It’s unfortunate that the drug companies decided to end their trials early, by giving active covid vaccine to the members of the placebo group after just a few months. It means that there is no long term follow-up of the covid vaccines from randomized trials, and there never will be. This means that we are instead forced to rely entirely on observational data as we … Read more
Tag: immunology
A reflection on covid mania
At the beginning of this year I wrote about how the governments of the world had created a collective state of hysteria so intense that the only way they could dig themselves out of the hole they had made was with a magic bullet. That magic bullet was, of course, the vaccines. I wrote that it didn’t really matter how effective the vaccines were in … Read more
Covid: Prior infection vs vaccination
Ever since the beginning of the covid pandemic, one of the big topics of discussion has been whether infection results in lasting immunity. Since the advent of the vaccines, that has expanded in to a discussion about whether prior infection or vaccination provides a higher degree of immunity.
Back in December, I wrote about a study that showed that 90% of people who get covid … Read more
How long does immunity to covid last?
One of the fears of many people in relation to covid has been that the immunity that develops after infection is so short lived that the infection will just keep going around and around and re-infecting everyone (until everyone is dead, I assume).
Two pieces of evidence have been presented to support this belief. The first concerns a few cases of “re-infection” that have been … Read more
Herd immunity without antibodies?
“Only a minority of people in Sweden have antibodies, so they can’t have herd immunity!”
That is the most common argument I’ve been hearing for why Sweden can’t have achieved herd immunity. This is in spite of the fact that the rates of hospitalizations and deaths have dropped continuously since the peak in April, and are now stable at basement levels.
The argument is also … Read more
What is the best way to measure rates of covid immunity?
In my previous post on the covid pandemic I mentioned that the body’s main defence against viruses is T-cells, not antibodies, and that the only reason we test for antibodies instead in clinicial practice is because it is easier and cheaper. I also ventured a hypothesis that the levels of population immunity are much higher than is being found in the antibody tests, and that … Read more