Comment by clord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by clord | Hacker News Reader

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I’m surprised to see people disparaging natural immunity. This news about the rhinovirus is great. We should not turn our backs on any method of reaching herd immunity. There was previous news that one of the coronavirus cold strains also provided good immune response to sars-cov2. And of course cov2 itself has proven to produce a very effective antibody response such that those for whom it is less dangerous than flu might consider trying to get infected (don’t take my words as medical advice; talk to your doctor!). I’d consider bringing my young kids to a ‘pox party’ to help get things under control, given the latest evidence. The only reason I don’t still is social pressure, but the science is getting pretty clear that this virus is more like chicken pox than we thought, including it’s age dependent effect curve.

Especially now that we’re seeing that the effect of current vaccines is waining over 6-12 months, it’s time to start thinking more widely as the first people with the vaccine are coming back into risk. Animal reservoir data suggests this choice might be forced anyway - we can’t go vaccinating all the bats.

> I’m surprised to see people disparaging natural immunity. This news about the rhinovirus is great. We should not turn our backs on any method of reaching herd immunity.

Nobody’s disparaging natural immunity, they just rightly said “I’m not sure this helps much”.

And it really doesn’t seem to, because all this research says is “if you’re infected with a rhinovirus at the exact right moment immediately before catching COVID, there might be an immune benefit (or it might trigger a cytokine storm). Catch the rhinovirus before or after that point, and there’s no immune benefit whatsoever”

Given the extremely narrow window of opportunity, you’d have to, somehow, carry a rhinovirus with you and dose yourself just before you caught COVID. It’s wildly impractical, and I can’t imagine why or how you would think this “gets us closer to herd immunity”. What the research does not claim is “having caught a cold at any point is protective against COVID”

> And it really doesn’t seem to, because all this research says is “if you’re infected with a rhinovirus at the exact right moment immediately before catching COVID, there might be an immune benefit (or it might trigger a cytokine storm). Catch the rhinovirus before or after that point, and there’s no immune benefit whatsoever”

That isn't what this says. This research looks at one aspect of the immune response (interferons), and concludes there's a benefit to up-regulating interferon response early in SARS-CoV2 infection.

You cannot leap to the conclusion that "there's no benefit whatsoever" in other situations. The research didn't look at other questions.

This doesn't seem like a treatment for covid yet, and no actual medicine is involved even though interferon is mentioned.

More like modern recognition of a natural interactive effect between micro-organisms which might have even predated humanity itself.

>“There are hidden interactions between viruses that we don’t quite understand, and these findings are a piece of the puzzle we are just now looking at,” Foxman said.

This could be a very promising area of study and a major step toward understanding not just covid.

Maybe even things like phage therapy where certain viruses attack and kill bacteria.

Plus when you think about it Staph is a deadly bacteria which can sometimes get out-of-control, but there are variants of it too and supposedly a major percentage of the population carries it at all times without apparent ill effect.

What if that Staph is one that fights back against a virus and gives some protection against covid itself? May be far-fetched but one thing's for sure, the collection of the additional data would be nearly frictionless. Especially compared to lots of other data struggles.

You have to figure that micro-organisms have been fighting against each other for a while now, and could very well have had millions of years to refine their tactics before mammals even came along.

If for no other reason than sheer boredom.

Plus things that have survived have been at somewhat of a stalemate for at least a few millennia, penicillin was a natural bacteriotoxin that had been produced by a type of mold the whole time, just waiting to be discovered.

> I’m surprised to see people disparaging natural immunity. This news about the rhinovirus is great. We should not turn our backs on any method of reaching herd immunity.

I'm not disparaging, I'm asking if it actually grants any. Does the body actually learn to fight COVID if it's just throw up defenses for the Cold?

> I’d consider bringing my young kids to a ‘pox party’ to help get things under control, given the latest evidence.

Pox parties only worked because the parents and grandparents were already immune. Instead you're creating your own little super-spreader event that will move through whoever they come in contact with. People wouldn't have done Pox parties if they thought they were going to kill grandma with them. Also, please keep in mind that, like chicken pox, while many children will be OK, some don't, so much so that children's hospitals currently need help[1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...

> Pox parties only worked because the parents and grandparents were already immune. Instead you're creating your own little super-spreader event that will move through whoever they come in contact with

I'm not suggesting we do it willy nilly. This summer could have been a great opportunity to organize camps with immune adults overseeing such events.

412 people under 18 in the US died from COVID, whereas non-covid pnumonia is 924 (both in spite of measures to control respiratory viruses). It's pretty clear that the benefit of such parties on older people would outweigh the cost to the kids, especially when you factor in the exploding teen suicide rate attributable in part to the lockdowns affecting social lives.[1]

[0] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex...

[1] https://fee.org/articles/cdc-reports-51-increase-in-suicide-...

"The findings in this report are subject to at least nine limitations. First, these data are not nationally representative. Second, facility participation varies within and across states; however, data were only analyzed from facilities that reported consistently over the study period, thus minimizing the impact of reporting fluctuations on resultant trends. Third, differences in availability, coding practices, and reporting of chief complaints and discharge diagnoses from facilities might influence results returned by the syndrome definition. Fourth, distinguishing initial visits from follow-up visits for the same event was not possible, so the number of ED visits for suspected suicide attempts might be lower than presented. Fifth, NSSP race and ethnicity data were not available at the national level for this analysis at the time it was conducted, so analyses of differences among racial/ethnic groups was not possible. Sixth, these data likely underrepresent the true prevalence of suspected suicide attempts because persons with less severe injuries might be less likely to seek emergency care during the pandemic when many persons avoided medical settings to reduce the risk for contracting COVID-19. Seventh, the suspected suicide attempt syndrome definition excludes some, but not all, visits for nonsuicidal self-harm. Eighth, the sharp decline in all ED visits during the pandemic likely affected the number and proportion of visits for suspected suicide attempts (6). Finally, this analysis was not designed to determine whether a causal link existed between these trends and the COVID-19 pandemic."

> I'm not disparaging, I'm asking if it actually grants any. Does the body actually learn to fight COVID if it's just throw up defenses for the Cold?

Depends on the cold, I think. This rhinovirus might just be priming the immune system. There are coronavirus colds that might provide antibodies[0]

[0] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/immune-...

It seems that prior exposure to common cold coronaviruses doesn't provide significant immunity against COVID-19.

https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/februar...

right, the first link was talking about t-cell immunity, I was wrong to say 'antibodies'.

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