When will this shit end?

[eFestivals]

7 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Some good news on the festival, as I’ve said all along Glastonbury will happen next year 😀

https://www.nme.com/news/music/glastonbury-lawyer-says-2021-festival-is-going-ahead-as-planned-2799543?amp&__twitter_impression=true

nah, that's pretty meaningless. The festival is going ahead right until it's not going ahead.

I've had it said to me that a decision on cancelling won't be made later than January this time around, because they have to start paying for stuff from around then.

[parsonjack]

Bloody hell Tuesday is a bit of a rollercoaster already on here and it's not yet 0800 😬

[whitehorses]

1 minute ago, parsonjack said:

Bloody hell Tuesday is a bit of a rollercoaster already on here and it's not yet 0800 😬

Yep! Already come up and down three times and haven’t finished a coffee yet 

[Cooter]

indeed, ever the optimist Michael is the last person on this earth to say "maybe, maybe not".

[Ozanne]

28 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

nah, that's pretty meaningless. The festival is going ahead right until it's not going ahead.

I've had it said to me that a decision on cancelling won't be made later than January this time around, because they have to start paying for stuff from around then.

Ssshhh 😛 I know that I’m just trying to spread hopeful news.

It’ll happen 😎

[Homer]

‘Not wearing a mask is linked to anti-social personality disorder, study finds’
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/mask-wearing-anti-social-personality-traits-study-brazil-b1347252.html?utm_content=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2w6hbVBPg1Pyq4RKyPHqEL1KnsW51mlqZ-1-Z-wN-c313KjMogktQgzD0#Echobox=1603784194

Edited October 27, 2020 by Homer

[steviewevie]

Guardian on this antibody stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/proportion-of-people-in-england-with-covid-antibodies-has-fallen-study-says

[steviewevie]

I still think Glastonbury is 50/50.

[parsonjack]

[Ozanne]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I still think Glastonbury is 50/50.

How’s the fence? 😉

[Ozanne]

Such a stellar job. 

[steviewevie]

That nice Corbyn fellow cycles, and Sir Keir drives an SUV.

[fatyeti24]

1 hour ago, Homer said:

And he was driving to that field he has the cheek to own.

Kier Starmer, donkey farmer.

[JoeyT]

 

[Ozanne]

8 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

That nice Corbyn fellow cycles, and Sir Keir drives an SUV.

Corbs also broke the rule of 6. These Labour MPs are the worst, nothing like the Torys who just like making kids go hungry. 

[eFestivals]

2 hours ago, Homer said:

... red wall rebellion ...

the tories are revolting.

Which is nothing new.  

[Fuzzy Afro]

Antibodies waning doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t immune does it @Toilet Duck? 
 

I was under the impression that the antibodies themselves may wane but your body could remember how to make them rapidly if faced with the virus again. Could be shoddy understanding by me but it feels like the media are jumping hard on this “short lived immunity” thing.

 

Second question - Am I right in saying that vaccine triggered immunity needn’t necessarily be as short lived as natural immunity? 

[Homer]

51 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

How’s the fence? 😉

It's... okay.

[Fuzzy Afro]

Lots of foreign news outlets running with this “vaccine approval within days” line 

[mcshed]

 

Can't believe we missed out on all the big dinners fun yesterday. Imagine being so tin-eared that you thought you'd get sympathy by amplifying this.

[Ozanne]

1 minute ago, mcshed said:

 

Can't believe we missed out on all the big dinners fun yesterday. Imagine being so tin-eared that you thought you'd get sympathy by amplifying this.

Some of them (maybe all) are so out of touch it’s untrue. If they showed some humility people might actually think they have hearts. 

[steviewevie]

Your Covid questions answered.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/27/ending-lockdown-airport-testing-dominic-cummings-covid-questions-answered

[steviewevie]

What happened to the Russian vaccine? They have got a nasty outbreak going on there at the moment.

[morph100]

Rollercoaster morning checking news and stuff, NME saying Glastonbury 2021 planning in full swing, looking like decision being made in March - sounds good. Antibodies fade faster than expected - bad, Vaccine getting nearer - good....

[Toilet Duck]

1 hour ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Antibodies waning doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t immune does it @Toilet Duck? 
 

I was under the impression that the antibodies themselves may wane but your body could remember how to make them rapidly if faced with the virus again. Could be shoddy understanding by me but it feels like the media are jumping hard on this “short lived immunity” thing.

 

Second question - Am I right in saying that vaccine triggered immunity needn’t necessarily be as short lived as natural immunity? 

Correct on both counts! After we encounter an infectious agent, once our immune system is done with it, we create memory cells that let us deal with it if it ever comes back. For some diseases, we keep a decent amount of circulating antibodies for a long time, for others, the antibody count dwindles, but our immunological memory of infection doesn’t (and we also keep some t-cells that can kill the virus). The latter seems to be a feature of most CoV infections (SARS/MERS seem to be a bit different as there are reports of much longer antibody responses). Looks like this guy is gonna fall into the same category as the endemic CoVs (which from the virus’s perspective is a win, it gets to keep reinfecting people). However, we aren’t entirely naive next time we get infected, and unless the virus has changed, our immune system will ramp up and clobber the thing pretty quickly. If the virus can keep infecting people, replicating and then moving on to a new host, then there’s no real pressure on the virus to change. Ironically, a vaccine with sterilising immunity would create that incentive to change. If SARS-CoV-2 had nowhere to go, then a sterilising vaccine would eventually wipe it out, but since it can hop back into a number of animal reservoirs, I actually think a non-sterilising vaccine might be the best thing anyway as it permits the virus to circulate, prevents most deaths and severe diseases, but doesn’t necessarily force the virus to change.
 

Anyway, short answer to your first question is that it looks like immunity in terms of antibody response is exactly as was predicted early on (transient), but yes, other parts of our immune system remember and can deal with it next time you get infected.

For the second question, the answer is we don’t know, but it is expected to last between 1-3 years. So repeated shots are probably gonna be required. The vaccine makers will be delighted! (AZ are making the Oxford one available at cost price during the pandemic (about £5 a shot), but once the pandemic is done, they can charge market rates (probably closer to the cost of a flu shot, so £20 a pop)...interestingly, Moderna got massive amounts of cash from the US government for development of their vaccine (about $1.5bn)...the contract for supplying it contains strong clauses allowing the US government to control production and control price to block any price gouging in future years. Most of the contracts with the vaccine makers aren’t public, but given the massive injections of funding they all got to move everything along so quickly, one hopes that they all contain this type of limit and keep costs down in future years. For those of us under 65, our nicely functioning t-cell response may well be enough and not require repeat shots every year or so, for older populations where t-cell responses are not as good, I suspect the repeat injections wil be required. 
 

Short answer to your second question, yes we expect vaccine-derived immunity to last longer (though not forever!). 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Toilet Duck
Typos!