Archive for the ‘antibodies’ Category
omicron omicron omicron
So I haven’t written about Covid for some time, and it hasn’t gone away, though I’ve managed to avoid it myself. I’m recovering from a bacterial infection which played havoc with my bronchiectasis, and had me coughing and sneezing so much that I felt for a few days that my usually life-saving course of antibiotics, together with steroids, wouldn’t be enough. I asked for a referral to a pulmonologist/respiratory specialist, but discovered that, due to Covid, they’re almost impossible to access. Anyway, I’m on a puffer and on the mend.
So according to worldometer’s coronavirus website, which I’ve regularly used, there have been about 6 and a quarter million deaths from Covid19, but the latest New Scientist podcast (118) informs me that there have been nearly 15 million deaths. That’s a huge discrepancy, and I suspect these rubbery figures will be a feature for years. What’s certainly true is that the various forms of this virus are going to be with us for some time. The latest Omicron sub-variants emanating from South Africa, BA.4 and BA.5 are still being monitored for their infectivity. Omicron in general (first discovered in Botswana) is a variant of concern, which has led to a new spike in cases, but it generally appears to be less lethal, though whether this is because most people, here in Australia at least, have been immunised, I’m not sure. Anyway, winter is on its way here, and I’m a bit worried. New covid cases are up by 127% in the USA in the last month, with hospitalisations up by 28% according to their ABC news. Omicron is mostly the culprit. Numbers are probably under-reported because effective testing has gone out the window. They’re testing waste water to measure the prevalence. In New Zealand, the Director-General of Health is warning of a new winter peak. Case numbers have bottomed there at a higher level than expected, and are now slightly on the rise. And of course not all cases are being reported, which would be expected with mild cases. In fact the DGH suggests that might amount to about half the cases. Influenza A is also on the rise there.
Omicron reproduces in the airways much much more rapidly than previous variants so it will pass quickly between people before they even know it, plus the mutation upon mutation will probably have rendered previous vaccines, and the antibodies they produce, less effective. Its precise infectiousness is hard to calculate because so many who are infected either aren’t aware of it or don’t report it. Animal studies of Omicron are showing that it goes into the lung less readily than previous variants, which is a relief to me at least, and probably a relief to most. But we shouldn’t describe it as a mild variant. There’s also the long Covid issue, which, being long, will take a long time to get a handle on. And there’s also the unvaccinated, who are more likely to be hospitalised. Of course, if you survive infection this will boost your immunity in future, at least for that particular variant. But it may well be the case that the virus will become endemic, that it’s on its way to being so.
It’s worth knowing some of the terminology regarding viruses and their mutations. They mutant constantly of course, though not always viably. Viable mutations will mutate further, and once they’ve gone further from the original they’re classed as a different lineage. That’s steps away from being classed as a variant, which is a lineage that has enhanced capability of infecting and causing damage to hosts. Omicron, because of its increased infectivity, is producing more lineages, and subsequently more variants. So we’re seeing reinfections, almost regardless of vaccination – depending no doubt on number and timing of vaccinations. The situation in South Africa is being watched, because they seem to be ahead in new infection rates. But there are concerns everywhere – at the end of April a new Omicron sub-variant, BA 2.12.1, was found in wastewater here in Australia (in Victoria). It’s deemed more transmissible, but no more severe, than previous variants. It should be noted, though, that influenza viruses still mutate more than four times faster than these Omicron variants, on average. However, some variants seem to have a brief ‘sprint’ period of high tranmissibility. Also, variants can arise through recombination. This appears to have occurred with the Omicron XE variant, the result of ‘two omicron strains merging together in a single host and then going on to infect others’. The genes of one variant can combine successfully with another infecting the host at the same time, and then spread to other hosts. There’s also been a ‘Deltacron’ recombinant variant.
Some 60 mutations have been identified since the original SARS-Cov2 virus was detected in Wuhan. 32 changes in the spike protein have been identified. This is the protein that attaches to human cells, and has been the principal target of vaccines.
The latest worry is the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants, which ‘threaten to trigger a new wave of COVID-19 infections in South Africa’, according to the VaccinesWork website, but the good news is that antibodies produced by those who had been vaccinated against COVID-19 were more effective than those from people who had recovered from natural infection. Vaccines work indeed. Still, the number of cases are rising. It may be due to waning immunity or increased infectivity or both. We can only continue to monitor the situation – it’s certainly not over yet. What an incredible journey this has been, and the fallout from reduced food production and other economic constraints is another problem for the future.
