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Drowning in Coronavirus Research Hits the Century Mark

By September 27, 2020Commentary

Wish I had something special saved up, but really just more of the same.

The CDC issues a brief on the changing age distribution of the epidemic.  And of course tries to turn it into bad news.  (CDC Brief)   The CDC looked at ER visits for CV-19 like illness, PCR test results and confirmed CV-19 cases.  The median age of cases declined from 46 years in May to 37 years in July and 38 in August.  No, I actually think it didn’t change that much, I think we started testing ten times as many people and caught a whole lot of asymptomatic cases and low positives.  In any event incidence before the southern and southwestern state outbreaks rose most in 20 to 39 and according to the CDC that incidence rose before incidence in people over 60.  So that must meant the young people were giving it to the old ones.  What stupidity.  The young people work and many were required to get tests.  The young people are out and about much more.  The older people don’t work and have lower mobility.  So of course more young people got infected early and more old people later.  The contact matrices these knuckleheads are so fond of don’t show that much interaction between younger adults and people over 60.  I don’t think many 65 year olds are hanging out in the bars with the 25 year olds.  All those low and false positives represent viral loads that aren’t reflect of infectiousness.  There was actually very little rise in incidence in the group between ages 30 and 60, who account for the majority of the population.  And finally, quit making this kind of crap up when you supposedly have contact tracing information.  Show us the real data.  Oh, or maybe you are just making this up, since the brief says the further investigation would be warranted to determine if young to old transmission is occurring.  Yes, it might indeed be warranted.

And on the issue of young people, an interesting paper on the respective immune responses of children and adults who were hospitalized, about 60 in each group.  (Science Article)    They identified increased production in children of a particular form of interferon and of interleukin, which likely aided in the less severe illness they experienced.  Adults had stronger T cell responses and antibody responses.  Antibodies to seasonal coronaviruses were similar.

Our friends at the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine give us a good paper and primer on PCR testing and issues around the use of results.  (CEBM Paper) 

This is a rather technical paper on the process of infection, viral loads, and infectiousness in the upper and lower respiratory tract.  (Medrxiv Paper)  Using a combination of data and modeling, the authors find that persons with longer incubation periods after infection are more likely to have pre-symptomatic transmission and that viral load, especially in the upper respiratory tract, is related to infectiousness.  Their model says viral load peaks on average about two days after symptom development.

The development of antibody response after infection was the subject of this research.  (AB Paper)   The authors did a meta-analysis covering around 516 people.  Antibodies begin circulating in the blood an average of about 12 days after symptom development, with a wide range, and the timing did not appear related to disease severity.

And this paper covered B cell types that developed in response to a CV-19 infection.  (RS Article)   They found a complex pattern of B cell response to various regions of the virus, with some variation by age, sex and duration of symptoms.  The blood of 25 recovered CV-19 patients was used for the study and their B cell type and amounts were analyzed.  It appears that a strong and lasting B cell response is developed by most patients.

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