enough’ in supporting people to self-isolate. So sadly this is not really coming about as a result of these people looking at the scientific evidence which says that quarantining the healthy is pointless, in the case of the lib-dems it’s probably a desperate grab for attention prior to the local elections, after which their local councillors will be pressing at every stage for ‘local powers’ – it never ends….
Ben Bradshaw seems to have made the transition so why not the Lib Dems, even if only for short term electoral advantage (which Ben does not require).
Doesn’t look like Bradshaw has made that much of a transition – only last week he was pushing for hotel quarantine to be replaced by a GPS tracking system. Replacing prison with house arrest enforced by electronic tag for the crime of going on holiday doesn’t cut it with me I’m afraid. I would be more convinced if he was asking when we are going to have an international tourist industry again….
Point taken, his main interest seems to be the resurrection of the local tourist industry which would, of course, benefit from the destruction of overseas travel.
my MP is firmly against all restrictions (as he emails me) and is in the CRG. Then he votes for everything going
And that only because they know that they’ll never be in a position to exploit it.
Sir Forensic fancies his chances at taking the helm of HMS Despotic if they can make this temporary emergency permanent.
Why are you simping for a party?
We don’t vote for parties, and we certainly don’t vote for leaders. We get one vote, in our constituency, and we vote for the actual candidates who are standing there. Please, please, try to get that through your skull.
Look at the individuals actually standing. Find out what they believe, and vote for the individual who best represents your beliefs, or for none of the above.
Sure, most low-information voters are just going to scrawl their X by the picture of the rosette that they’ve always voted for, but perhaps informed voter might try to be better than that. If we don’t, then all we’re ensuring is that the second-worst Party of Davos candidate will get in, time after time after time.
I have never voted for Ben Bradshaw precisely because he is of the Labour party (not that any other party has ever put up a candidate of merit against him).
Despite my now advocating voting Lib Dem on the basis of their new stand re Coronovirus legislation in Ben’s case I would now vote for him for that same reason and because he is the sitting MP.
I made that proviso in my initial post.
This from a conservative who never forgave them for getting rid of Enoch Powell because he was anti Common Market and never voted for them since they got rid of Mrs Thatcher for similar reasons.
Wonderland. Simply not where we live. I lived for a while in Andorra. Got to vote. You actually wrote the name on the ballot. That’s Democracy. In the UK it’s very simple. The only workable is a single issue anti lockdown. The rest will be fixed.
Regarding lockdowns being “electoral gold” in Australia and NZ, I wonder why in those countries the bottom-up popular will to stop Covid is so much stronger than in the Americas or Europe?
From an Australian poster on a (members-only) forum which I frequent:
Wow, is there no opposition to this? It’s so brutal, just for a mild respiratory illness.
In an extension of the orientalist attitudes that many Westerners have shown regarding East Asian responses to Covid, some argue that what has happened in Australia is that the country has gone back to its penal colony roots.
Repressive regime seems like repressive regime wherever it happens. Don’t see how that’s ‘orientalist’ or any other ‘ist’.
I can’t help but see regret in Aus/NZ future if this continues; this from someone who lives in a small, repressive, ‘let’s do zero-covid’ island which is in the same uncomfortable position.
Isle of Man?
Yup, the home of terrifying motorbike road racing, now run by bedwetters for bedwetters and going down the shitter with nary a peep.
See Paula’s excellent comment below.
Was the Isle of Man capable of following a zero covid plan in the way that the UK wasn’t simply because its much smaller size means it’s far more difficult for someone to reach it illegally?
If you head out to sea from the northern coast of France in a vaguely northwesterly direction you’re almost assured of making landfall in Great Britain, but reaching the Isle of Man would likely require far greater navigational skills.
I don’t think so, it’s fairly visible; I can see England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales from our coasts.
There’s just no pull factor to reach it illegally as benefits and housing are dependent on residency for five years at least.
I’m sure that there are other European countries that are far more attractive to benefit scroungers, and that most illegal immigrants to the UK come here not to scrounge but to work.
