Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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S309 ANTIBODY

As the war against the coronavirus pandemic wages on, a new study has revealed that a person who recovered from SARS 17 years ago has an antibody that inhibits COVID-19.

The antibody, known as S309, is "particularly potent" at targeting and disabling the spike protein in SARS-CoV-2, according to a statement from the University of Washington, which was involved in the research. The antibody is now being fast-tracked for development and testing at Vir Biotechnology.

“Remarkably, we believe S309 likely covers the entire family of related coronaviruses, which suggests that, even as SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, it may be quite challenging for it to become resistant to the neutralizing activity of S309,” said Herbert “Skip” Virgin, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Vir, in a separate statement.

“In addition, S309 exhibits potent effector function in vitro, potentially allowing the antibody to engage and recruit the rest of the immune system to kill off already infected cells. We have seen in animal models of other respiratory infections, such as influenza, that effector function significantly enhances the activity of antibodies that are already potently neutralizing.”

"Antibody cocktails including S309 along with other antibodies identified here further enhanced SARS-CoV-2 neutralization and may limit the emergence of neutralization-escape mutants," the authors wrote in the study. "These results pave the way for using S309- and S309-containing antibody cocktails for prophylaxis in individuals at high risk of exposure or as a post-exposure therapy to limit or treat severe disease."

Source: 'Particularly potent' antibody found in SARS patients from 17 years ago inhibits COVID-19, study says

This sounds very encouraging.

Just let's not make a SARS party to get immunity against SARS-2

You don't need to build your firewalls around the entire population. Focus your attention on the most vulnerable. Put your resources there. Build your firewalls there. Very very few people who contract the coronavirus suffer serious effects. Over the years when I was younger I suffered when I contracted the influenza a few times. But I didn't die because of the flu.

Not everyone needs to wear face mask and PPE. Not everyone needs to be in lockdown. Focus on the vulnerable population.

Last edited by jimmy m on 19 May 2020, 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

By the numbers, we can say that the elderly population has a higher mortality rate from Covid-19 than those who are not elderly. Therefore they're more vulnerable as are people with certain underlying medical conditions who are not elderly. However, there are those that don't fit into either category that die from this disease. I wouldn't want to be one of those people. If all attention was focused on the elderly and those with underlying conditions, I wouldn't feel any safer since the virus could kill me for all I know.

Sweden tried it and failed. Turns out, under-qualified and under-paid nursing home staff is the weak link of the concept.

I knew what you were referring to.
I am "Me", after all.

BTW,
I luv your brain. <sigh>
I gather you picked up on that.

I heard, recently, that older people tend to produce more viral shedding,
And that children have less "receptors" for the coronavirus to latch onto.

And yes,
The focus should be on protecting the more vulnerable, than the other 97% of the population that would have a relatively mild response.
I've made this simple point over 2 months ago.
Not rocket surgery.

We had a recent incident where a nurse infected a retirement venue while showing definite symptoms.
It would be nice if they found a cure for "Stupid", along with the CV.

It helps if you have a healthy population of young people.

Let us assume that we can protect the old retirees. We accept that the workplace is off limits to them.

How do you protect overweight diabetic people who thought vaping was a good idea?
When those people, in their own minds, think that they are perfectly healthy?

The growing evidence on vitamin D and Covid

The argument that vitamin D deficiency may contribute to more severe cases of Covid is gaining ground. It is now reaching the point where it is surprising that we are not hearing from leading medical officials and politicians that people should consider taking supplements to ensure they have sufficient vitamin D.

This is not the same as arguing that vitamin D is a magic bullet that will cure the disease. Vitamins are not medication, the taking of which will have positive effects on everybody. They are top-ups: things that hurt you when you don’t have enough of them in your system but do no extra good when you have enough. Indeed, with many vitamins, including D, taking too much can be toxic.

However, it is true that many people are deficient in vitamin D, especially at the end of winter. That is because, uniquely, vitamin D is a substance manufactured by ultraviolet light falling on your skin. You can get some from fish and other foods, but not usually enough. So most people’s vitamin D levels fall to a low point in February or March when the sun has been weak and its UV output especially so.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the ... -and-covid

I started taking Vitamin D supplements again after hearing things like this.

One word of caution: Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat soluble vitamins. In contrast, vitamin C is water soluble. Taking too many fat soluble vitamins can be bad for you. You can overdose on them. The body is capable of expelling excess amounts of water soluble vitamins. Bottom line for everyone: Don't take huge amounts of vitamin D thinking if the recommended amount is good, than a bunch of the stuff must be better.

I took a trip to town yesterday to buy some supplies. Things are really beginning to open up. I found most of the stores were open even the smaller ones. But percentage wise, there were less people wearing masks. I almost went in for a hair cut, but it was an hour and a half wait. Fireworks finally showed up in the stores, so I bought a big box for the 4th of July. This just seems like a year when the individuals might really want to celebrate and perhaps fireworks will sell out.

