Pandemic Info from Readers

(Photo from 2020 article in The Conversation about wastewater monitoring)

Over the weekend I got more input than usual from readers. It was all related to the pandemic. I like it when you bring things to my attention. Please just remember that whatever you point out to me is subject to the same type of evaluation as material I come across in some other way.

If you want a refresher about what I mean, I wrote about that in November in a post called Recognizing Rubbish.

What Came In?

What came in this weekend pretty much covered the spectrum. One said she is disappointed in my view of pandemic issues. Fair enough. I should listen to X, Y and Z scientists.

Oops.

Scientist Y is an especially familiar name. She made a big splash several years ago with findings that turned out to be based on what might be called obvious sample contamination in the lab, if we give the generous benefit of a large doubt. That was a red flag. I looked up the others and their credibility was worse. That bit of reader input, I didn’t take up.

As I said in November, scientists are human. They can make magnificent discoveries. They can also make mistakes or even knowingly turn out faulty work.

Toward the other end of the spectrum, I also got a link to the latest update video from Dr. Paul Klotman at the Baylor College of Medicine.

The video is mostly good. He clearly means well and does what he can with the information in front of him.

However, there are some bits where the information in front of me contradicts him. That’s where sifting through information to separate wheat from chaff matters. His video contains wheat and a little chaff. There is nothing remarkable about that and no need to discard all the good because of some quibbles.

My most serious disagreement is the question of whether having a bout with COVID leaves us with immunity to at least the variant we caught. He says it does. I have seen multiple studies that say such immunity is too short-lived to be of much use. The methodology of the studies looks sound. As the virus evolves, reinfection is becoming possible sooner after having a case. With the Wuhan original, people seemed to get a few weeks of resistance to reinfection. Omicron cut that to as little as 8 days.

I don’t see how we can build up immunity this way. The mushrooming data about post-COVID consequences (elevated morbidity and mortality) indicate infection is high risk for even people in their prime. That much risk for 8 days of protection from reinfection is not a trade-off I want to make.

But I said there’s wheat in his video, and there is.

Dr. Klotman mentions the importance of seeking mucosal immunity. That is indeed where vaccine development is redirecting its focus. He cites a study in hamsters comparing injected vaccines of a couple of types with a nasal vaccine that uses attenuated virus. Our current vaccines only reduce severe illness. They aren’t “sterilizing” vaccines that prevent infection. As researchers drilled into the question of why, they found the virus likes to get in through the lining of the nasal passages. Injected vaccines do little or nothing to help the nose recognize and kill the virus. They affect parts of the immune system that don’t kick in until after the virus has gotten in.

He didn’t mention nasal vaccines under development for humans in India (which is now trying it on a large scale), China, Finland, etc. but that’s the most promising type of vaccine development underway right now. His remarks touch upon why.

To put it simply, if we can teach the mucosal lining of our noses to fend off the virus, it won’t be able to infect us, especially if the vaccine keys to a part of the virus that doesn’t mutate as much as the spike protein. We’ll prevent infection rather than only make cases less severe… and when we’ve got a new vaccine to do that, we really can achieve high population immunity.

He spent some time talking about a recent article in the Guardian that said the UK is working on an early warning system for future pandemics. He disparaged the plan’s reliance on nose swabs of individual people, saying it would be better to sample wastewater to detect outbreaks and start looking at people whenever the wastewater shows an outbreak.

Let’s be clear about that article. It announces research into something the UK itself is no longer willing to do.

The UK’s Office for National Statistics ran the COVID prevalence survey. ONS conducted PCR testing of weekly random samples of the population sufficient for statistical calculation of actual prevalence of the virus in each nation of the UK. It was one of the world’s best sources of pandemic prevalence information. It was expensive. Worse, from the viewpoint of authorities, it was indisputably solid and its data contradicted the government’s desire to convince the public that nobody needs to take any precautions any more. The survey was discontinued in mid-March.

Even rapid testing of UK hospital patients and residents of care homes has been ramped down. Tests (rapid and sometimes PCR) have a high false negative rate with current variants, so testing is not very helpful any more. Wastewater sampling is the only detection still operating at all here, where it exists.

Dr. Klotman need not worry about the Guardian article. The UK isn’t likely to actually implement the early warning system trumpeted in the article, let alone turn it into a global program.

Wrap-Up

It was heartening to see that Dr. Klotman does such weekly videos. He’s doing what he can and he shows a good amount of detail about his data.

It’s simply nice to know someone in a position to do something about the pandemic is doing something.

People who are still being cautious about COVID tend not to make as much noise as adamant COVID deniers, anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. The COVID cautious have begun associating with each other at such places as Facebook groups and websites where they discuss how to carry on and maybe have a few relatively safe outdoor get-togethers, a handful at a time. They see each other and talk with each other while the other end of the spectrum often seems to be shouting at everyone.

If you are among the COVID cautious, aren’t in such a group or website and feel like hardly anyone else still does as little as wear a mask, take a look at Twitter. Last week Canadians started what became a global deluge of people posting photos of themselves in their masks with a little blurb about their masking. Search for I refuse to accept infection to see them. We are definitely not alone.

I Do Like Your Input

Most of what you send me is material worth reading or watching, worth thinking about. If what you send doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, I won’t take it in. Such things happen sometimes. But I very much appreciate your input. Please keep it coming!