[HN Gopher] Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 in...
___________________________________________________________________
Scientists discover receptor that blocks Covid-19 infection
Author : geox
Score : 256 points
Date : 2023-02-11 12:58 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sydney.edu.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sydney.edu.au)
| nitin87 wrote:
| It's good
| binarymax wrote:
| To me the more interesting aspect of this research is the
| possibility to test susceptibility to severe infection. If you
| know ahead of time you are high risk, then the treatment and
| behavior is different than someone who knows they are low risk.
| Right now we treat everything the same - recommend everyone is
| vaccinated and everyone wear masks during outbreaks. I'd really
| like to know how at risk I am, and act accordingly.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Comorbidities have always been indicators of risk. You're more
| likely high risk if you already have health issues, are
| morbidly obese, or over the age of 70.
| [deleted]
| gadders wrote:
| [flagged]
| delecti wrote:
| Hypocrisy speaks less to the quality of someone's advice
| than it does to their willpower.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| When people complain about prejudice against fat people,
| this is what they mean.
|
| I fail to understand why someone's size would make their
| advice less credible, particularly on topics other than
| weight loss. If anything, being at higher risk would
| dispose them to take the virus more seriously.
|
| After all, "trying to eat healthy" is rarely successful.
| The vast majority of dieters do not succeed in achieving
| long-term weight loss.
| gadders wrote:
| [flagged]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/overweight-and-
| healthy-t...
|
| "Carrying too many pounds is a solid signal of current or
| future health problems. But not for everyone. Some people
| who are overweight or obese mange to escape the usual
| hazards, at least temporarily. This weight subgroup has
| even earned its own moniker--metabolically healthy
| obesity."
|
| "But some people who are overweight or obese manage to
| avoid these changes and, at least metabolically, look
| like individuals with healthy weights. "Obesity isn't a
| homogeneous condition," says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of
| nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of
| Public Health. "It appears that it doesn't affect
| everyone in the same ways.""
| gadders wrote:
| [flagged]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| And yet a minority of obese people had no problem with
| COVID.
|
| To be consistent I hope you also don't accept health
| advice from seriously underweight people either.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > particularly on topics other than weight loss.
|
| Fat people have often tried a variety of weight loss
| techniques. Their advice is liable to be more pertinent
| than a skinny person who has trouble gaining weight.
| gadders wrote:
| More pertinent in regards to COVID?
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I wasn't responding to you.
|
| But sure, as a fat person who, as far as I know hasn't
| ever had COVID, I think my advice is pretty good.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| So if it works for a person with a lot of bad habits you
| think it's a bad idea? Wouldn't something that _works_ for
| a person with a lot of bad habits be _even better_?
| AgentOrange1234 wrote:
| (Disclaimer: covid averse, lost family member, upset with
| society for "being done.")
|
| I'm not sure what to think about this.
|
| A year+ ago, I would have worried that folks would treat a low-
| risk evaluation as a permission slip to say "the pandemic is
| over for me," stop masking/etc, and thus increase the aggregate
| spread of the virus to folks who _are_ high risk.
|
| But now everyone is already doing that anyway. So yeah, it
| would be nice to know whether we are high risk or should just
| let it all go and say whatever.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Sometimes I think I'm the only low risk person left on the
| planet wearing a mask and vaccinating. Then I see old folks
| or one 30y/o woman in the supermarket wearing a mask, and I
| remember that this protects them too. There's even some
| performers asking fans to mask up so high risk people can
| come to their shows. Gives me a tiny glimmer of hope for
| humanity.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| You're still touching things, then touching your face.
| You're still breathing the same air as everyone. You're
| still moving through clouds of expelled vapor from everyone
| who has walked in front of you recently. There is no
| hermetic seal around your nose and mouth if you wear a
| mask. Your eyes are exposed to the air. And if you wear the
| same mask more than once, you are trapping all sorts of
| bacteria and other nasties in a soup of sweat, oils, and
| grime on your face. Masks are mostly theater in everything
| but controlled environments.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > You're still touching things, then touching your face.
|
| > Your eyes are exposed to the air.
|
| I'm not the person you're responding to. Just what I do.
|
| The mask covers the mucus membranes, except around the
| eyes. And I've got glasses with side-shields for the
| eyes. And an ASTM-III mask over the N95 mask so that I
| can touch and manipulate the masks without touching the
| breathing surface of the N95.
|
| > You're still breathing the same air as everyone. You're
| still moving through clouds of expelled vapor from
| everyone who has walked in front of you recently. There
| is no hermetic seal around your nose and mouth if you
| wear a mask.
|
| It's a virucidal N95, so besides the filtering also kills
| much of the virus that it traps. While the filtering is
| not 100%, the killing on top of the filtering should
| greatly reduce risk of infection or transmission in the
| unlikely event I'm infected but don't know it.
|
| > Masks are mostly theater in everything but controlled
| environments.
|
| I used to get a respiratory infection about yearly. I
| haven't had a contagious illness that I am aware of since
| January 2020.
|
| Edit to add: And I take my daily shower after coming home
| for the day. I have never used a delivery service to
| grocery shop. I got about one month of work from home
| before coming back to the job part-time, and was fully
| back to the job by September or October of 2020.
| don_neufeld wrote:
| I used to get them more than yearly, usually 3x or more
| per year, some of them were pretty brutal (Really bad
| coughs, fevers, night sweats, up to a week of PTO to
| recover)
|
| I have masked every time I leave the house since COVID
| started impacting Wuhan (we had Chinese operations, so
| saw early impact on the business side. If you saw me
| masking on BART in early 2020, _wave_ ) and I haven't
| gotten a single illness of any type since then.
|
| It's glorious.
|
| I am often close to the only person I see all day
| masking, and it blows my mind why people don't get this
| advantage.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > if you saw me masking on BART in early 2020, _wave_
|
| Which line, what time? :) I only started riding BART in
| late 2019, so only had a few months of it before
| stopping. I'm sure I would have been ill more often than
| yearly if my ridership had continued.
|
| I agree. Additionally the masks will more than pay for
| themselves when it comes time to cash out my accumulated
| sick leave when I leave this job.
