Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Potentially Good News on Covid-19 - Animal Study Predicts Acquired Immunity


I saw this study last night:

COVID-19 Reinfection Not a Concern, Monkey Study Suggests March 23, 2020 https://www.genengnews.com/news/covid-19-reinfection-not-a-concern-monkey-study-suggests/

Now, a collaboration of Chinese scientists has dug deeper into whether or not reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 is possible with a small monkey study. The team looked at whether or not non-human primates, rhesus macaques, can become reinfected with SARS-CoV-2. The work was posted on the preprint server bioRxiv on March 14 in a paper titled, “Reinfection could not occur in SARS-CoV-2 infected rhesus macaques.” Their conclusion: there may be no reason to worry about reinfection.

My worst case scenarios were based on the possibility of re-infection.

This study - albeit limited because of the small sample size and limitations of animal models - still offers considerable hope.

If we can acquire immunity, we will be able to manage the biological aspects of this challenge, albeit with great human cost and suffering.

Even that suffering can be reduced significantly with an adequate social response that prioritizes our collective well-being and especially assists our most vulnerable populations.

There is hope, if only we can get our collective act together.

Majia

2 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.