References
https://theconversation.com/whats-the-new-omicron-xe-variant-and-should-i-be-worried-180584
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/five-things-weve-learned-about-ba4-and-ba5-omicron-variants
covid19: corticosteroids, male susceptibility, evaluating health, remdesivir, coagulation factors
from The Lancet, ‘the four horsemen of a viral apocalpse’
Canto: So short-course use of some steroids was being advocated in the medcram update 88, though without thorough RCT evidence.
Jacinta: Well, data was presented from the Oxford RCT on those on oxygen or on ventilators showing a statistically significant reduction of mortality from short-course (up to 10 days) low dosage of dexamethasone, a freely-available steroid medication. The study involved some 2000 patients, but only those severely afflicted were helped by the medication.
Canto: An interesting aside to the data is that in the study males outnumbered females by almost 2 to 1, and that accords with the overall ratio of male to female covid19 patients Dr Seheult is finding, which rather shocked me. Why would more males be coming down with the disease? Presumably that’s not the infection rate, but the rate at which they need to be hospitalised.
Jacinta: Yes, you’re right, according to this Australian site (unfortunately undated):
Reports continue to emerge that men are significantly more vulnerable to COVID-19 than women. The commonly held perception that more men smoke and this makes them more susceptible along with other lifestyle factors does not tell the whole picture. White House COVID-19 Task Force director Dr Deborah Birx highlighted a “concerning trend” that men in all age brackets were becoming seriously ill from the virus at a higher rate than women, including younger males.
They’re suggesting more research needs to be done on this gender difference, for health issues in general. Some are claiming that estrogen makes a difference. In any case I think cardiovascular problems are more common in males – but maybe not so much in younger males.
Canto: So update 89 is fairly short, and deals with US data about cases and deaths, most of it out of date now, and more on corticosteroids and the dangers of unsupervised use. Update 90 introduces us to a tool I’ve never heard of called ‘Discern’. Very useful for we autodidacts in helping us, for example, to enlighten our doctors as to our condition. Discern is a tool for evaluating internet health info, such as medcram’s updates on youtube, or anything else on youtube. The instrument asks you to evaluate the material according to 16 different criteria. Interestingly, this tool has been tested on covid19 material by a study out of Poland done in March. The results weren’t so good, especially for news channels.
Jacinta: Yes, physicians’ information did best – but of course we don’t go to news channels for health information, and we’d advise against anyone else doing so. The study evaluated the Discern tool itself and found it excellent, then used the tool to evaluate health information, specifically on youtube. Of course know that there’s ‘viral misinformation’ from various news outlets that gets posted on youtube. And good to see that the medcram updates were some of the most highly rated using the Discern tool.
Canto: So we’re now into reporting from early July with update 91. It starts by looking at a ‘covid risk calculator’ in which you can type in your age, gender, BMI, underlying conditions, waist circumference, and other data which you might need a full medical checkup to find out about (and that’s overdue for me), including, for example, %FMD, a measure I’ve never heard of, but which has to do with endothelial function.
Jacinta: FMD stands for fibromuscular dysplasia. The Johns Hopkins medicine site describes it as a rare blood vessel disease in which the cells of some arteries become more stiff and fibrous and less flexible. This leads to weakness and damage. Not sure how it relates to covid19 but surely any pre-existing blood vessel damage is a danger for those contracting the virus.
Canto: Right, so it’s unlikely anyone will know offhand their percentage of FMD. I don’t even know my HDL and LDL levels, never mind my HbA1c or lipids. I’d love to be able to take measures of all these myself, without visiting a doctor.
Jacinta: Typical male control freak. So all of this is to measure your risk of covid19 hospitalisation, ICU admission or mortality. Fun times. So next the update looks at Gilead, the makers of the antiviral remdesivir, who donated all their supplies of the drug to the USA in early May. But of course they kept manufacturing the drug and have to recoup the money they spent researching, developing and trialling it etc. The Wall Street Journal reports that a typical course of the drug will cost over $3000 per patient. Interestingly the Trump administration is wanting the drug to stay in the USA as much as possible, rather than be available overseas, and is spending money to that effect.
Canto: Hmm. Is that protectionism?