| don_neufeld wrote:
| Orinda to New Montgomery, I used to start commute around
| 7:30, otherwise you couldn't get a parking stop at
| Orinda.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| You were about half an hour later than me on the way out,
| and we only overlapped through Orinda to Rockridge. I
| usually got the 2:something on the way back, and by then
| it was crowded enough I'm sure I wouldn't have seen you
| even if we were in the same car.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I wear an N95 when I go out but only my regular glasses.
| I too haven't been sick since January 2020. I used to get
| colds pretty much quarterly, and so it's absolutely worth
| it to me. If it bothers someone else to see me wearing
| one that's their problem, I'm not asking them to wear
| one.
| qup wrote:
| Has it bothered anyone?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It certainly bothers the person(s) who left 'Mask off!'
| graffiti all over my neighborhood.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I get the ocassional weird, sometimes mean look every
| once in a while, but I can deal with that as long as
| people don't stop and confront me over it, which
| thankfully hasn't happened yet, except a single time when
| some jerk walked past me and baa'd to suggest that I was
| a sheep back in 2020.
|
| I don't even wear a mask everywhere (not since I got
| vaccinated). I don't once I sit at a table at a
| restaurant, or at certain social functions. But somehow I
| still haven't gotten Covid yet (that I'm aware of at
| least), even after a few known exposures, so I'm guessing
| either it's helping at least a little bit or I had an
| asymptomatic case a while back.
|
| As far as I know, though, I could still have a moderate-
| to-bad case of it when I get it. My parents just both got
| it recently, for example, (that was one of my exposures,
| since they were helping me clean out my flooded basement
| just before they got symptoms) and it took both of them
| over a month before they got over it, and we share genes,
| so in theory I should have a somewhat rough time once I
| get it as well.
| sampo wrote:
| > Your eyes are exposed to the air.
|
| Surface area of lungs: 100 m2.
|
| Surface area of eyes: 0.0004 m2.
|
| Difference: 6 orders of magnitude.
| gigibec wrote:
| [dead]
| gadders wrote:
| [flagged]
| maxerickson wrote:
| On the other hand, the authors there start their
| conclusion off with _The high risk of bias in the trials,
| variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low
| adherence with the interventions during the studies
| hampers drawing firm conclusions._
|
| But it's a short discussion, people can go read it for
| themselves.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| It's like how condoms aren't that effective because a
| large subset of people prefer to use nothing instead.
|
| Okay sure... but if I'm not in that subset then I'm good.
| AnonymousPlanet wrote:
| "The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in
| outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with
| the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm
| conclusions."
|
| Means they aren't sure themselves, if their results are
| usable at all. For the individual, one unmasked exposure
| undoes the entire effort. We're not talking about
| toxicity.
|
| This seems to be clear to the authors aswell. The
| strongest language in their conclusions reads like this:
|
| "There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks.
| The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our
| confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that
| the true effect may be different from the observed
| estimate of the effect."
|
| Going from that to "Masks don't work" is quite the leap.
| gadders wrote:
| "We included 12 trials (10 cluster-RCTs) comparing
| medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the
| spread of viral respiratory illness (two trials with
| healthcare workers and 10 in the community). Wearing
| masks in the community probably makes little or no
| difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness
| (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness compared to not wearing masks
| (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84
| to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate-
| certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community
| probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of
| laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 compared to not
| wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials,
| 13,919 participants; moderate-certainty evidence)."
| standeven wrote:
| It always amazes me when someone ignores the 99 studies
| that show masks are effective, and highlights the one
| that says maybe they're not. Cherry picking in action!
|
| Just one of the literally hundreds of studies showing
| effectiveness:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883189/
| gadders wrote:
| Is this meant to be irony? You seem to have not read the
| link. It's a meta-review of 78 randomised control trials.
| It is literally the opposite of cherry picking.
|
| You then cherry pick one review saying the opposite.
| sampo wrote:
| > It's a meta-review of 78 randomised control trials.
|
| If your only tool is meta-reviews of RCT studies, then
| condoms don't work either:
|
| https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858
| .CD...
|
| https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Say the line, Bart.
| technimad wrote:
| Honest question: why are you vaccinating while you also
| identify as low risk?
| 7speter wrote:
| > Then I see old folks or one 30y/o woman in the
| supermarket wearing a mask, and I remember that this
| protects them too.
|
| I have a hard time believing that after 2 years of
| messaging about why people should take a vaccine that
| this is an "honest question"
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _I have a hard time believing that after 2 years of
| messaging about why_
|
| You must have forgotten that they have been two years of
| communicational failures.
| landemva wrote:
| I just read this January 2023 article by a person with
| last name Fauci that claims coronaviruses have never been
| controlled by vaccines. More communication problems or
| admission of mistakes?
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9832587
|
| Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses,
| influenzaviruses, and other respiratory viruses David M.
| Morens, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, and Anthony S. Fauci
|
| 'Because these viruses generally do not elicit complete
| and durable protective immunity by themselves, they have
| not to date been effectively controlled by licensed or
| experimental vaccines. In this review, we examine
| challenges that have impeded development of effective
| mucosal respiratory vaccines ...'