Although the real issue isn’t illegal immigrants per se, but about British citizens returning illegally if they’d ended up stranded abroad by an Australian-style border policy.
In Victoria it was highly publicized when an illegal gathering in a garden shed was discovered after someone at the local KFC drive-thru made a suspiciously large order, which alerted the manager to call in the licence plate to the police.
The problem is you can have ‘popular will to stop Covid’ until you are blue in the face – it’s a waste of time if the methods you are using are ineffective. If I was going to be very unkind I would say Europe and especially those parts of the US that are opening up are more alert to the follies of thinking you can ‘control a virus’ The UK had a carefully thought-through pandemic plan which it threw out of the window in favour of measures that had no evidence base. But at least in some quarters we seem to be very slowly realising our mistakes.
Surely the point is that if people have a strong will to stop Covid then they will accept the methods that are effective, such as sealed borders and highly intrusive surveillance: like the universal QR code checking mentioned above, which in NZ also applies to buses, shopping malls (both the mall as a whole and the individual shops within) and each building within university campuses.
It’s interesting that Americans are typically appalled by the harsh lockdowns in Australia and New Zealand, while Europeans are more likely to be appalled by their sealed borders.
I live in Auckland, NZ and have used the bus twice lately. There is no pressure to use the QR code and I have not worn a mask either, I now have an exemption but have not shown it.
I didn’t see anyone using a QR code at a mall entrance the other day, though I did see some using individual shop’s ones.
Recently there has been more PR about using them as compliance has fallen considerably, which pleases me!
You’re joking of course? If not you need professional help.
What did I say in my message above that implies that I “need professional help”?
Just reading about antibody-dependent-enhancement and I came across the following meeting “Consensus summary report for CEPI/BC March 12–13, 2020 meeting: Assessment of risk of disease enhancement with COVID-19 vaccines”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7247514/
Part of the conclusions are
“Data are needed on whether antibody waning could increase the risk of enhanced disease on exposure to virus in the long term”
I don’t suppose they have that data yet do they? Hasn’t really been enough time
IT GETS BETTER!!!
BLOOD TESTS TO ENTER A PUB???????
Apparently supported by the Damm man.
‘In March 19th the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a press release detailing changes to its operational strategy for K-12 students. It stated that among other things, students may now reduce their social distancing from 6 feet to 3 feet.’
https://www.aier.org/article/the-6-foot-mandate-was-bad-science/
Europe, and this country, begin to look embarrassingly backward, even stupid/dumb.
The case of Holmseley Care Home in Devon is very puzzling. The police have arrested two care workers on the basis of “wilful neglect”. The Home has had an outbreak of Covid 19. Nine residents are reported as having died of the disease. Yet the residents and most of the staff had been vaccinated. None of this makes sense. If the residents were vaccinated – and the vaccines are safe and effective, as we are constantly told by the authorities – how could the residents die of Covid 19? What did they die of? Surely the deaths would be vaccine adverse reactions? Why have two of the workers been accused of wilful neglect? What is it that they allegedly did not do? Why is there a police investigation?
“As part of their enquiries, officers are speaking to staff and conducted a search of the home. Post-mortems have been conducted on three of the deceased residents.”
maybe just trying to look like they are doing something?
Very odd report indeed (Local Live), it implies both that the deaths are Covid related and that the Staff are at fault.
Normalising Police involvement in cases of Staff non- compliance ?
Don’t understand how they could have an outbreak with vaccinated residents unless either the outbreak began too soon after vaccination for immunity to take effect, or at least half of the residents had such weak immune systems in the first place that the vaccine didn’t work.
I fear for the upcoming Panorama ‘Covid’ documentary. Glimpsing the trailers it looks like they’ll try to trash Sweden and extol Boris. Maybe with a ‘not soon enough, not hard enough, not long enough’ flavour. (I really hope I’m wrong). Of course the Sheeple will gobble it all up. Panorama used to be a strong investigative program. Hope lives eternal!
Outside of the metropolitan bubble it will reach those ten viewers who can’t be bothered to switch it off.