A way to end the pandemic — an update

Back on 5 April I wrote a post suggesting that we might be able to end the current coronavirus pandemic by infecting people with a cocktail of the 4 coronaviruses known to cause the common cold.  That post appears verbatim after the *** , along with a comment from a follower and my reply.

In the most recent Science (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6493/809) — Science  22 May 2020: Vol. 368, Issue 6493, pp. 809-810 the following appeared

” The La Jolla team studied stored blood samples collected between 2015 and 2018, well before the current pandemic began, and detected these cross-reactive helper T cells in about half of them. The researchers think these cells were likely triggered by past infection with one of the four human coronaviruses that cause colds; proteins in these viruses resemble those of SARS-CoV-2.”

This is exactly what I was hoping for by giving the cocktail.  So there is cross reactivity. The quoted material  was tantalizingly brief, so I’ve written the people in La Jolla for more information, but it’s Memorial Day tomorrow.

A degree of immunity, however small, may explain some of the confounding aspects of the epidemic. First off, based on the presence of antibodies to the pandemic coronavirus (SARS-CoV-19), well over 90% of people with them simply aren’t sick. Second, given that 33% of the people in the Bronx have these antibodies, why doesn’t everyone?  Surely the 67% of the Bronx population lacking the antibodies have come in contact with someone who was infected, yet in some way they were immune.  Third, given enough exposure for a long enough time just about everyone gets infected — see some of the horrible examples in the excellent website — https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them.

Susceptibility to clinical illness due to SARS-CoV-19 might be analogous to susceptibility to epilepsy.  We know that given enough electrical stimulation, every brain will convulse (see electroconvulsive therapy — ECT). 2% of children and 1% of adults do have spontaneous convulsions (epilepsy). Differential susceptibility to electrically induced convuslions is exactly how Dilantin (phenytoin), one of the first anticonvulsants was discovered in 1938.  All sorts of compounds were thrown at hapless experimental animals, and the amount of electricity needed to convulse them was measured.  An animal given Dilantin required more.

It’s important to note that the Science article wasn’t talking about antibodies, but something else called cellular immunity.  Hopefully the folks in La Jolla will write back and I’ll have more for you on these points in the near future.

Shane Crotty and Alessandro Sette, immunologists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology

 

 

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A way to end the pandemic

Could infecting people with the four or so coronaviruses that cause the common cold protect them against the new coronavirus causing the pandemic?   The official name for the new virus is SARS-CoV-2, the name for the disease is COVID-19.

“According to Marie-Louise Landry, MD, an infectious disease expert at Yale Medical School and the Director of the Yale Clinical Virology Laboratory, four common human coronaviruses cause 15-30% of common colds”

https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-symptoms-vs-cold

Now ask yourself how she could make a statement like this.  I’m going to try to get in touch with her tomorrow, but it is very likely that these cold causing coronaviruses are detected by measuring antibodies to them, carried in the blood of people who have been infected by them in the past.

Could one coronavirus (even a benign one) give partial immunity to others?  It’s possible and it’s time to find out.  We could know  in a few weeks.

Assume the test to measure the antibodies to cold coronaviruses exists.  Then measure them in our real, honest to God, modern day heroes on the front lines  — the nurses, docs, EMTs, orderlies, housekeeping, cops, etc. etc.  who are exposed every day to COVID-19.

Every hospital in the country could at least draw blood on them, look to see if antibodies are present and wait.   I doubt that many would refuse the test.

Sadly, it wouldn’t be long before some of them became infected with SARS-CoV-2.  Then investigators couldlook to see if those with the antibodies to the cold causing coronaviruses were protected.

If so, then make a cocktail of the 4 or so coronaviruses and give it to everyone.   It would be Edward Jenner and the cowpox all over again — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner

Even if the protection was only partial, decreasing the number of susceptible individuals would be enough to slow the pandemic and possibly even stop it.

• loupgarous On April 18, 2020 at 12:32 am

  Not afraid of a dengue fever-type antibody-dependent enhancement problem?

Loupgarous: I’m not worried about this with the coronaviruses causing colds. People are worried about immune enhancement with vaccine development for dengue, SARS and RSV and now SARS-CoV-2 [ Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. vol. 1176 pp. 8218 – 8221 ’20 ]. Immune enhancement definitely happens with clinical dengue (http://www.denguevirusnet.com/antibody-dependent-enhancement.html).

Why no worries? Because we’ve all had colds, lots of them, probably multiple ones with coronaviruses and no one has seen immune enhancement with colds (of any type). Naturally occurring cold causing coronaviruses are what I’d use if the experiment described in the post showed protection.

However, it is possible that such has happening with coronavirus caused colds, and we’ve been misdiagnosing it as influenza (which does kill a lot of people every year). This seems pretty remote.

Thanks for commenting. I really hadn’t considered this.