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Humoral vaccines do provide some limited protection when
| it comes to transmission. Nothing like a mucosal vaccine
| would. But an additional line of protection for the
| susceptible we may come in contact with.
|
| For full disclosure I don't vaccinate anymore (waiting
| until the mucosal vaccines are available). But I
| understand those who do, especially if they are around
| other people when maskless more than I am.
| gadders wrote:
| [flagged]
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Does that measure epidemic-spread-rate somehow?
|
| I understood masks were not about making you proof against
| infection, but instead for slowing the spread so hospitals
| could respond. That's the critical measure of mask
| effectiveness.
| TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote:
| Some masks do work.
|
| https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/respiratory-protection-
| us/produc...
| gadders wrote:
| If you or someone in your family is immuno-suppressed,
| have at it. Otherwise in terms of risk avoidance you
| might as well start wearing a crash helmet when you ride
| the bus just in case.
| TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote:
| Stormtrooper armor for all!
| slaw wrote:
| I like the idea of wearing full face motorcycle helmet in
| a bus.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > If you or someone in your family is immuno-suppressed
|
| I'll add that if you're in this situation, you probably
| want to be masking at home, too.
| n0tth3dro1ds wrote:
| [dead]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I particularly like the nose spray application. If even non-
| susceptible people get in the habit of using a nose spray
| before starting their day, any contagious viruses that they may
| already have could be covered with an inactivator upon sneezing
| them out. Hypothetically this could protect susceptible people
| who inhale the sneezed out viruses.
| froglets wrote:
| I think the title/article uses the word infection when they
| should be using disease.
| francisofascii wrote:
| or they mean "infection of the lungs". Covid certainly infects
| and causes disease in other areas of the body.
| Genbox wrote:
| The article is correct. Infection is the process of a virus
| entering a cell. Disease is the virus's cumulative effect on
| the body due to the infection.
|
| Since the protein (LRRC15) mentioned in the article binds to
| the virus, making it impossible for the virus to infect the
| cells, it does indeed block infection.
| flobosg wrote:
| COVID = Coronavirus disease
| technothrasher wrote:
| Which makes the headline even more confusing. How can you be
| infected by a disease? The article gets it right, even if the
| headline doesn't, SARS-CoV-2 infection.
| superkuh wrote:
| It's an infection of sars-cov-2 which if left unchecked can
| cause COVID-19 disease. But unfortunately that proper notation
| train left the station a few years ago.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Very interesting, according to the authors it's "like velcro".
|
| > [Covid] primarily uses a protein called the angiotensin-
| converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor to enter human cells. Lung
| cells have high levels of ACE2 receptors, which is why the
| COVID-19 virus often causes severe problems in this organ of
| infected people.
|
| > Like ACE2, LRRC15 is a receptor for coronavirus, meaning the
| virus can bind to it. But unlike ACE2, LRRC15 does not support
| infection. It can, however, stick to the virus and immobilise it.
| In the process, it prevents other vulnerable cells from becoming
| infected.
|
| > "We think it acts a bit like Velcro, molecular Velcro, in that
| it sticks to the spike of the virus and then pulls it away from
| the target cell types," Dr Loo said.
|
| > "Basically, the virus is coated in the other part of the
| Velcro, and while it's trying to get to the main receptor, it can
| get caught up in this mesh of LRRC15," Mr Waller said.
|
| Given then that this protein is synthesized by our body, and in
| people with less severe COVId more of this protein was found, and
| less in more severe cases, could mRNA injections be used to
| stimulate/ramp up production?
|
| The approach mentioned in the article is a nasal spray which I
| suppose is easier to manufacture.
|
| This then begs the question, could mRNA injections be used in
| place of traditional medication?
|
| Probably no if the medication needs to be targeted at a specific
| region, yes?
|
| Could it be that the complexity of the protein affects our
| capacity to produce medication for it?
|
| Or is it that the means of administration is the main factor on
| how we select our approach?
|
| With mRNA vaccines we get the cells to produce the protein. Does
| this imply that synthesis of the spike protein is difficult, or
| is it that administration is?
| eagerpace wrote:
| I've seen the spikes mentioned a lot. Are these mechanical
| descriptions of how the spikes operate dumbed down for the
| average person to understand? Im surprised we don't hear more
| about biologically destroying the cells instead.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| My background on this comes from a neuroscience course in
| gradschool. The idea is that molecules and proteins "bind" to
| receptors which cause a cascade of reactions. The binding
| depends on the shape of the proteins and receptors.
|
| A bridge like protein is created by removing parts of the
| spike protein through the cascade. The bridge connects the
| virus and the cell, and folds into itself to cause the two
| cells to merge.
|
| https://youtu.be/Xuc9D4LVJdg
|
| I am not sure why it is called spike but I'd guess it's
| because it looks like tiny spikes on the virus.
|
| So when what we do with mRNA vaccines is produce the mRNA
| that encodes this protein, and wrap it in lipids which allow
| it to enter the cells and the cells manufacture it.
|
| Now, our cells don't naturally produce the spike protein, so
| this triggers our immune system to build antibodies which
| bind onto the proteins and render them useless, or flags for
| certain parts of our immune system. This results in increased
| production of certain cells and proteins for this specific
| protein.
|
| Our immune system has the capacity to create antibodies for
| and bind onto all sorts of different proteins. This is
| because it the immune system is allowed to recombine and
| order its DNA. In order to avoid wrecking havoc at our own
| body, the immune system passes through filters which filter
| out proteins that would bind to the naturally occurring
| proteins in our body.
| jeffdn wrote:
| No, coronavirus and many other viruses have spike proteins,
| that look a bit like spikes[0].
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_protein
| maxerickson wrote:
| It isn't entirely understood, but the actual shapes of the
| molecules matter, so there is at least some mechanical
| analogy.
| User23 wrote:
| Van der Waals force[1] is sort of midway between chemical
| and mechanical interaction. We think of proteins as
| crystals because that's how we can image them, but really
| they're sort of floppy things that can often change their
| shape dynamically in response to forces and then exert
| different forces because of that. This leads to all kinds
| of interesting feedback loops. The polarity of the water
| molecules they're floating around in plays a role too.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Waals_force
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > With mRNA vaccines we get the cells to produce the protein.
| Does this imply that synthesis of the spike protein is
| difficult, or is it that administration is?
|
| It's that the mechanism of production of spike (inside infected
| cells) parallels the mechanism of production of spike protein
| in a natural infection. This stimulates the immune response
| against spike without need for additional adjuvants.
|
| > This then begs the question, could mRNA injections be used in
| place of traditional medication?
|
| Not my specialty, but as you say targeting may be difficult.
| There are various lipid carriers that I believe can target
| certain cell types or tissues, but I don't know how well these
| work, and of course actually distributing them so that they
| will reach lung tissue is also a matter. And then how well
| would they work in already infected lung tissue versus just
| spraying the lungs with the protein?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Thank you for the response. This makes sense.
