Functional SARS-CoV-2-specific immune memory persists after mild Covid-19
medrxiv.org
medrxiv.org
What is the reason?
The only studies where results are mixed are where HCQ is administered too late to do any good. PrEP, PEP, and Early treatment studies are all positive or inconclusive at worst.
1. Cherry picking: It says HCQ-using countries always have lower death rates than non-HCQ countries, but omits countries like Brazil where HCQ is widely used but the results are poor.
2. Junk sources: To explain why countries are or aren't included in the HCQ using or non-HCQ using groups, they say it is based on how widespread HCQ usage is in that country. For example, it says Brazil isn't included because HCQ usage is mixed. To prove this, it cities sources - which if you are refer to the references - are "high quality sources" such as literally a guy's Medium posted entitled "Hydroxychloroquine: the narrative that it doesn’t work is the biggest hoax in recent human history" (since removed by Medium) and "@CovidCrusher on Twitter". It's just junk built on top of junk. This is not science.
3. Totally ignoring relative study quality: Every scientist knows that gold-standard randomized control trials provide more evidence than any number of weak observational studies. However, this site lists tons weak retrospective studies with tiny sample sizes and minimal effect on outcomes as "Positive" in cheerful bold green while dismissing high-quality randomized control studies with large sample sizes as testing the wrong thing or testing at the wrong time ("Late") or whatever.
4. Ignoring or changing results: If a study disagrees with their preordained conclusions, they either mark it as "inconclusive" or literally just mark it as positive when the authors said it was negative and then add an explanation about how the study authors "were wrong" in their conclusions. Can't disrupt the 100% green "Positive" rating!
Science doesn't progress by summing up bad evidence and calling it good evidence. If you want to show that HCQ works, show a single randomized control study with a large sample size that shows it does anything.
That's the problem though, there is no good evidence against HCQ prophylaxis. All the good data is from studies where HCQ was administered in patients where the disease already progressed. That's a completely different situation.
Also, if the HCQ itself doesn't really do anything but act as an ionophore for zinc, then testing without supplemental zinc isn't "the right thing" either.
> If you want to show that HCQ works, show a single randomized control study with a large sample size that shows it does anything.
Of course, but the dominant narrative is "HCQ has already been proven not to work, everyone who disagrees is a conspiracy theorist". Good luck with getting that trial approved, good luck with keeping your career intact for even speaking out about it. The well has been thoroughly poisoned.
Personally, I hope there can at least be trial with zinc plus some other ionophore that Donald Trump happens to not have talked about yet.
There are nearly 60 on-going studies right now specifically looking at HCQ as a preventative across every corner of the globe:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Prophylaxis+hcq&...
Yes, but as I said, the results we have right now are "late stage" and/or not in combination with zinc.
> ...is still being trialed WAY more than any other COVID treatment.
Ask yourself then, why is the dominant narrative "HCQ does not work" as opposed to "we are still trying to figure out if HCQ works"?
> There is no conspiracy.
I didn't say there's a conspiracy. I'm saying anyone questioning the "HCQ does not work"-narrative risks being labeled a conspiracy theorist, kind of like you just implicitly did.
> There are nearly 60 on-going studies right now specifically looking at HCQ as a preventative across every corner of the globe
Sure, but these were either started before the "HCQ does not work"-narrative became dominant, or they are from countries where that narrative does not dominate.
Again, I'm not saying there's a conspiracy. There is a perfectly irrational reasons for why very smart people are jumping to the conclusion that HCQ does not work: Donald Trump said that it works.
However, what needs more investigation is HCQ+zinc with HCQ acting as an ionophore, as a prophylactic measure for at-risk groups.
Those studies that "disprove" that HCQ works never included any zinc.
We found that recovered individuals developed SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG antibody and neutralizing plasma, as well as virus-specific memory B and T cells that not only persisted, but in some cases increased numerically over three months following symptom onset.
Furthermore, the SARS-CoV-2-specific memory lymphocytes exhibited characteristics associated with potent antiviral immunity: memory T cells secreted IFN-γ and expanded upon antigen re-encounter, while memory B cells expressed receptors capable of neutralizing virus when expressed as antibodies.
These findings demonstrate that mild COVID-19 elicits memory lymphocytes that persist and display functional hallmarks associated with antiviral protective immunity."
PDS: In other words, having, or having once had, a mild case of Covid-19 / CoronaVirus -- means that there's a very good chance that the individual or individuals so affected will have antibodies protecting them (and by default, others) from it in the future!
AKA "Herd Immunity".
Or phrased another way, once you get it or have had it and get through it, once you're over it, the chances of you getting it again are much lower than the first time.
But, wait, where have I seen this pattern before?
Oh, that's right -- this pattern is common to most diseases!
That is the generalized pattern of disease (for most diseases) is this:
Once you have a disease, and get over it, usually (but not always, but usually), you've got much lower odds of getting it a second time, and if and when you do, the odds are such that the second time will be milder or less severe.
That's a basic rule, a basic principle of disease that every self-respecting medical practitioner should be taught on day one in class one of medical college!
(Phrased another way: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." (with my apologies to Nietzsche! <g>))
Also, the above principle is the underlying principle which gives the idea of vaccination its efficiacy, that is, it's the underlying idea of what makes vaccines work.
