[News] Coronavirus Live Updates: Scientists See Signs of Lasting Immunity, Even After Mild Infection.

[_Happy boy]

 

 

Even mild Covid-19 cases confer ‘durable immunity,’ new studies find.
Scientists who have been monitoring immune responses to the coronavirus for months are now starting to see encouraging signs of strong, lasting immunity, even in people that developed only mild symptoms of Covid-19, a flurry of new studies has found.

Disease-fighting antibodies, as well as immune cells called B cells and T cells capable of recognizing the virus, appear to persist months after infections have resolved — an encouraging echo of the body’s robust immune response to other viruses.

 

“This is exactly what you would hope for,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington and an author on one of the new studies, which is currently under review at the journal Nature. “All the pieces are there to have a totally protective immune response.”

“This is very promising,” said Smita Iyer, an immunologist at the University of California, Davis, who is studying immune responses to the coronavirus in rhesus macaques and was not involved in these papers. “This calls for some optimism about herd immunity, and potentially a vaccine.”

Research on the coronavirus is proceeding so quickly, and in such volume, that the traditional review process often cannot keep pace. For the studies discussed here — as with un-peer-reviewed studies in general — The Times arranged for several experts to read and evaluate them.

Although researchers cannot forecast how long these immune responses will last, many experts consider the data a welcome indication that the body has a good chance of fending off the coronavirus if exposed to it again.

“Things are really working as they’re supposed to,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona and an author on one of the new studies, which has not yet been peer reviewed.

Protection against reinfection cannot be fully confirmed until there is proof that most people who encounter the virus a second time are actually able to keep it at bay, Dr. Pepper said. But the findings could help quell recent concerns over the virus’s ability to dupe the immune system into amnesia, leaving people vulnerable to repeat bouts of disease.

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However, it remains unclear how susceptible youngsters are to the virus, compared with adults, and how transmissible Covid-19 is among them or to adults. A recent study in Chicago found that infected children carry at least as much virus in their nose and throat as adults do.

But several studies from other countries have also suggested that children under 10 are much less likely to spread the virus to others. Children seem to be less likely than adults to develop severe Covid-19 symptoms, although the C.D.C. reported 570 cases of a related inflammatory syndrome among young people from infancy to age 20, from early March through late July. Those stricken were disproportionately Black and Latino.

The C.D.C.’s updated guidelines, which were addressed to pediatric health care providers, said that 7.3 percent of all reported Covid-19 cases through Aug. 3 were in people 17 or younger, who make up 22 percent of the U.S. po[CENSORED]tion.

“Due to community mitigation measures and school closures,” the report stated, transmission of the virus to and among children “may have been reduced in the spring and early summer of 2020. This may explain the low incidence in children compared with adults.”

The report added: “Comparing trends in pediatric infections before and after the return to in-person school and other activities may provide additional understanding about infections in children.”