|
| As for the second segment. I only have more questions now.
| Could it be that requesting that the cells produce additional
| proteins of a particular kind "overloads" them or simply
| "asks too much" in a fashion similar to a virus?
|
| That seems unlikely unless the administered medication is
| simply "too much". I wonder, is there a saturation point? ie
| a point where additional mRNA medication does not result in
| more cells producing the target protein? Seems likely.
|
| Which then raises the question, if such a saturation point
| exists, then what is causing cells to explode due to virus
| replication? Is it that the viral particles can not escape
| the cell and thus they "use" pressure? If so, have we
| encountered a virus that "opens up" a cell without damaging
| it and eventually becomes parasitic to the host?
|
| It's probably the case that when cells die prematurely, they
| leave traces for our immune system to trigger an issue, so
| not destroying the cell seems like a beneficial evolutionary
| advantage. Otoh, the additional code required for this is
| likely very "expensive".
|
| I hope a virologist drops by and clarifies on this.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I'm not a virologist, and this is taxing to my memory, so
| it will be a bit more basic than you might prefer, and
| won't be as accurate.
|
| > Could it be that requesting that the cells produce
| additional proteins of a particular kind "overloads" them
| or simply "asks too much" in a fashion similar to a virus?
|
| It could be. I believe that most of the cells that express
| from the mRNA vaccine do indeed die (from the immune
| response against them). I'm not positive about this though.
| In general if a cell is preferentially producing protein
| from a particular mRNA it doesn't have to resources left to
| do what is expected of it (including cellular maintenance).
|
| > then what is causing cells to explode due to virus
| replication?
|
| https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_Gen
| e... "During release, the newly-created viruses are
| released from the host cell, either by causing the cell to
| break apart, waiting for the cell to die, or by budding off
| through the cell membrane."
|
| According to the video below it can be caused by crowding.
| I think it can also be caused by virus proteins, or an
| apoptotic response - programmed cell death done to hinder
| the viruses ability to replicate more infectious particles.
| Often enough the cell does not burst, but simply buds off
| new virus. This is still very detrimental because the cell
| isn't doing what it is supposed to do, instead having been
| hijacked to create new viruses.
|
| > If so, have we encountered a virus that "opens up" a cell
| without damaging it and eventually becomes parasitic to the
| host?
|
| What I'm going to say won't directly answer your question,
| but it will answer the question you would have had if you
| knew a bit more. You want to look up lytic versus lysogenic
| viral replication. A basic overview:
| https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-
| biology/hs-h...
|
| A more general overview of viruses linking directly to the
| part talking about retroviruses (the most common route of
| viral lysogens in animals): https://bio.libretexts.org/Cour
| ses/Mansfield_University_of_P...
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Thank you for the detailed response and the links! Hope
| you have a great weekend!
| rs999gti wrote:
| Covid is so last year. Chinese weather balloons are so hot right
| now
| btbuildem wrote:
| [flagged]
| photochemsyn wrote:
| There do seem to be some alternative views on the role of this
| protein, LRRC15, in the lungs with respect to Sars-CoV-2. See
| this other paper (Feb 3 2023):
|
| https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
|
| Just to cover the basics, the virus normally accesses cells by
| binding to ACE2.
|
| > "The interactions between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
| Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and human host factors enable the
| virus to propagate infections that lead to Coronavirus Disease
| 2019 (COVID-19). The spike protein is the largest structural
| component of the virus and mediates interactions essential for
| infection, including with the primary angiotensin-converting
| enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor."
|
| There is a key role played in viral production by furin in
| ACE2-receptor-binding, which is an 'ubiquitous serine protease'
| in mammalian cells which plays key roles in processing hormones,
| growth factors, etc. and which is also exploited by many
| infectious diseases. This feature of Sars-CoV-2 is of course
| directly related to the notion that the virus was engineered,
| because:
|
| > "The presence of a multibasic site (Arg-Arg-Ala-Arg) located at
| the S1-S2 junction, which is cleaved by furin (Fig. 1),
| distinguishes SARS-CoV-2 from SARS-CoV and all other known
| sarbecoviruses whose S protein is not cleaved by furin-like
| proteases during virus maturation in the infected cell. Cleavage
| of the S1-S2 boundary is a prerequisite for the cleavage of the
| S2' site126, and both cleavage events are essential to initiate
| the membrane-fusion process."
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41580-021-00418-x
|
| Accounting for the appearance of this furin cleavage site is a
| problem for anyone promoting a 'natural origin theory'.
|
| Getting back to this new protein and its potential role, the
| other paper (first source above) seems to have a different
| conclusion:
|
| > "Levels of LRRC15 were greatly elevated by inflammatory signals
| in the lungs of COVID-19 patients. Although infection assays
| demonstrated that LRRC15 alone is not sufficient to permit viral
| entry, we present evidence that it can modulate infection of
| human cells. This unexpected interaction merits further
| investigation to determine how SARS-CoV-2 exploits host LRRC15
| and whether it could account for any of the distinctive features
| of COVID-19."
|
| Their work seems to imply it might not _block_ infection of
| cells, but instead _enhance_ infection:
|
| > "In order to examine whether LRRC15 might modulate the
| efficiency of viral entry into ACE2-expressing cells, we employed
| the naturally susceptible human lung cell line (CaLu-3) that is
| commonly used as a model for coronavirus infection [47]. We
| introduced LRRC15 ectopically to these cells to emulate the
| expression seen in other human lung cell populations we
| identified in our expression analysis. Compared to unmodified
| CaLu-3 cells that lack any detectable LRRC15, the expression of
| LRRC15 modestly enhanced viral infection"
|
| Science is complicated, and popular media reports on recent
| science are often of very poor quality.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Those are interesting earlier results about LRRC15. The effect
| of its expression may be dose dependent, with lower levels of
| LRRC15 promoting infection (or the negative effects of
| fibrosis) and higher levels inhibiting infection.
|
| It also shows that what happens in cell culture doesn't
| necessarily translate to _in vivo_.
