Oh no, they didn’t.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) didn’t exactly say whether or how long you may remain immune to the Covid-19 coronavirus after recovering from an infection. But a new addition to the CDC’s “When to Quarantine” web site did say something interesting:
“People who have tested positive for COVID-19 want to quarantine or retest for up to 3 months, as long as they spread new symptoms. “
Hmm. Why wouldn’t you want to quarantine or get tested again?Or maybe you just have that magic word that starts with the letter “I” and rhymes with the word “hot dog restaurant community”?In other words, does the CDC now suggest that you could be immune to the virus for up to 3 months after being infected?Well, that’s actually one way to interpret the statement. For example, here’s a tweet reaction to the CDC’s updated guidelines:
So it looks like you don’t have to go through this wonderful experience with a cotton swab up your nose for three months after recovering from Covid-19, right?Maybe. Maybe. Read a little more on the CDC website, a sentence later, and see the following:
“People who develop symptoms again within 3 months of their first bout of COVID-19 may need to be tested again if there is no other cause identified for their symptoms.”
So you can enjoy immunity for up to 3 months, unless, of course, you don’t have immunity for that long. It looks like this will surely say, “I love you until, of course, someone bigger comes along. “Isn’t it? Peut-être. Peut-être. Eh well, not exactly.
Even though those on social media seemed to take the relatively new statements on the CDC’s website (apparently these statement were added on August 3) as a statement about immunity, an August 14 CDC media release suggested otherwise. This release was entitled, “Updated Isolation Guidance Does Not Imply Immunity to COVID-19.” Take a wild guess as to what this media release said.
Here’s how the post began: “On August 3, 2020, the CDC updated its science-based isolation rules lacheck COVID-19, showing that other people can continue to test positive for up to 3 months after diagnosis and not be contagious. to others. The press release goes on to say, “Contrary to what is reported today in the media, this science does not mean that a user is immune to reinfection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, within 3 months of infection. “
So what do the updated rules really mean? The CDC adds that “the most recent data simply suggest that a user does not need to be retested within 3 months of initial infection, unless that user has symptoms of COVID-19 and the symptoms cannot be related to any other illness. “
It appears that the CDC has not actually made a statement regarding immunity to the Covid-19 coronavirus. These could have been more people who continued to test positive for up to 3 months due to fragments of viral DNA that would possibly remain after the Covid-19 coronavirus infection had subsided.
This makes sense given the current state of the science. The answer to the big question of whether and how long you may develop immunity against the virus has been like taking a selfie while riding a roller coaster on a vibrating pillow: it’s still a moving target and unclear. As I have covered before for Forbes, scientists still don’t know for sure how immunity against Covid-19 coronavirus may work. Are you immune after you recover from an infection? If so, how long may immunity last? Does everyone develop this kind of immunity? Will everyone have the same degree and duration of immunity? What does this mean for vaccine development? How many people are really wearing pants while on Zoom? So many questions remain unanswered.
Tests for antibodies against the Covid-19 virus are different from tests for the presence of the virus. (Photo by. . . [ ] MARK RALSTON/AFP Getty Images)
Several studies recommend that immunity can last at least a few months. In a letter of studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July, a team at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), led by Dr. Otto Yang, a professor of medicine, describes how they tracked antibody levels over time in a pattern of 34 patients who had mild Covid-19 coronavirus infections. Now, 34 more people is rarely a lot, unless you need to play charades on Zoom or wait in line for the bathroom. However, the study showed that the recorded blood levels of immunoglobulin G in this pattern temporarily decreased after recovery from mild and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) infection. (You can say IgG instead of immunoglobulin G if you need to say it faster or if you’re running away from a tiger. ) The average half-life of IgG in the blood was about 36 days, meaning that after about a month, blood levels had dropped. almost half. The study team followed each patient for an average of 86 days and therefore did not report whether the patients still had IgG after 3 months.
As I’ve written before, IgG is the vital antibody for long-term immunity. For this, think of “G” for “go,” as in the song “Please Don’t Go” by KC and Sunshine Band. The UCLA study suggested that the antibody immune reaction might still appear after three months, but could disappear some time later.