That is because vaccines are typically based on injecting weakened strains of a disease into the body, such that the body's own defense systems "learn" how to fight this weakened strain!
That is, if you say you believe in vaccines and you say you don't believe in the above principle (of disease in the body at an earlier point in time causing immunity to that same disease later) -- then you are in self-contradiction!
Either you say that the above principle does work (in which case you must also believe in Herd Immunity, because Herd Immunity is based on the same principle!), or you're saying that you DO NOT believe in vaccines (because you do not believe in this underlying principle!)
All I know is that many in the media, social, news and otherwise -- will be shown to be inconsistent in their beliefs via this.
You cannot have the concept of vaccination working -- without the equal-and-opposite concept of Herd Immunity also being valid.
And if Herd Immunity works -- then what's the necessity for those so immunized to be vaccinated?
There isn't!
Logic 101...
You're not "practising herd immunity," you're forcing it on others without their consent.
In some cultures, a person who was sick had to live outside of town and yell "UNCLEAN!" to warn the uninfected if they had a transmissible disease. And hell, this country exiled Typhoid Mary to a relatively small island for the protection of everybody else. This disease isn't quite infectious enough to necessitate that, but a piece of cloth is a pretty simple and effective compromise until we have widely distributed efficient enough testing to know with some certainty in a short timeframe whether a person is infected or not.
If it's too much a burden to bear, you can always remove yourself from the presence of mainstream society until such testing is available.
Quarantine is where you lock up sick people.
Tyranny is where you lock down healthy ones.
And, as far as SOP during a pandemic, I disagree. This is the first time in the last 50 years (that I've been alive) that I've seen this happen in the US.
Due to the long asymptomatic infectious period for this disease, lacking a quick and accurate testing solution, we don't know who the sick people are. That's one of the major challenges of this particular outbreak.
History's memory is longer than 50 years. The word quarantine derives from the practice of requiring that ships entering harbor from infected ports stay at anchor off the coast for 40 days. Unfortunately, in the era of modern air travel, and given the long incubation period for this illness, it passed the ports and got into cities and countrysides before it could be contained.
You also continue to conflate quarantine with the simple public health practice of wearing a cloth to catch droplets in case you are sick. The two are not the same thing. nobody in the United States, at least, is going around welding people's doors shut to keep them at home (though it is, perhaps, worth noting that the countries that did that have already gotten back to life as normal ;) ).
Once a disease got into a city, entire cities were, indeed, cut off---the sick and the healthy together---because nobody could be sure how the disease would spread if free commerce were allowed into the surrounding cities and towns.
(There's an interesting parallel to COVID-19, in that while we do understand germ theory of medicine, we don't have accurate enough testing to determine if the average healthy-looking person is a carrier. So the practical solutions lean towards the conservative side of safety. More accurate, higher-speed testing could decrease the need for general behavioral constraints in the population... If, for example, there was a 'forehead scanner' to tell us if someone had COVID-19 to 99.999% accuracy, instead of merely had a fever, we could install it at every store entrance and forego masks).
No one is going around the country forcing at-risk people out of their homes. Those very few should stay home and let the rest of us get on with our lives.
And besides, if I've already had COVID, I wouldn't need a mask either way.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/08/26/cdc-ch...
Great question. The CDC is an arm of the Executive Branch and beholden to orders from their bosses; I have disquieting hypotheses (people want to pretend COVID-19 is a solved problem because masks and social distancing are inconvenient, it's an election year, being popular wins elections) but no hard evidence to confirm or deny such a hypothesis. It's unfortunate to observe that such positioning of personal political goals above public health has happened in the past; Philadelphia was the site of an unusually deadly outbreak of the 1918 flu (that killed so many people the city ran out of coffins) because the mayor decided not to cancel a military parade due to federal pressure.
> No one is going around the country forcing at-risk people out of their homes. Those very few should stay home and let the rest of us get on with our lives.
As we are a deeply-interconnected society, it's not that simple. People need food. They need medical care, they need trash taken out. They need repairs done to their homes. Plus, I think a case can be made that it's a lot more humane to spread the pain out a little by having everyone wear inconvenient masks for awhile than for most people to go about business as usual and a few to live like they're incarcerated. China and other countries did the latter, and Americans I talk to aren't a fan of the "your door gets welded shut and martial law is declared" solution. We like to think ourselves better than that.
That's to say nothing of the fact that we're still not clear how at-risk anyone is. There's obviously a curve of probability, but it can strike young people down badly enough to cause permanent damage and, in some cases, death also (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...). It's unclear to me that we know enough about this disease for individuals to actually make an educated guess as to whether they're "at-risk."
> And besides, if I've already had COVID, I wouldn't need a mask either way.
Hey, if there were a hard-to-forge mechanism for easily identifying people who already had the disease so that store owners and service providers could know quickly whether they're extremely low-risk to move around without a mask on, I'd be in favor of it. We should write our Congresspeople.
I have relatives who were old enough to remember the Spanish Flu. Spanish Flu was enough to mean that every family you ask from that era had someone who died of that flu. That, qualitatively, sticks with people. It becomes a stain on the memory of a generation. It is the kind of fate we form governments to avoid.
We can't conquer death, but we can mitigate COVID so that it's not another Spanish Flu. And people want that. In general, people want to avoid having a generation where everyone knows a relative who died from COVID. "Well, people die of something, so..." isn't an acceptable response to people.