|
| > Accounting for the appearance of this furin cleavage site is
| a problem for anyone promoting a 'natural origin theory'.
|
| I very much think the lab leak origin is quite possible.
| Whether an engineered virus, or a natural chimeric virus due to
| bad lab practices (the Wuhan lab collected a large amount of
| viruses). That said it's not as if other betacoronaviruses
| don't have furin cleavage sites: https://www.news-
| medical.net/news/20230209/Assessing-the-zoo...
|
| "The team analyzed 201 Alpha and Beta CoV strains for furin
| cleavage sites in their spikes. Cleavage sites in spikes were
| identified from 44 strains, 17 of which have bats as hosts,
| while 27 have other mammalian hosts. Domestic animals,
| including dogs, cats, cattle, horses, and rabbits, were also
| identified as hosts for potentially transmissible CoVs."
|
| > Science is complicated, and popular media reports on recent
| science are often of very poor quality.
|
| "The University study is one of three independent papers that
| reveal this specific protein's interaction with COVID-19."
| photochemsyn wrote:
| As I understand it, that lineage of coronaviruses is quite
| distinct from the sarbecoronavirus lineage and they don't
| generally infect the same host species in the same
| geographical regions:
|
| > "For coronaviruses, furin cleavage sites at the interface
| of the S1 and S2 domain are not unusual, being found widely
| in betacoronaviruses in the embeco lineage (which are
| considered to be of rodent origin) as well as in avian-origin
| gammacoronaviruses and certain feline and canine
| alphacoronaviruses (with an unknown origin). Furin cleavage
| sites are also found in certain bat-origin MERS-like
| merbecovirises, but not--with the exception of SARS-CoV-2--in
| the sarbecovirus lineage."
|
| For such a specific motif to arise naturally seems to require
| a scenario like multiple infection of a host species by
| several different wild-type coronaviruses.
|
| Then there's this feature:
|
| > "So far, a viable natural origin for the SARS-CoV-2 S1-S2
| site through recombination or mutation of a bat-origin virus
| has proved to be elusive. Of note, the S1-S2 cleavage site of
| SARS-CoV-2 S does not comprise the pattern found in
| prototypical furin cleavage sites (it is RRxR and not
| RxK/RR),8 making its origin enigmatic. One feature of the
| S1-S2 junction for the SARS-CoV-2 spike from the original
| outbreak is the presence of a leading proline residue, which
| might have promoted furin cleavage."
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5.
| ..
|
| At this point, the lab-accident-theory looks more likely than
| the natural-origin-theory.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Sarbecoronaviruses are a subset of betacoronaviruses. And I
| seriously doubt we have a comprehensive sequence database
| of all sarbecoronaviruses. If furin cleavage sites are
| present in about 21% of alpha- and betacoronaviruses I
| would expect they would also be present in a minority of
| most lineages within these clades. "Furin cleavage sites
| are also found in certain bat-origin MERS-like
| merbecovirises"
|
| > For such a specific motif to arise naturally seems to
| require a scenario like multiple infection of a host
| species by several different wild-type coronaviruses.
|
| Two would be enough. And we know that happens already (ala
| XBB, deltacron, etcetera).
|
| > > "So far, a viable natural origin for the SARS-CoV-2
| S1-S2 site through recombination or mutation of a bat-
| origin virus has proved to be elusive. Of note, the S1-S2
| cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 S does not comprise the pattern
| found in prototypical furin cleavage sites (it is RRxR and
| not RxK/RR),8 making its origin enigmatic. One feature of
| the S1-S2 junction for the SARS-CoV-2 spike from the
| original outbreak is the presence of a leading proline
| residue, which might have promoted furin cleavage."
|
| This is interesting, indeed. I wonder why an engineered
| site wouldn't use the prototypical cleavage motif, instead
| using one that might need (if I'm reading the quote
| correctly) a leading proline residue in order to promote
| cleavage?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I suppose if people were inserting furin cleavage sites
| specifically into the Sars-CoV-2 precursor sequence, then
| they might generate a series of variants to see which one
| worked best when it came to results of infectivity tests
| in human cell lines?
|
| Regarding bat lineages and host viruses, this 2019 paper
| seems to indicate that the other betacoronavirus lineage
| with the furin site, the Merbecovirus, has a different
| bat host range from the Sarbecovirus lineage that gave
| rise to Sars-CoV-2:
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/2/174
|
| "Compared to Sarbecovirus and Nobecovirus, the bat hosts
| that harbor viruses from the Merbecovirus sub-genus are
| more diverse. This is in line with the presence of more
| CoV species belonging to Merbecovirus."
|
| (I generally trust papers on this evolutionary origin
| stuff published before the pandemic a bit more than those
| published after, as there might be less conflicts-of-
| interest issues).
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > I suppose if people were inserting furin cleavage sites
| specifically into the Sars-CoV-2 precursor sequence, then
| they might generate a series of variants to see which one
| worked best when it came to results of infectivity tests
| in human cell lines?
|
| This makes sense.
|
| I think here's the most relevant quote from that article:
| "So far, no betaCoVs from the sub-genus Merbecovirus have
| been detected in bats of suborder Yinpterochiroptera."
|
| While the paper does mention one member of
| Yangochiroptera ( _Chaerephon plicatus_ ) that has been
| discovered infected with sarbecoviruses, it looks like
| there's little room for infectious overlap of
| merbecoviruses and sarbecoviruses (which predominantly
| infect Yinpterochiropterans, at least as detected as of
| the paper publication).
|
| So if the SARS-CoV-2 progenitor did get its furin
| cleavage site from a co-infection with a merbecovirus,
| this would have been a really rare event indeed. At least
| if the co-infection happened in a bat species, and not in
| another animal or a human who deals with bats.
