Not sure if anybody ever listens, but I always like to share when Donald McNeil is on The Daily. He speaks about some of the things we've discussed on here:
- He speculates that the flu season will be very mild because of all the restrictions in effect due to COVID: washing hands, social distancing, travel restrictions, etc. Cases in the southern hemisphere (where it's flu season) are way down. Australia is reporting 95% less flu cases. So, good news....he still recommends getting a flu shot to be safe though.
- He and many immunologists are not worried about the guy from Hong Kong who was re-infected with COVID. Basically, the first time his symptoms were very mild. The milderer the infection the less antibodies that are created. When he had it the second time he was asymptomatic, which most likely means he only had enough antibodies to decrease the severity of the illness, but not completely make him immune. These 2 factors: mild first case and even milder second case are a good sign and are typical of antibody behavior in other illnesses. There will be outliers who get re-infected, we should really only be worried if the symptoms of a re-infected person are more severe the second time. (at least that's how I understood it)
- He said immunologists, for the most part, believe immunity will last a year or more. Again, this is an educated guess based off of how long immunities last in other viruses that closely resemble COVID.
- From what immunologists can gather, COVID mutates at a third of the rate that the seasonal flu does. If this holds true, it may mean we need to vaccinate every three years, but again, (I sound like a broken record) it all depends on the vaccines that are developed, and how long immunities last.
- He also speaks about vaccines in China and Russia. Both are by passing the third and most important phase which Western scientists think is crazy. He explains why bypassing or rushing a third phase is extremely dangerous. Worst case scenario, the vaccine increases the severity of the symptoms for those who get infected....it's not something you want to play around with.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-plasma-reinfection.html