Another piece of evidence is a preprint paper called “SARS-CoV-2 Infection Induces Robust Neutralizing Antibody Responses That Are Robust for at Least 3 Months” published on medRxiv. The name of this preprint shows the conclusion of the study, a bit like renaming the movie Avengers: Infinity War with the name “A tall, purple guy wears jeweled gloves and snaps his fingers, causing part of humanity to disappear to settle. A very lucrative sequel.
For this second study, a team at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City led by Carlos Cordon-Cardo, MD, PhD, professor of pathology, molecular and cellular medicine, analyzed data from a database of 19,860 people screened at Mount Sinai. York City Health System for SARS-CoV2 IgG. More than 90% of those with mild to moderate Covid-19 had measured IgG in their blood about 3 months after infection. In addition, those antibodies had to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 in control tubes. So, as the name of the preprint says, you can get antibody coverage against the virus for at least 3 months.
However, please note that such a preprint is not the same as publication in an authoritative, peer-reviewed clinical journal. In other words, other genuine scientists didn’t have a chance to officially review the study, provide feedback, and recommend changes. The study is still in the “hey, look, this might be interesting” phase and not the “here’s established clinical evidence” phase. So let’s take for now the effects of any study published on medRxiv with ham, cheese, and egg. Complete salt biscuit.
Another thing is that IgG levels don’t exactly correspond to immunity to a T. The reaction that your immune formula provides to SARS-Cov2 could be partly as a “friends to friends” relationship. benefits. ” It can be quite complex and much more than it seems at first glance. Its immune formula can produce other types of lymphocytes to help with the immune reaction to an infection. These come with B lymphocytes, which can secrete the aforementioned antibodies. which are easily measured by blood tests. However, other components, such as T cells or T cells, can act under the sheets, so to speak. T cells have nothing to do with T-shirts, but rather are cells that can help neutralize or kill viruses in other ways.
A study published in the journal Nature found T cells in people recovering from Covid-19 and that those T cells appeared to recognize SARS-Cov2 N proteins. So even if the antibodies debunked the imprint of your blood a few months after an infection, the T cells may persist longer and provide some defense against a new infection.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) web page has some new guidance about Covid-19 … [+] coronavirus testing and quarantine. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Thus, the CDC’s current guidance is not surprising. The dearth of more definitive guidance may not feel very satisfying, but in the words of Wilson Phillips, hold on, the science is still emerging. Scientists need more time, resources, and funding to figure things out and gather more evidence. It’s been only about six or seven missed haircuts since this completely new virus emerged.
For now, the CDC is trying to give you some respite to actions that could get out of control. In theory, you could keep testing yourself up the wazoo after recovering from an infection. (Figuratively, of course, and not literally. You shouldn’t be testing your bottom for the SARS-CoV2.) After all, aren’t people in the White House getting tested each and every day for the Covid-19 coronavirus? The new CDC recommendation may give your nose a break. It may also keep you from quarantining constantly.
Therefore, the CDC’s recommendation arguably has more to do with the practice of moderation than with strict and definitive orders to follow. The immune response, the situation, and therefore what you want to do can still vary greatly from user to user and depend on how severe it is. Your infection was. Like Buffy sang for Big Bird on Sesame Street, other people, in other ways. After all, you may not have to worry as much about getting reinfected within 3 months of recovering from Covid-19. That is, unless you’re reinfected.
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Psychology Today, a substack called “Minded Through Science” and has written articles for The New York Times, Time, The Guardian, The HuffPost, STAT, MIT Technology Review and others. My paintings and experience have been published in major media outlets such as The New York Times, ABC, USA Today, Good Morning America, Tamron Hall Show, BBC, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, CBS News, Businessweek, U. S. News and World Report, Bloomberg News, Reuters, National Public Radio (NPR), National Geographic, MSN and PBS. Follow me on Twitter (@bruce_y_lee) but don’t ask me if I know martial arts.