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| [dead]
| throwntoday wrote:
| Does the existence of this protein explain asymptomatic
| infections? I wonder what percentage of the population have it.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| It seems that everyone has it to varying degrees, however it
| probably doesn't seem to explain asymptomatic infections unless
| the virus has the capacity to shed the protein which doesn't
| seem to be the case, or that people with asymptomatic infection
| produce enough of this protein that sars-covid-19 has hard time
| accumulating and causing the disease, and an asymptomatic
| patient spreads the virus to people who produce far less of
| this protein.
|
| According to the authors the protein binds "like velcro"
| effectively immobilising and preventing infection.
|
| Symptoms would occur if sufficient cells were infected thus the
| second case sounds plausible to a degree.
|
| I am not a virologist so take everything with a huge grain kf
| salt.
| jcynix wrote:
| Everyone has it (produced) when needed, as far as I can derive
| from
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucine_rich_repeat_containing...
|
| But maybe different people generate different amounts at
| different speeds?
| superkuh wrote:
| It's very unlikely. Asymptomatic infections of aerosol spread
| respiratory diseases are not exclusive to sars-cov-2. Most
| people get asymptomatically infected with Influenza a every
| single year and often infect others without even realizing it.
| The more likely guess is that once you have humoral/serum
| immunity to protect the body proper you just get the upper
| respiratory infection (since mucosal tissues are not protected
| by humoral immunity significantly). And that mucosal only
| infection is less likely to cause serious disease.
| logifail wrote:
| > Does the existence of this protein explain asymptomatic
| infections? I wonder what percentage of the population have it.
|
| Our [unvaccinated] 8 year-old had Covid last Spring and his
| symptoms lasted exactly one entire morning.
|
| PCR swab tests were done in school on day 1, on day 2 I got a
| frantic phone call from his school at 7am saying "keep him
| home, he has Covid!".
|
| We would not otherwise have known, since he had precisely a bit
| of a headache. No cough, no fever. He took a paracetamol and
| sat in front of the TV. By the afternoon the headache was gone.
|
| He tested PCR positive again on day 6, so got to enjoy the full
| 10 days' mandatory isolation, thanks to the rules in place here
| at that time.
|
| The interesting question is: what percentage of young and/or
| healthy people actually had a severe case of Covid? We know an
| awful lot of people who've had mild-to-insignificant cases...
| incangold wrote:
| From the point of view of someone who is immunocompromised
| this seems like the bare minimum we can do as a society to
| protect the vulnerable.
|
| Something between "almost nothing" and "nobody leaving the
| house" would be nice. At the moment we're at "almost
| nothing".
| sokoloff wrote:
| Isolating and denying effective schooling to every kid who
| comes down with a one-day mild illness for ten days does
| not seem like a risk-proportionate response to me.
| Krssst wrote:
| Allowing a single covid-positive kid go to school means
| contaminating a significant portion of the class's
| students and students' parents. Ten days out of school
| sounds fine. Long covid is a thing; being unlikely to die
| does not mean that illness is unlikely to be life-
| altering.
| aflag wrote:
| Why not? I don't think skipping one week and a half of
| school when you're 8 will have any real effect in your
| life neither in the short or long term future. Meanwhile,
| if they get in contact with someone with some sort of
| immunodeficiency along the way it could cause irreparable
| damage.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > Meanwhile, if they get in contact with someone with
| some sort of immunodeficiency along the way it could
| cause irreparable damage.
|
| Is there any evidence this is different for Covid-19 than
| the vast sea of other viruses kids catch but we don't PCR
| test for?
| aflag wrote:
| Probably not. It's likely there are worse diseases out
| there that we just don't check and keep our normal lives
| being carriers. But once you know, it's probably better
| to avoid. I think questioning whether or not doing a pcr
| test is good use of resources. But I don't think skipping
| school for a few days is where the problem resides.
| gigibec wrote:
| [dead]
| callahad wrote:
| > _one week and a half of school when you 're 8_
|
| I think you're vastly underestimating how often kids
| exhibit symptoms potentially consistent with Covid during
| a school year.
| neoromantique wrote:
| How often do they exhibit symptoms AND trigger a PCR
| test?
| callahad wrote:
| Oh sure. I think we're interpreting the parent comments
| differently (i.e., I'm understanding sokoloff's and
| aflag's comments to be about more general precautionary
| isolation based on symptomatic illness, not necessarily
| PCR-confirmed infection like logifail's kid.)
| aflag wrote:
| I was not really suggesting kids should be isolated
| whenever they have any sort of possible symptoms. But if
| you're diagnosed with some contagious illness, it's
| probably not a bad idea to try to curb the spread.
| sokoloff wrote:
| People who recovered from C19 many weeks ago and are no
| longer contagious can still test positive on a PCR test.
|
| Catch C19, recover, get the sniffles in the next 2
| months, get PCR tested, require a parent to take off work
| and the kid to sit out 10 days [possibly more than once]
| is not a reasonable policy IMO.
| landemva wrote:
| PCR test amplifies whatever was swabbed, usually from the
| nose (an air filter). A positive result does not prove
| there is an infection.
| neoromantique wrote:
| Testing positive months after does happen, but is
| extremely rare, and yes, missing few days of school/work
| is not that big of a deal considering risks involved.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think kids are likely to catch asymptomatic or
| extremely mild Covid annually. That'll potentially be
| 4-5% of their educational time.
|
| Kids of wealthy families with parents with flexible jobs
| will be fine. Not every kid is in a home situation like
| that.
| maxerickson wrote:
| You have to look at both sides of the intervention,
| right?
|
| Like if isolating that kid doesn't prevent any further
| infections, then it isn't doing any good. If isolating
| them for 3 days prevents a couple other kids from getting
| infected, it's less clear.
|
| Using PCR tests to evaluate clearance doesn't make sense
| though, since they can be positive if there are fragments
| but no viable virus.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > Using PCR tests to evaluate clearance doesn't make
| sense though, since they can be positive if there are
| fragments but no viable virus.
|
| It's a cost and time issue. The cost of filtering snot,
| inoculating a culture dish of infectable cells with the
| filtered snot, waiting a couple of days for the cells to
| show signs of infection (cell swelling or bursting), and
| then running a PCR test on the cells in the culture dish.
| With high enough throughput you could probably do this
| for $50 or there about, and maybe three days, to verify
| whether they were technically still infected three days
| ago.
| maxerickson wrote:
| A series of well administered rapid antigen tests is more
| useful than PCR.
