I don’t pretend to be an expert on the viral dose stuff either, especially why biologically you would expect that, but it does seem to be expert concensus that you are likely to get a less severe disease if you’re exposed to a smaller amount of virus rather than a large amount. Assuming this is true, that’s a reason to wear masks, keep your distance, etc, even if those measures aren’t going to be 100% effective. This may also explain why the relatively healthy and younger healthcare workers early on in China were dying at a high rate (before they understood it was airborne and dealt with sick people all day without good precautions). Hopefully it also means that now that we’re taking more precautions, not only will they slow the spread of the virus generally but the stats we’re seen in the past ala death and hospitalization rates may be lower going forward as well.
I remember early on the stats of those with symptoms were something like 15-20% needed hospitalization, but that wasn’t counting people who never noticed they had it. Thinking now that there are at least again as many people like that as have any symptoms would mean you halve that number to 7.5-10%), or adjusted otherwise if you think there are more or less than that multiple of asymptomatic cases.
Which goes back to my original idea - “covid in a can”, Spaceballs style. Pop it open, breath it in, and get enough to make you sick but not enough to make you really sick.
I’ll wait for a vaccine before that, but if you sold a four pack of the different common cold coronaviruses, I might be willing to take those in succession because it seems that people have T cell responses to this virus without exposure, presumably based on recognizing similar viral structures in common among all corona viruses.
Inactivated or weakened viral vaccines are also not that different that what your propose either. Of course, you have to have some guinea pigs to test how much or how weakened is effective to generate immunity without causing you to get sick.
Probably because a smaller amount gives the immune system more time to find a solution before getting overwhelmed (symptoms are proportional to immune system response, right?).
E-coli and listeria in tiny amounts are safe. Water and alcohol in large amounts are deadly. Bacteria and toxins are not viruses, but I’d imagine some tolerance is built-in to all of the systems
The genetic analysis revealed that the man was infected by two distinct strains of SARS-CoV-2, from two completely different lineages of the virus documented elsewhere. Though the man never felt sick the second time around, his body did show signs of a typical infection, such as elevated levels of inflammation, a relatively high viral load that gradually declined over time, and the production of new antibodies to the virus later on in the infection (perhaps importantly, no antibodies were found during the first infection nor at the beginning of his second infection)
In this case, the researchers only had one sample available from the first infection to test for antibodies, collected under 10 days in. Because people can develop antibodies to the coronavirus later than that, it’s still possible the man’s body mounted an antibody response initially
Problem with direct exposure to small dose of the virus as way to get immunization would result in deaths. A small dose that one person is fine with may end up sending someone else to their death. And the few deaths would be reported widely and amplified to the point where nobody wants this type of immunization. I’d take my chances without it personally: potential exposure to it down the line, possibly never vs. guaranteed exposure to live virus now… pass.
Like you, I’ll wait for a vaccine that’s deactivated or weakened. Especially if I have to get two doses of it to build enough immunity.
Back to economics of COVID-19, I read that Australia is going to provide their entire population with free vaccine once available. I wonder if this is something that we’ll see down here too to help boost herd immunity and what would be the cost of 650 million doses…
I would fully expect so. The US government already pre-purchased tons of vaccines under the Warp Speed program, and I’m not expecting them to bill individuals for them. Idk about the labor for actually injecting people, but I would expect it would all be free out-of-pocket for the individual (of course the taxpayer or USD holders are paying for it, depending, but that’s reasonable in this case).
I expect them to bill insurance companies, or mandate insurance covers them at no cost. Off load the expense, so that only those with full insurance subsidies are truly getting it free, while still selling it as being “at no cost”.
It would be do scandalous for a rich person to get for free what everyone else is also getting for free. Probably not really (but it’s not an outrageous prediction), but I do see them making it far more complicated than “go somewhere and get a shot”.
Let’s give it another week before jumping to conclusions. Also should be looking for a statistically significant increase, not only for cases that they were able to trace. Don’t know how well tracing is working, but I’m sure they don’t get everything as many people are reluctant to share, especially if they did something stupid like go to the rally without precautions.
It’s already been 10 days since the event ended, and it lasted 10 days. Meaning the early attendees are at 20 days post-(potential) exposure. At this point, I dont see how you could attribute another new case to that rally anyways.