Jacinta: Yes I suppose. It’s not surprising that a country wants to look after its own first, especially via a product produced within its own borders. But I suspect this government would’t be interested in helping any other country – unless there was a quid pro quo. And there’s another antiviral, favipiravir, currently being trialled in Japan and the USA (I mean as of early July), and a vaccine, developed in China, is being used on the Chinese military in what seems a rather rushed and somewhat secretive fashion – we don’t know if they got the soldiers’ permission on this seemingly untried vaccine. At least at the phase 3 level.
Canto: Very CCP.
Jacinta: So onto update 92, and we revisit the electron transport chain, with four successive electron transfers converting molecular oxygen into water. Problems within this chain can produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as superoxide, hydrogen peroxide and hydroxy radicals, which are destructive in excess. We also look, yet again, at covid19’s impact on angiotensin and particularly the production of superoxide, which in turn causes endothelial dysfunction, increased von Willebrand factor activity, which leads to thrombosis. People were presenting as ‘happy hypoxics’, looking and feeling fine but with very low oxygen levels, and autopsies revealed ‘microthrombi in the interalveolar septa’ of victims’ lungs. All this leading to a paper published in The Lancet which looked at factors in this process of coagulation and thrombosis:
We assessed markers of endothelial cell and platelet activation, including VWF antigen, soluble thrombomodulin [a marker of endothelial cell activation], soluble P-selectin [a marker of endothelial cell and platelet activation], and soluble CD40 ligand [a marker of platelet and T-cell activation], as well as coagulation factors, endogenous anticoagulants, and fibrinolytic enzymes.
So this was about getting to the bottom of the increased clotting. And the results were hardly surprising, but the final discussion section is worth quoting at length, as it seems to capture much that we know about covid19’s effects (at least short-term effects) at the moment:
We therefore propose that COVID-19-associated coagulopathy is an endotheliopathy that results in augmented VWF release, platelet activation, and hypercoagulability, leading to the clinical prothrombotic manifestations of COVID-19-associated coagulopathy, which can include venous, arterial, and microvascular thrombosis. The factors responsible for this endotheliopathy and platelet activation are uncertain but could include direct viral infection of endothelial cells, collateral damage to the tissue as a result of immune infiltration and activation, complement activation, or any number of inflammatory cytokines believed to play a role in COVID-19 disease.
They suggest anti-platelet therapy and endothelial cell modification treatments as well as anticoagulation treatments, and they suggest some agents ‘which might have therapeutic potential’.
Canto: Potential? You’d think they’d be onto all this by now.
Jacinta: Well there’s also potential for untried medications – at least untried in this context – to go terribly wrong. And it’s also likely that some hospitals are already onto using the safer forms of treatment. Dr Seheult speaks of the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in this context, as it has been shown to be a thrombolytic when used intravenously. There are studies pending on the effects of NAC in treating covid19 patients.
Canto: Now, I’ve just been watching something on monoclonal antibodies as perhaps the most promising treatment yet, short of a vaccine. Can you explain….
Jacinta: Yes I’ll try, maybe next time.
References
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 88: Dexamethasone History & Mortality Benefit Data Released From UK
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 89: COVID 19 Infections Rising in Many States; Dexamethasone Cautions
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 90: Assess The Quality of COVID-19 Info With A Validated Research Tool
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 91: Remdesivir Pricing & Disparities in Drug Availability
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 92: Blood Clots & COVID-19 – New Research & Potential Role of NAC
amhf.org.au/covid_19
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhae/article/PIIS2352-3026(20)30216-7/fulltext
Covid 19: corticosteroids, inflammatory markers, comorbidities
Canto’s bronchiectasis – a relatively mild case, thank dog
Canto: So update 87, in late June, reflects a period when daily cases were just starting to rise, but deaths were apparently reducing – and various reasons were being given for this.
Jacinta: And interesting to note all the skepticism around Oxford University’s dexamethasone trial, which has led (the trial, not the skepticism) to a huge demand for the steroid. Dr Paul Sax of Harvard Medical School has expressed some dismay at the negativity, as this was a randomised controlled trial (RTC) of a widely available drug by a highly reputable, government-funded institution.
