Preliminary evidence that MMR vaccine might provide protection against Covid-19 | Hacker News Reader

Preliminary evidence that MMR vaccine might provide protection against Covid-19

medrxiv.org

61 pointsericb36 comments

God this would be ironic. Everybody that's protesting would go absolutely bonkers if next month the government ordered adults to get MMR.

We’re not really at a point in our society where blanket enforcement of vaccination by the government is likely to go over well. I have a hard time believing the current administration—or any administration in the foreseeable future—would be daring enough to attempt that. And even if they did, I’m sure it would be tied up in the courts for years.

Why would the government need to order that?

Yeah it seems like there is a straightforward free market solution: you don't get a vaccine, businesses may not allow you on their property or in their stores.

That’s unlikely to happen. Businesses generally have no means of verifying whether you’ve been vaccinated, and any attempt by the government to implement or enforce such a system would inevitably be contested and tied up in courts.

It would be easy to issue certificates to people who have been vaccinated. Businesses already have guidelines for who can enter their premises, like wearing shirts in restaurants in spite of not wearing a shirt being legal.

IANAL, but there’s no way that isn’t going to be contested. That’s not to say it can’t happen, but I have a hard time believing it could happen within a relevant timeframe.

The shirt and shoes rule is a health concern, much like what you’re describing here. Unlike vaccination certificates, though, it’s been around a lot longer and isn’t going to result in a heated political battle anytime soon.

Just a note that initial peer-review of this paper has been very negative.

is this available online anywhere?

So there is a 29 percent homology between their respective fusion proteins. So you would have to hope that an antigen binding site is somewhere in the conserved region?

If I read this right this isn't based on any data, just a hypothesis because there is some similarity between the viruses. That's... a very low level of evidence. It's a vague hypothesis, and one that is probably hard to test.

Other than that: Absolutely get an MMR vaccine if you don't have one. I wouldn't cound on it helping against Covid-19, but it helps against the Measles, which is a good enough reason to get it anyway.

It's not just speculation on that level. Here is the conclusion from the linked paper verbatim:

We identified at a population level that both older populations and males are both more likely to die from COVID-19, and less likely to be seropositive for rubella-specific immunity, based on historical vaccination programmes of all three countries considered in this report. Finally, the hypothesis that this macro domain could be recognised by antibodies raised against rubella was supported by data that demonstrated that patients who have SARS-CoV2 infection had raised levels of rubella IgG to a level in keeping with secondary rubella infection. Taken together, we suggest that MMR will not prevent COVID-19 infection but could potentially reduce poor outcome. To conclude whether MMR vaccination can improve the outcomes from Covid-19 infection, a study using individual based data to compare MMR immunity status in the affected population is warranted.

Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.10.20053207v...

Maybe the reason there's been such a low rate of death is that the MMR vaccine had some effect on the Coronavirus? I'm not a scientist, I write Javascript.

Do less Italians get the mmr? That would be interesting to look at the hard hit places.

Yes, children do

Importantly, what about children 50+ years ago? In Italy

Presumably mostly not. The original rubella vaccine was developed in the late sixties and the current vaccine (that's part of MMR) didn't come out until 1979.

In the UK MMR has been a standard vaccination for children born from 1990 onwards -- those born in the 80s (so in their 30s) only got measles+rubella, and those in the 70's (so in their 40s) only got measles.

No evidence of any difference in deadliness between age ranges in under 50s in UK excess deaths.

The mechanism of protection may be heterologous immunity. H.I is a consequence of an encounter with a specific antigen, which can alter the subsequent immune response to a different antigen. It can occur with infections or vaccination. It is fascinating how the Covid-19 virus spreads rampantly through adult communities but almost stops in its tracks at schools - it's like there is herd immunity already in the schoolyard. This was demonstrated in a study that came out a week ago in Australia.

I had to look up the study[0] you're referring to since I haven't heard anything other than a lot of anecdotal reports about children's ability to transmit the virus.

[0]: https://www.smh.com.au/national/safe-as-houses-covid-19-stud...

I’m generally opposed to such speculative papers receiving widespread publicity; they often present valuable ideas, but the general public hasn’t been handling such speculation all that responsibly during this pandemic.

This is an exception. If you aren’t already vaccinated, you should seek to correct that. It might not protect you against COVID-19, but it’ll definitely protect you against other diseases.

Is this potentially why children are less impacted? They have more recently had the MMR vaccine.

I believe the consensus is the virus binds to ACE-2 proteins, which are produced as a biproduct of tissue damage. Given kids have had less environmental damage to their lungs, less ACE-2 and a smaller surface area to bind to

Very interesting. Do you have a link so I can learn more?

That would be plausible under the hypothesis.

When interpreting this, please also consider the warning [1] by Tedros Adhanom et al. in a letter in The Lancet:

"[I]t is very important to adhere to WHO's recommendation that the BCG vaccine is used for COVID-19 only in randomised controlled trials. (...) [T]he BCG vaccine is already in short supply, and indiscriminate use could jeopardise the supply needed to protect children against tuberculosis in high-risk areas."

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

This reminds me of the recommendation by, wouldn't you know it, the same people, that masks should only be worn by the visibly sick, and medical personnel.

This disease has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and is on track to kill millions, quite aside from the terrible economic havoc which is just beginning.

ramp up production of the fucking vaccine. We can afford to be wrong about this.

It should be clear by this point that we aren’t really capable of ramping up production fast enough for many of the resources needed during a pandemic. Whether one attributed that to ignorance, incompetence, malice, or conspiracy doesn’t really matter; at the end of the day, the improvements we demand aren’t happening as fast as we’d like.

I don't agree. If you ramp up production and millions get vaccinated with the expectation that it will protect them then it doesn't there will be tremendous antipathy and distrust of medical science as a result.

How many of these preliminary "X might confer protection against Covid-19" stories are likely to pan out? I've seen them now for the MMR vaccine, zinc, vitamin D, ACE inhibitors, and probably a half-dozen other things. To be honest, I think there's so much noise here (most people are asymptomatic or get mild cases) that I wouldn't really trust any signal without a massive sample size.

It's perfectly fine to propose topics for further study. Just don't go taking every vitamin and supplement that is in the news unless you are aware of the potential risks.

I agree, but would also like to add that MMR, vitamin D, and zinc lozenges are all very safe when taken as directed. Unless you have a specific medical contraindication, the potential harms of these products are very small compared to the benefits.

This. This is what we should be looking into. As well as wearing a mask.

I believe that the WHO is (except for their very legitimate concern about panic buying) wrong in not pushing for these measures. Which, from an epidemiological point of view, make a lot of sense.

If taking Vit D can make the mortality, let's say, even 10% lower in the most (would be) critical cases, it is definitely worth it. Wearing a mask reduces R. Even if it's a crappy mask, the value of R will be reduced. Heck I believe a lot of countries would be in a less critical position if people would just wash their hands or use sanitizer.

Sure, not everybody can have the MMR or the BCG vaccine right now, so it might be better to wait a bit more.

wait doesn't this mean that those of us that have gotten the MMR vaccine are potentially immune?

Not really potentially immune.

Just protected from the worst of it.

Think of a windbreaker in a rainstorm. Sounds fun? No. Better than no coat in the rainstorm? Yes!

I definitely wouldn't jump to this conclusion. Even the optimistic conclusion here would be something like you have a lower chance of getting infected and/or lower chance of severe income. But not immunity.

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