|
| Just waiting a couple days after symptoms abate is also
| going to bring most of the benefit of testing for
| clearance.
| aflag wrote:
| Assuming a 180 day school year (which would actually mean
| a 10 day period would be closer to 3-4% not 4-5%), that
| means that half of the year they are not in school
| anyway. So they have a good chance of catching it outside
| of school days anyway even if they catch it annually.
| Besides that, if that's that's a huge and consistent
| problem, school could just reduce the number of holidays
| by a week or so. The variance of number of school days
| throughout the world is already larger than that.
| knewter wrote:
| You cannot believe that <3 mo of summer accounts for half
| of the calendar year, and I know you know that 10d
| isolation runs past the weekend
| genewitch wrote:
| There's 104 non school days regardless of any other days
| without school. It only takes 76 other days off (June
| 15-august 15 + 3 additional weeks off) is youe 180 days
| off.
| knewter wrote:
| Should they still punish parents for truancy?
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Isolating and denying effective schooling to every kid
| who comes down with a one-day mild illness for ten days
| does not seem like a risk-proportionate response to me.
|
| Example had COVID, not a one-day mild illness so it might
| affect other children worse than the kid. I'd like to
| know what the negative effect of that really is, my gut
| feeling is that it's zero. People often make it sound
| like they end up insufficiently educated and socially
| isolated which is bs in my opinion.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Example had COVID, not a one-day mild illness
|
| Unless we are doubting the description of the parent,
| example had mild illness (the patient's experience of ill
| health) for _less than_ one day:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34752442
| barbazoo wrote:
| Tested positive for COVID
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm not sure what point you're making there. COVID is the
| disease. SARS-CoV2 is the pathogen. That patient's
| individual experience is their illness.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I think it's clear to most what is meant by "tested
| positive for COVID"
| gigibec wrote:
| [dead]
| 4RealFreedom wrote:
| Being immunocompromised, what sort of measures do you take
| when leaving your home? Just curious about how that impacts
| lifestyle.
| superkuh wrote:
| That's good. But the lower lungs already get seepage of body
| serum/humoral igM and igG. If you really want to protect against
| infections then you have to induce mucosal immunity (and get
| tissue resident B and T cells) in the surface layer of the upper
| respiratory. Unfortunately intramuscular vaccinations do not do
| that, they only give serum/humoral immunity. So they're only the
| first step to protect against serious disease.
|
| India has just released it's intranasal sars-cov-2 vaccine for
| use as of a month ago (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
| india-64421961). I'm waiting anxiously on those large scale
| public results. Especially as a booster after intramuscular.
| buggythebug wrote:
| What he said.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| I think the situation is a little more complex than this. I
| recommend reading https://www.cell.com/cell-host-
| microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(2...
|
| In short, we have to consider that other viruses like OC43 and
| HKU1 either do not have durable mucosal responses, or the
| response of the immune system is to slow for the viral dynamics
| of some viruses.
| Sakos wrote:
| I'm surprised we haven't gotten an intranasal vaccine before
| now. We've been talking about the issues with intramuscular
| vaccines in regards to mucosal immunity since the very
| beginning.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I believe that the technocratic culture of US medicine is
| standing in the way of research on intranasal vaccines.
|
| What you consistently hear from medical professionals is, "we
| have this proven technology, it works, the objections to it
| are irrational, can we please just be sensible?" So far, so
| good... (I'm a bit of a technocrat myself)
|
| But why are people so afraid of vaccines in particular? There
| are all sorts of arguments about autism and turning frogs gay
| or whatever, but people are still happy to take whatever
| _pills_ the doctor prescribes and hormone-enriched fast
| food... what makes vaccines different? It seems pretty clear
| that people are just afraid of needles, and from an
| evolutionary biology perspective, that 's not irrational at
| all!
|
| But "maybe we should make vaccines that won't scare people"
| just won't get you anywhere in the US medical establishment.
| Frightened patients aren't Serious Medicine.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| People are scared of needles is incredibly dismissive and
| likely intentionally insulting. People aren't afraid of the
| needles; they're concerned about the unknown impacts of
| what's being injected through the needles. While needle
| phobia exists, it's very small percentage of those who
| didn't want the mystery chemical cocktail pushed by those
| who openly told countless "noble" lies. The vast majority
| of these people have had hundreds of shots over the course
| of their lives, including many previously well tested and
| well understood vaccines (none of which required 1984 style
| rewriting of the dictionary).
|
| Can't believe anyone is still pushing what's basically a
| shame tactic that is typically aimed at pre-adolescents. Do
| you feel smart or virtuous having posted that dismissive
| and insulting reductive view of people who don't blindly
| follow "THE SCIENCE" like you do? It's not the needles!
| It's the contents! How is that not incredibly obvious?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| None of this address his main point of 'why the vaccines
| when _pharma has does the same thing a bunch of times to
| other things_ yet people still take tylenol (which is
| demonstrably toxic and causes serious illness and death
| all the time) '?
|
| The same people who refuse the vaccine take unknown
| substances in 'supplements' which have no regulation at
| all. It makes no sense. Explain it.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| I refused the vaccine and I don't take supplements unless
| my doctor tells me to. I don't take tylenol either, or
| really anything else that I don't absolutely need (e.g.
| antibiotics for an infection that won't clear on its
| own).
|
| Maybe these "same people" that you're describing exist,
| but they definitely aren't everyone in the set of people
| who refused the vaccine. They might just be the loud
| people.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Again, I am not asking for specific explanations. The
| grandparent comment gave a theory as to why vaccines in
| general have become fodder for public outrage, when those
| same arguments against them work for other things that
| are common, with the outlier being 'needles'.
|
| The parent comment said 'it's not needles, don't insult
| me! it is because _this specific vaccine_ is [same
| argument against other things which aren 't outrage
| fodder and not addressing any of the other established
| vaccines which are subject to outrage]. '
|
| It did nothing to explain away the needle aspect except
| 'needle phobia is uncommon', which explains nothing since
| a phobia is DSM classified as a 'disorder' and an
| 'aversion to needles' wouldn't count.