Canto: Yet it seems that the website on this trial has since been taken down, so maybe there are some issues…
Jacinta: Okay, so let’s move on. Dr Seheult talks about raised ‘inflammatory markers’ in patients he observes coming in with covid-19. He names them, and I want to do a shallow dive into what they are and what they mean: Ferritin, C-reactive protein (CRP), CPK (to do with muscle breakdown), erithrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and d-dimer levels. So, ferritin is an iron-containing protein. It stores the iron and releases it when needed. Ferritin is mostly concentrated in the liver cells (hepatocytes) and in the reticuloendothelial cells of the immune system. That endothelial word again. As for CRP, this abstract from a 2018 paper Frontiers in Immunology tells me that ‘C-reactive protein (CRP) is an acute inflammatory protein that increases up to 1,000-fold at sites of infection or inflammation….CRP is synthesized primarily in liver hepatocytes but also by smooth muscle cells, macrophages, endothelial cells, lymphocytes, and adipocytes’. Need I say/quote more? And on CPK, this from the Johns Hopkins Lupus Center:
Creatine phosphokinase (a.k.a., creatine kinase, CPK, or CK) is an enzyme (a protein that helps to elicit chemical changes in your body) found in your heart, brain, and skeletal muscles. When muscle tissue is damaged, CPK leaks into your blood. Therefore, high levels of CPK usually indicate some sort of stress or injury to your heart or other muscles.
And the US website medicineplus.gov has this to say on ESR:
An erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is a type of blood test that measures how quickly erythrocytes (red blood cells) settle at the bottom of a test tube that contains a blood sample. Normally, red blood cells settle relatively slowly. A faster-than-normal rate may indicate inflammation in the body.
So, a fast ESR is an inflammation marker. High levels of CPK in the blood are too, presumably, as are high levels of CRP, wherever. And ferritin. Lastly, d-dimer levels, which are also related to clotting. This Australian site, healthdirect, tells me that ‘D-dimer is a type of protein your body produces to break down the blood clot’. So, a d-dimer test is ‘a blood test usually used to help check for or monitor blood clotting problems. A positive test means the D-dimer level in your body is higher than normal and suggests you might have blood clots’.
Canto: With all that let’s continue with the update. In Seheult’s hospital they started using dexamethasone as soon as the Oxford results came out and they’ve seen a reduction in all these rising inflammation markers. He recognises issues here though. Is this just anecdotal? Is this just a drop in the markers without real-life effects? Could it be recall bias? We know how conveniently inaccurate memory can be.
Jacinta: My impression is that’s not going so well, though there’s no doubt still a varied use of dexamethasone and other corticosteroids throughout the USA. We’re at the point with the updates where they’re still thinking deaths in particular are reducing. We now know better. So the update next looks at a Chinese study from mid-June entitled ‘clinical and immunological assessment of asymptomatic SARS-CoV2 infections’. This small study looked at 37 asymptomatic patients and found that viral shedding (the release of virus from an infected person into the environment – the period of contagiousness) was 19 days, presumably on average. This compared with 14 days for symptomatics. A pretty significant finding. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels – essentially antibodies – were about six times higher in the symptomatic cases. That seems unsurprising I think, because it’s the antibodies that largely create the symptoms – the inflammation and clotting, the cytokine storm. Another finding was that, eight weeks after being discharged from hospital, the asymptomatic cases were 40% seronegative (having no antibodies) against SARS-CoV2, compared to 12.9% for the symptomatic cases. This suggests that neutralising antibodies may be ‘disappearing’ over time, though other immune cells, such as T cells may have a mitigating effect. Overall, though, the study advises extreme caution:
Together, these data might indicate the risks of using covid19 ‘immunity passports’ and support the prolongation of public health interventions, including social distancing, hygiene, isolation of high-risk groups and widespread testing.
Canto: Not suggestions the current Trump administration would be likely to pay attention to.
Jacinta: Well the question here is one of re-infection, and I don’t know if there are any clear answers to that. Anyway update 87 goes on to look again briefly at vitamin D, and research in the UK, where vitamin D deficiency is more of a problem, and is associated with viral chest infections and with covid19 outcomes, with people of colour being disproportionately affected. They’re looking to people to sign up with a study called ‘covidence UK’. Dr Seheult also looks at a ‘Research Letter’ from the JAMA network entitled ‘prone positioning in awake, non-intubated patients with covid19 hypoxemic respiratory failure’. Prone positioning – lying on your tummy – was highlighted in one of the earliest of these covid19 updates as improving the symptoms of patients with ARDS. The findings from this JAMA are instructive:
In this small, single-centre cohort study, we found that the use of the prone position for awake, spontaneously breathing patients with covid19 severe hypoxemic respiratory failure was associated with improved oxygenation. In addition, patients with an SPo2 [pulse oximetry, a measure of blood oxygen level] of 95% or greater after one hour of the prone position was associated with a greater rate of intubation.
