A Head Full of Coronavirus Research, Part 51

Our Governor, the IB, inadvertently I assume, revealed his true attitude about one-man rule yesterday, when he said that “we don’t disagree with Republicans because they are Republicans, we disagree with them because they are wrong, every single time.”  Says the man who has overseen one of the most incompetent epidemic responses in the country, including close to if not the highest death rate among long-term care residents.  He has no desire to, and no intention to, listen to any viewpoint other than whatever rattles around in his neuron-challenged cranium.   He might be in for a surprise by tomorrow, he might have to consider other perspectives.  Yep, a real “one Minnesota, we are all in this together” attitude.  Completely dismissive of the other major party in the state and he wonders why there is such antipathy to “working” with him; he has no intention of being worked with.

Couple of quick interesting research summaries.  This one covers well-trod ground–the role of T cell-based adaptive immunity in providing protection against reinfection by CV-19.  (Medrxiv Paper)    100 patients were studied at six months and strong T cell responses were found in all, with a focus on helper T cells.  The patients had a range of mild or asymptomatic illness, none were hospitalized.  Symptomatic patients tended to have stronger responses.  The T cell response appeared correlated with antibody response, which is logical since helper T cells tend to promote and prompt B cell and antibody response.   So stop worrying about widespread reinfection risk.

And this was a large study from England which looked the effect of living with children on CV-19 outcomes.  (Medrxiv Paper)   Medical records for a huge multi-millions population group were examined and adults with children at home compared to adults without children in the household.  The researchers hypothesized, as others have, that children may bring frequent seasonal coronaviruses into the home, and that this could prompt adaptive immune responses that aid in addressing CV-19 infection.  Living with children up to 11 years old was not associated with an increased risk of infection or hospitalization, but was associated with a lower risk of death.  Living with children 12 to 18 was also not associated with adverse outcomes but was slightly correlated with higher risk of infection.  There was no change in risks after school closures.  So let our children go to real school.