|
| Thanks for telling me about yourself, though. It was
| interesting.
| oaktrout wrote:
| I can explain it. Tylenol has been around since 1955 and
| is only demonstrably toxic in overdoses. The mrna based
| vaccines have been only used for the past couple years,
| hence long term side effects are unknown.
|
| Not everyone who refuses the vaccine takes supplements.
| Your comparison is like saying "why don't you take this
| research chemical ('molly'), you smoke cannabis already".
| Eisenstein wrote:
| You didn't explain it, you explained around it.
|
| I didn't ask why specifically about tylenol and
| supplements, I said explain why the outrage over vaccines
| and not other things.
| oaktrout wrote:
| You said "The same people who refuse the vaccine take
| unknown substances in 'supplements' which have no
| regulation at all. It makes no sense. Explain it." I
| replied to that point directly.
|
| The "outrage over vaccines and not other things" is in
| part because the mrna vaccines are new technology. People
| are hesitant to try something totally new on themselves.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| The MMR vaccines are not mRNA. You are completely missing
| the point. See my other comment in this thread if you
| want a specific breakdown.
| Supermancho wrote:
| >> "The same people who refuse the vaccine take unknown
| substances in 'supplements' which have no regulation at
| all. It makes no sense. Explain it."
|
| >> The "outrage over vaccines and not other things" is in
| part because the mrna vaccines are new technology. People
| are hesitant to try something totally new on themselves.
|
| > The MMR vaccines are not mRNA. You are completely
| missing the point.
|
| Ironic, as you now choose to ignore the explanation.
|
| If you failed to explain an implicit assumption, that's
| ok, as it's hard to communicate over forums. Introducing
| MMR (there is no reference to this in "another post") as
| if there was a misunderstanding on the poster's part is a
| non-sequitor at best and dishonest at worst.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| You missing the entire context of the conversation and
| replying to a specific part of my response to another
| person is not a miscommunication, but OK.
|
| I didn't 'introduce' anything. The grandparent post is
| about 'vaccines' in general. the mRNA vaccine is _one_ of
| them.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Because people also get freaked out about vaccines that
| have been proven to be safe and effective for over a
| hundred years.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _safe and effective_
|
| Those people maybe not being specialist cannot
| differentiate those remedies which are "safe" as the
| poster writes (which equals to "no risks or some risk of
| mild impact") and those which can have catastrophic
| impact in the relatively small set of the unlucky.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _people are still happy to take whatever pills_
|
| Are you sure? Do you have numbers to show that (a critical
| number would be skeptical on one side and careless or
| trusting on the other)?
| Twirrim wrote:
| There's been a few attempts, but they haven't proven to be
| effective, e.g.
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-022-00106-z
| superkuh wrote:
| There have been many attempts. And many of them have proven
| successful at the ~42 person trial level that failed in
| this particular study with a common adenovirus as the DNA
| delivery agent. The one I linked _did work_ in large scale
| clinical trials which is why it is now being given to the
| public.
|
| Plus intranasal influenza a vaccines have been around since
| the 1960s. I alternate getting intramuscular and intranasal
| influenza vaccines for best protection of myself and
| others.
|
| I'm very hopeful for this full scale intranasal roll out of
| a proven intranasal vaccine for sars-cov-2. I am seriously
| considering a trip to India to get it as a booster to my 4x
| mRNA intramusculars from Moderna and BioNTech(Pfizer). I
| just wish they'd use nebulizers instead of a simple spray.
| Simple sprays work for the fluid dynamics scales involved
| in small animal models but as large humans we need
| nebulizers to get the most complete upper respiratory
| protection.
| coredog64 wrote:
| China has been rolling one out in addition to Sinovax.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Asking as a laymen, any concerns about intranasal vaccines
| bypassing the blood-brain barrier? Or is that a feature not a
| bug?
| atomicUpdate wrote:
| > "For me, as an immunologist, the fact that there's this natural
| immune receptor that we didn't know about, that's lining our
| lungs and blocks and controls virus, that's crazy interesting.
|
| So natural immunity is a real thing.
| genewitch wrote:
| In February or March of 2020 there were two interesting and not
| well distributed studies. That of immunity of heavy smokers -
| and/or those who were heavy smokers but had quit, and the other
| was about the effects of hibiscus on the mucosal lining of the
| lungs preventing respiratory infection.
|
| I'm overburdened right now, I can't deal with any more COVID
| studies. But when I read the title and seeing some comments I
| wonder if the prior art is related.
| [deleted]
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| It was a wildly popular view here on Hacker New at the height
| of covid hysteria that even those with natural immunity should
| still be forced to get whatever injections the governments
| deemed necessary because "it makes the paperwork easier to
| track if everyone is required and there is ZERO RISK!
| ABSOLUTELY ZERO RISK!!!!"
|
| There are still a few holdouts here on naturally acquired
| immunity being inferior to being given the injections but most
| of them hinge on a theoretical fraction of a percentage
| increase in potential protection from having both or upset at
| the prospect that someone might lie about having had covid
| previously and use it as an excuse to not get injected. Mostly
| those who rushed headfirst into mindless authoritarianism are
| trying to pretend they never participated in the hysteria.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Let's not pretend: it was a wildly popular view since the
| invention of vaccines, because the central thesis of
| vaccination is a numbers game; an epidemic or pandemic can be
| stopped once the immunity of a population reaches a certain
| threshold.
|
| This was recognized in 1905 with the _Jacobson v
| Massachusetts_ decision, in the 1950s-1960s with mass polio
| immunization (resulting in the deaths of hundreds of children
| to prevent the infection of hundreds of thousands in the US),
| and today with required MMR vaccines to attend public
| schools. The view that one should be able to opt out of
| vaccination programs is the novel one.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Archive Link [1]
|
| [1] - https://archive.ph/FiE2r
| maxerickson wrote:
| I wonder if there are other proteins that do similar things to
| viruses that exploit other pathways to enter cells.
|
| Hard to search on with only a basic understanding of what is
| going on.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-02-11 23:02 UTC)