So, though there’s a need for RCTs etc etc, Dr Seheult has found dramatic improvements in oxygenation in his own patients through prone positioning.
Canto: Who are we to argue? And this update 87 ends on a positive note due to these combined findings about treatment. Prone positioning, remdesivir, dexamethasone, vitamins D and C, zinc, and maybe convalescent plasma, which needs to be explored further..
Jacinta: That’s blood plasma from recovered covid19 patients, with of course the antibodies to go with it, and I’ve looked at the National Covid19 Convalescent Plasma Project website to see if there are recent studies on this, but there’s nothing since March – small studies from China, which seem promising.
Canto: Update 88 starts again with dexamethasone, the cheap and widely available steroid, which – and this is back in late June – the British government got behind after the Oxford study was published, authorising its use ‘for patients hospitalised with covid19 who required oxygen, including those on ventilators’. It’s interesting that clinical views have changed on corticosteroids for covid19 over time, and there are still concerns about dosage and time periods on the drugs.
Jacinta: Yes, short courses of corticosteroid treatment seem to be recommended, and not just dexamethasone. And many studies showed this before the release of the Oxford data.
Canto: So the Oxford data itself is fascinating, especially for comorbidities or previous conditions. Especially interesting to me as I have such a condition, one that fits under their heading ‘chronic lung disease’, in my case bronchiectasis. They’re finding that people with such conditions are ending up on ventilators far less than those with diabetes or heart disease. So that’s good news for me. The disease, as they’ve been finding, is that covid19 is essentially an inflammatory disease of the vascular system. However, it seems that Dr Seheult’s hopes, at the end of update 88, that the greater introduction of short-term corticosteroids, and the use of other medications that might be efficacious, would reduce the mortality rate, have been dashed. We’ll be interested to find out why in upcoming posts.
References
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 87: More on Dexamethasone; Do COVID-19 antibodies last?
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 88: Dexamethasone History & Mortality Benefit Data Released From UK
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5908901/
more covid 19: vitamin D, helper T cells, testing
I’m continuing with my gleanings from the Medcram Covid-19 updates presented by Dr Roger Seheult, though I’m not up to date with them, because they’re quite comprehensive and nuanced, and I want that detail more than anything. I’m also reading the book Outbreaks and epidemics: battling infection from measles to coronavirus, by Meera Senthilingam, which among other things, highlights the importance of preparedness, co-ordination and resourcing to deal with new and unexpected pathogens but also upsurges and cross-border spread of diseases we haven’t sufficiently dealt with in the past. As we hurtle at an unprecedented rate towards a number of vaccines against SARS-CoV2, for example, we may have to deal firmly, on a governmental level, with the anti-vaccination movement and its disinformation campaigns, but we also have to deal with grossly uneven levels of healthcare within and across nations. This current pandemic has been revelatory, for all but those on the front lines, of the variable impact such outbreaks have on the different levels of empowerment within societies. To take a stark example, Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, very likely owes his life to the fact that he is the British Prime Minister. Had he been a fifty-something person of colour living in Dagenham (or most anywhere outside of a UK city), his Covid-19 case would surely have turned out quite differently.
Update 74 is quite brief and mainly touches on vitamin D, the ‘sunlight’ vitamin, also obtained from foods such as fish, especially salmon and tuna, and egg yolks, and mushrooms raised using UV light – but mostly from the sun’s UV. Vitamin D enhances bone and muscle strength and function. A Lancet article is discussed, which correlates ‘vitamin D status’, presumably meaning bodily levels, with Covid-19 mortality. Some surprises in the data – vitamin D deficiency was common in ‘sunny’ Italy and Spain, but less of a problem in Nordic countries, perhaps due to a high vitamin D diet. Deficiencies were greater in poorer regions and in black communities, as of course were higher Covid-19 mortalities. in fact, ‘black people in England and Wales are 4 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people’ according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
The Lancet article referred to points out two aspects of vitamin D’s possible protection against Covid-19. First, it ‘supports production of antimicrobial peptides in the respiratory epithelium’, which sounds positive, and second it may help to reduce the inflammatory response to the virus because it’s known to interact with and promote the ACE-2 protein, which the virus suppresses. Other articles emphasise the benefits, with no attendant harm, of vitamin D supplements, particularly for the elderly. There have been no systemised, detailed trials as yet relating vitamin D levels to Covid-19 outcomes, but it seems like a no-brainer.
