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U.S. school districts are contemplating classes. New Zealand postponed its election amid a developing epidemic.
Scientists who have been tracking immune responses to coronavirus for months are now beginning to see encouraging symptoms of strong and lasting immunity, even in others who have developed only mild symptoms of Covid-19, a wave of new studies revealed.
Anti-disease antibodies, as well as immune cells called B and T cells capable of detecting the virus, appear to persist months after the solution of the infection, an encouraging echo of the body’s immune reaction to other viruses.
“That’s exactly what you’re waiting for,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington and one of the new studies, recently reviewed in the journal Nature. “All portions are there to have a totally protective immune response.”
“It’s very promising,” said Smita Iyer, an immunologist at the University of California, Davis, who studies immune responses to coronavirus in rhesus macaques and has cared about those articles. “This requires some optimism about collective immunity and potentially a vaccine.”
Coronavirus studies are progressing so fast and in such volume that the classic review procedure cannot be kept up to date. For the studies discussed here, as for non-peer-reviewed studies in general, the Times has ensured that several experts read and compare them.
Although researchers expect the duration of these immune responses, many experts see knowledge as a welcome indication that the framework has a smart chance of repelling the coronavirus if exposed to it again.
“Things are working out as expected,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona and editor of one of the new studies, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Reinfection protection cannot be fully shown until there is evidence that most people who encounter the virus for a moment can keep it at bay, Dr. Pepper said. But the findings can help dispel recent considerations about the virus’s ability to deceive the immune formula into amnesia, leaving others vulnerable to repeated episodes of disease.
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