The biology of coronavirus COVID-19 - including research and treatments

Kinetics of antibody responses dictate COVID-19 outcome

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.18.20248331v1

This paper is about mortality, not Longcovid. The findings have notable impact on the use of monoclonal antibody therapies and suggest that timing of the therapies critical.

The authors offer some speculation as to the reason:

Notably, the level of many cytokines (including Interferons) relative to anti-S IgG levels, were lower in patients who died, compared to those who were discharged. This is yet more evidence to rule out the "cytokine storm" hypothesis.

Although the authors don't mention this, one key hypotheses is the impaired interferon responses (or even antibody mediated inhibition) observed by others:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6504/718
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6515/eabd4585
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6515/eabd4570

 

Somebody asked the question of relevance to LC to the primary author:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1342906713033342976

 

A comprehensive article comparing the vaccines and explaining the vaccination programme rollout in the UK (I was able to access this without a Telegraph subscription):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...ine-moderna-oxford-pfizer-update-coronavirus/

I find reading some of the comments quite thought provoking.

 

Watching TV late last night (UK) and the BBC 24 hour news said that the Oxford vaccine would be approved in days!

 

My letter in today’s Observer: https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-latest-coronavirus-lockdown-was-way-too-late



After I submitted the letter I wrote back to request that a word be changed, but it wasn’t. Bonus point to anyone who guesses what the word was. I’m far less knowledgeable about these things than many of you so I will be interested to see if any of you pick it up and consider it to be an error.

I hope this post is allowed as it’s not really political, but I won’t be offended if moderators disagree and delete it.

 

I’m amazed that the Oxford vaccine hasn’t been scrapped given the much better alternatives available. I guess the Covid panic has overridden capacity for rational/critical thought in the medical establishment and govt, if they had any to begin with. The Lancet paper was full of protocol changes and violations, and even at that the results were unimpressive.

 

Follow the money

 

That wasn’t the word I was thinking of. I used dangerous to cover any ways in which a new variant could pose a greater threat to public health.

 

Hilda Bastian was tweeting about this today, she is not impressed either.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1343090440518520833


From my perspective, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is the Reliant Robin of vaccines.

 

"mutation would evolve"

Both are incorrect. Mutation doesn't include deletions/repeats and evolve, well...

 

Yes, I asked them to change mutation to variant, but apparently too late.

I wasn’t sure about saying evolve. Is it not correct to say that variants evolve?

 

That would make more sense, but still isn't entirely correct. Variants arise from stochastic factors. That isn't evolution. Variants can become predominant due to "evolution" like selection processes, but variants can become predominant for other reasons too (founder effects etc).

 

The error that jumps out at me - and that is the type I would probably make - is "opportunities is" rather than "opportunities it".

 

I think both the original terms are fine.
The variant carries mutations - which cover any random genetic change.Very likely the problem is down to one particular mutation.
Evolution does not have to require selection. Darwin was completely wrong about that. The Galapagos finch radiation need have nothing to do with selection. Evolve is fine.

 

Cost. It's far less expensive to produce than the mRNA alternatives and requires only normal refrigeration. Cold chains are difficult enough to maintain as it is, at this scale it's just too much for places where the infrastructure and logistics chain isn't strong enough. This is crucial for poor countries, who will most likely use this version exclusively. From memory it's about 10x cheaper than the others.

 

As well as the issues about transportation and storage, the Oxford/Astra Zeneca group made a commitment to supply it on a non-profit basis to low- and middle-income countries. This will no doubt help to keeps the costs down.

I seem to recall that they're planning to use the large vaccine production capacity in India to distribute it – though I imagine India might want to produce enough to get the most vulnerable parts of its own population covered before it starts shipping doses elsewhere.

 

Who cares how cheap it is, if it isn't good enough to achieve any reasonable threshold of herd immunity? There are other cheaper options that will probably have superior efficacy which will become available soon too.

I'm not a big fan of the idea that poor countries only deserve a crap option.

 

@Snow Leopard you'll be relieved/reassured to know that:
"He [AstraZeneca chief] added he believes trials will show his firm has achieved a vaccine efficacy equal to Pfizer-BioNTech at 95% and Moderna at 94.5%."
https://www.thejournal.ie/astrazene...1566-Dec2020/?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true

Apparently it's already been distributed to GP practices in the UK!

Is there more data available out there?