Update 75 continues the argument about SARS-Cov2 attacking the lining of the blood vessels, i.e. the endothelium, with the resultant effect on von Willibrand factor. This happens in the lungs as well as the vascular system, creating clots as well as the growth of new blood vessels as a type of immune response. This essentially marks it out from any kind of influenza. The New England Journal of Medicine has an article, published late May, looking exactly at these differences in the autopsies of Covid-19 victims – endothelialitis (inflammation of the endothelium) and angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels). They compared Covid-19 lungs with the lungs of ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) victims, associated with influenza A (H1N1), and with uninfected lungs. They found ‘alveolar capillary microthrombi’ – often difficult to detect with scans – in the Covid-19 lungs at nine times the level of the influenza lungs, and new vessel growth at almost three times that of the influenza lungs. Clearly the new vessel growth is caused by the blockages, and the need to circulate around them. Microscopic analysis shows lymphocytes infiltrating the lungs, adding to inflammation, stiffness and tissue damage. The clotting prevents oxygen being picked up from the alveolar space, leading to low oxygen saturation of the blood. Scanning electron micrographs of the lung endothelium revealed viral particles in the extracellular space, suggesting strongly that the virus itself, and not simply the immune response to it (perivascular inflammation) is causing damage. Dr Seheult brings up NAC again here, as a possible disruptor of the cascade of events, especially in the suppression of superoxide and in the cleaving of disulphide bonds in VWF.
An article in Science, which refers to the adaptive immune system, is next discussed. The adaptive immune system, as opposed to the innate immune system, is a system that creates a memory of a pathogen in order to develop an enhanced response, a system exploited by vaccines. This system includes T cells, of which there are three types, memory, cytotoxic and helper. These cells are apparently involved in lifelong immunity. Vaccine researchers are concerned to create antibodies as protection against the virus, but T cells are also important in this regard, and researchers have found that many infected patients, and non-infected people, do have T cells that attack the virus, probably because they have been infected with other coronaviruses that share proteins, such as the spike protein, with SARS-CoV2. Researchers in fact found that Covid-19 patients all harboured helper T cells that recognised the SARS-CoV2 spike protein, and other SARS-CoV2 proteins, again suggesting the possibility/probability of lifelong immunity. Many others harboured the same helper T cells, which may be protecting them against the worst Covid-19 symptoms, before the fact. This is possibly a very important, and highly explanatory finding. Or maybe not. T cells are long-lasting, so these findings are certainly positive.
Update 76 starts with antibodies, and it’s a bit difficult to follow. It looks at the CDC’s ‘interim guidelines for Covid-19 antibody testing’, and a CNN health article summerizes it thus:
The CDC explains why testing can be wrong so often. A lot has to do with how common the virus is in the population being tested. For example, in a population where the prevalence is 5%, a test with 90% sensitivity and 95% specificity will yield a positive predictive value of 49%. In other words, less than half of those testing positive will truly have antibodies’, the CDC said.
This is hard to follow, but 5% prevalence is fairly standard for this virus, at least at the outset. And so false positives are a problem. To be clear about testing – a person either has the disease or not. If you have it and you test positive, fine, that’s a true positive. If you have it and test negative, that’s a false-negative. If you don’t have it and you test positive, that’s a false-positive. If you don’t have it and test negative, that’s a true negative.
So we can look at percentages and maths, and I’m following Seheult strictly here. So imagine we’ve tested 2100 people in a particular region – that’s everyone in the region. At this stage the disease has a prevalence of 5%, so about 100 out of 2100 have the disease (strictly speaking that’s 4.76%). The test has a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 95% as above. 90% sensitivity means that the number of true positives from the test will be 90% of the number of those who actually have been infected by the virus. That means 90 people. 95% specificity is about those not infected. So you divide the true negatives by those uninfected to arrive at the 95%. The true negatives will amount to 1900. So 10 people will be false positive and 100 false negatives. When specificity rises, false positives decrease. When sensitivity increases, false negatives decrease. So with high sensitivity a negative result is more conclusive, and with high specificity, a positive result is more conclusive.
