In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies | Hacker News Reader

In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies

nytimes.com

16 pointsmitchbob20 comments

The problem is that we still dont know if there is long term immunity from the virus.... even if you have antibodies in your blood. they might help you tomorrow, but next fall or year the antibody titer might be low leading to the loss of immunity for instance.

We could re-test for antibodies at regular intervals.

Besides, the small chance of getting infected due to immunity eroding would not be super consequential in the scheme of things.

In general I think people waste too much time with this whole “we don’t know how long immunity lasts” line of thought. Immunity is a robust mechanism that tends to “just work”. Even if mutations mean that what used to be 100% immunity is now only 50%, the effect on net transmission is tremendous.

I agree that immunity is what will help curb the virus, in Denmark “Herd immunity” is the unofficial strategy.

I do think that a Corona pass would only make sense for certain parts of the population only, e.g. the very old and those with other chronic illnesses.

In the US, the right to travel is one of the most basic. The right to work comes along somewhere close to that. I couldn't have imagined Americans would ever stand for such a thing, but current attitudes seem poised to easily fall over to that.

Interstate travel is being shut down in certain us regions like you aren’t being allowed to travel from Louisiana to Florida or New York to Florida so it’s possible

There are 19th century legal cases backing up travel restrictions to prevent disease spread. It’s not something we’re used to after the mid-20th-century eradication of most major diseases from the USA but there is ample precedent in our constitution and laws for it.

For instance, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/186/380/ “ That from an early day the power of the states to enact and enforce quarantine laws for the safety and the protection of the health of their inhabitants has been recognized by Congress is beyond question. That until Congress has exercised its power on the subject, such state quarantine laws and state laws for the purpose of preventing, eradicating, or controlling the spread of contagious or infectious diseases, are not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States although their operation affects interstate or foreign commerce is not an open question. The doctrine was elaborately examined and stated in Morgan Steamship Company v. Louisiana Board of Health, 118 U. S. 455”

Should we also get a “Flu pass 2020”, seeing as the common flu can also be quite deadly?

And if the virus mutate into a new variant what then, another pass?

For those with chronic diseases and the very old, the next 6-12 months will be very difficult and staying at home while practicing distancing will be a good start. The data seems to support that the rest of the population should be able to go about their ways without any pass.

There is a quadrivalent vaccine available for the flu. And the coronavirus is at least 10x more deadly than the flu. It makes sense to treat it differently.

Is there any data that can support that 10x claim just yet?

An example:

In the US state North Carolina there has been 33 deaths to Corona so far, source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

The 2018-2019 flu season was reported to be 285 deaths, source: https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2020/01/09/ahh-choo-...

So a 10x mortality would mean 2.850 deaths in North Carolina by December 2020 and you have to offset that with the above article that stated the following back in January:

"flu season is officially underway with initial reports predicting it could be among the worst flu seasons to hit in a decade."

Keep in mind that there are multiple elements to risk: mortality (deaths), morbidity (general diseased or injured state, also incidence or prevalence), infectiousness, detectability, rate of transmission, long-term health consequences, social & economic impacts.

Regards COVID-19:

The COVID-19 situation is changing rapidly. Since this disease is caused by a new virus, people do not have immunity to it, and a vaccine may be many months away. Doctors and scientists are working on estimating the mortality rate of COVID-19, but at present, it is thought to be higher than that of most strains of the flu.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

Comparing with other diseases:

Mortality rate for SARS was 10%, and for MERS 34%.

    Virus Death Rate
    Wuhan Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV): 2%*
    SARS: 9.6%
    MERS: 4%
    Swine Flu: 0.02%

The case fatality rate with seasonal flu in the United States is less than 0.1% (1 death per every 1,000 cases).

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-...

https://smw.ch/article/doi/smw.2020.20203

Worldometers doesn't seem to say: How is North Carolina defining a covid-19 death?

At the moment the cumulative deaths to covid-19 appear to be doubling every 3 days. In some places it's less than 3 days.

That means in 21 days we'd expect to see just over 4000 total covid-19 deaths in North Carolina.

So in 21 days the number of deaths will be 4000, while Belgium with a similar population is at almost 1500 currently. That sounds rather unlikely given that the population in Belgium is also older than in North Carolina.

21 days ago Belgium was at 4 deaths, two doublings away from 33. They were at 30-40 total deaths 16 days ago, now they are at ~150 daily, total doubling every ~4 days.

so going from 30 to a few thousand in 21 days is what is happening. Can NC avoid that? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it personally.

It all depends on how well the very old and those with other chronic illnesses will be protected, as they are the ones at risk. The development for NC can be followed at https://www.ncdhhs.gov/divisions/public-health/covid19/covid....

This article does a good job of explaining which age groups are susceptible to Corona virus: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/1/21203198/coronavirus-deaths-us-...

To put things into perspective, in the flu season 2017/18, Germany had 25,100 deaths (source: https://thegermanyeye.com/flu-vaccination-penultimate-wave-w...) while they currently have registered 1,584 deaths due to Corona virus. So yes Germany has probably saved some with the current measures, but should we then close down the society each year to combat the common flu as well ?

Now half of the 21 days have passed and NC have officially registered 117 deaths, so they thankfully won’t reach 4000 deaths in the remaining 10 days.

Data from New York points to Hypertension and Diabetes in the elderly as the main cause of Corona deaths, that is something the US government should focus on, source: https://eu.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/2020...

Antibodies aren't perfect and are not the same person to person. The antibodies for this should work for any mutation for a very long time. Thats why vaccines for previous year flu or flu mutations still work in some part.

All of this seems invasive, but so does a pandemic. Someone has to come up with a plan on how to reboot the world, and this is a good first step.

Cuomo also talked about this. I'll give it to end of April to you have most people back if not early may. This test, unlike the other one, holds a lot of financial weight so it's going to get a lot of people on Wallstreet and small business wanting to sponsor these tests.

Do there exist antibody tests right now for corona virus?

Yes, the article states they are being tested in Italy.

One was just approved for the USA 2 days ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/health/coronavirus-antibo...

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