Sometimes I write posts to solicit info from my brain trust, the people who read my blog. Yesterday I wrote about the non-inevitablity of a Covid-19 vaccine, and got two interesting responses. #
HIV has a very high mutation rate, it's a constantly changing target, very hard to vaccinate. Fortunately this corona virus is highly conserved (stable), there are many stable proteins you can target. We don't see a reason why that stability would change as it's already spread around the world. #
I wanted to offer a few reasons for limited, cautious optimism, and one reason for a little bit of pessimism.#
Nobody ever "gets better" from HIV on their own. Our immune systems can't beat it. So it's hard to make a vaccine that teaches our immune systems how to beat it.#
We do get better from the flu on our own. But the problem is that the flu is a "modular" virus that can be recombined, so there's always a new version. So flu vaccines work, but there's a new vaccine every year.#
Our bodies can beat the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. People usually get better in a few weeks, if they don't die.#
Many people who caught the original SARS-CoV virus in 2003 still had antibodies ~10 years later.#
The SARS viruses are unusually complex, and in order to replicate correctly, they have pretty good proofreading. So they mutate much more slowly than HIV or the flu.#
There are four other coronaviruses that cause about 15% of cases of the common cold. We build immunity to these viruses but it usually doesn't last forever.#
So as I understand it, the biggest question with SARS-CoV-2 isn't whether we can teach our bodies to beat it. It's how long our immune system will remember. And whether we can find a low-risk vaccine that doesn't cause other problems.#
As always, Scripting News readers are the smartest and best. 🚀#
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