Generally I would say people are being cautious safety wise but at the same time they are not overly paranoid about the coronavirus.

The flaws in this are obvious.

Firstly we need to be clear about what we mean by “elderly”. Data from Italy suggest that about 1% of people in their 40s die if they get infected, and around 2.5% of people in their 50s. Both of these numbers are likely to be underestimates although I have rounded:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/110 ... oup-italy/

Are we counting people in their 40s and 50s as “elderly”? If so then that’s a very large proportion of the population who are isolating, particularly when you include their families. If not, then that is an awful lot of people you are giving up on.

The other major issue is that you literally cannot screen off the elderly no matter how narrowly you define that group. They’re always going to come into contact with the wider population, so it is much safer for them (as well as everyone else) if the virus is not circulating in the population.

The simple fact is that social distancing is saving many thousands of lives, and presents great value for money.

Actually I said "Focus your attention on the most vulnerable." I didn't use the word "elderly". And vulnerable is fairly well defined.

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the vulnerable are:

Based on what we know now, those at high-risk for severe illness from COVID-19 are:

People 65 years and older

People who live in a nursing home or long-term care facility

People of all ages with underlying medical conditions, particularly if not well controlled, including:

* People with chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma
* People who have serious heart conditions
* People who are immunocompromised [Many conditions can cause a person to be immunocompromised, including cancer treatment, smoking, bone marrow or organ transplantation, immune deficiencies, poorly controlled HIV or AIDS, and prolonged use of corticosteroids and other immune weakening medications]
* People with severe obesity (body mass index [BMI] of 40 or higher)
* People with diabetes
* People with chronic kidney disease undergoing dialysis
* People with liver disease

Source: People Who Are at Higher Risk for Severe Illness

Sweden failed because it didn't build firewalls around the most vulnerable.

Sweden has taken a different approach to fighting COVID-19 than most other countries -- and it’s causing a global stir.

Instead of tight lockdowns, Swedish officials have encouraged citizens to use common sense, work from home if possible, and not gather in crowds over 50. Primary schools are open, as are bars and restaurants, with images showing people enjoying drinks and crowding streets.

Their aim, officials have said, is to slow the pace of the virus, so as not to overwhelm the health care system.

But they also want healthy people to keep getting infected, to eventually build “herd immunity,” where so many people have survived an infection that they won’t be vulnerable to it again.

About 80% of people who become sick with COVID-19 will have relatively mild symptoms; some won’t even notice they’re infected.

Theoretically, if enough people could be mildly infected, they would be protected from the virus and not pass it on to others. Outbreaks end when enough people have become infected or protected with vaccines to stop it from spreading. The trick is to infect only people who will have mild infections -- but, of course, no one knows how to do to that.

But there are good reasons, experts say, why nearly every other country on earth has chosen a different path.

And Sweden’s approach might have made sense if the Nordic country had done something to protect its most vulnerable residents, says William Hanage, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Sweden, which has a population of about 10 million, has avoided overwhelming its health care system so far, says Hanage. But instead of the slow burn among healthy people that the Swedish leadership had wanted, the virus has ripped through the nation’s nursing homes. While outside visitors have been blocked, protections like masks and gloves were not required unless a resident was known to be sick.

As of the end of April, Sweden had reported more than 21,500 confirmed infections and 2,600 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That amounts to about 12% of diagnosed people dying of the disease. Among its neighbors, just 210 people have died in Norway -- less than 3% of those diagnosed; 218, or about 4%, in Finland; and 460, or about 5%, in Denmark.

Hanage says this approach might have worked if the country had first provided a way to protect its most vulnerable residents. The government might have offered everyone over 70 food and other resources to allow them to stay home, he said. Instead, they were simply advised not to go out.

Nursing homes were also not adequately protected, which Swedish officials now acknowledge. Roughly one-third of Sweden’s deaths have been in nursing homes, according to published reports.

If you’re going to have a strategy like that, you need to be thinking about your vulnerable population.”

Source: Sweden Sticks With Controversial COVID-19 Approach

I think the short answer is "You don't!" People have free will. They make up their own minds and follow their own paths in life. You can provide them with the best information and advise, but ultimately it is in their hands to make well informed decisions.

A few years ago, I was obese and, I was diabetic. I decided to do something about it and underwent bariatric surgery. Today I am no longer obese, nor do I have diabetes. I am elderly - 71 years old. I can't do much about that. As far as vaping. I never vaped because I never became a smoker. Why take up the habit of vaping if you are not a smoker hooked on cigarettes! IMHO, most of the dangers of vaping are tied in with those that experimented and substituted CBD Oil instead of normal vaping ingredients.