Imagine then that the prevalence of the infection has risen to 52% in the same population of 2100. That gives us 1094 with the disease, 1006 without. With the same values for sensitivity and specificity of testing, you’ll have 985 true positives and 50 false positives, and 956 true negatives and 109 false negatives. What you need to know with these results is how things stand for patient x, the person you’re dealing with. This means you need to know the predictive values, positive (PPV) or negative (NPV). This requires some simple maths. Given a positive test result, what chance is there of x having the disease? Or vice versa for a negative result. This means that for the PPV you divide the true positives by the total number of positives, and the same process applies for NPV. Going back to the situation where the prevalence was 5% we get a PPV of 47% and a NPV of 99%. What this means is that when the prevalence is low, the negative predictive value is much higher than the positive predictive value. The implication is important. It’s just not clear at this stage whether you have antibodies against the virus. So you need to raise the specificity of the test, especially if the virus or pathogen has a low prevalence. But looking at the 52% prevalence case, and using the same simple maths we find that the PPV is up at 95% and the NPV goes down to 90%. Prevalence, then, is the main determinant of predictive values.
For testing, this means, just as the disease is becoming prevalent, that’s to say, as it’s just being detected, you need a test with a very high specificity (admittedly a big ask) and/or you need to test those with a high probability, based on current knowledge, of being infected, and those in contact with them.
References
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 74: Vitamin D & COVID 19; Academic Censorship
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 75: COVID-19 Lung Autopsies – New Data
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 76: Antibody Testing False Positives in COVID-19
the science of Covid-19: possible treatments, herd immunity
Australia is now 22nd in the list of total COVID-19 cases and dropping down. There are still of course new cases every day, but far fewer than many countries below us on the list. Experts are now talking about a flattening curve, but they also warn that the virus is ‘here to stay’. Here in South Australia, there were no fatalities when I last posted, but there have been three in the last couple of days. There are a large number of cases recently linked to our Barossa wine-growing region, a popular tourist destination.
So let me take a closer look at the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It’s a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus. RNA is generally single-stranded in nature, though apparently can be double-stranded on occasion. The positive-sense term refers to the polarity, or sense, of the RNA. It’s also called ‘positive-strand’, facing 5’ to 3’, which means it acts as mRNA and can be translated into viral proteins in the host cell.
These types of virus are very common. They include common cold rhinoviruses as well as the SARS and MERS coronoviruses. SARS-CoV-2 is genetically similar to bat coronaviruses, causing virologists to believe that it was transmitted from bats to humans through an intermediate species such as a pangolin. The reproduction number of the virus (R0) is currently ranged from 1.4 to 3.9, in a scenario of no immunity and no preventive measures taken.
It has often been repeated that a vaccine will take 12-18 months, if not longer, to be safe, ready and effective. Science communicators such as the ABC’s Dr Norman Swann are telling us that stay-at-home orders may need to stay in place until that time, which is surely alarming economists and the business community. So, unsurprisingly, people are looking to short-cuts and desperate remedies. Perhaps the most publicised of these is the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, aggressively promoted by the US President. It turns out, also not surprisingly, that he has some financial interest in the French company that has branded the drug, according to the New York Times. There doesn’t appear to be any clear evidence on the benefits of the drug. Best reports speak of ‘mixed results’.
There are reports also of the benefits of blood plasma from people who have recovered from Covid-19. A small Chinese study involved 10 severely affected patients being given a few hundred millilitres of ‘convalescent plasma’ containing viral antibodies, and results were described as promising. The approach is being tried in the US, with the Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banks seeking to recruit suitable ‘fully recovered’ donors.
As people continue to be alarmed and frustrated at the massive disruption to their working and social lives caused by Covid-19, some world leaders (e.g Boris Johnson and his chief science adviser Patrick Vallance, and Netherlands PM Mark Rutte) have come up with not-so-encouraging solutions, such as allowing the virus to run its course so that the population can build up herd immunity. This would actually be a disastrous policy in the case of a virus with a high (but not precisely known) fatality rate, involving millions of severe cases requiring intensive care treatment at any one time.
Herd immunity occurs when enough people have antibodies to the virus that it has nowhere to go. This can occur through the work of our immune systems or through antibodies created by effective vaccination. The former obviously comes at a much greater cost in terms of lives lost, in the case of a highly infectious (the R0 is now estimated – the data changes as I write – at between 2.0 and 2.5), high-fatality virus. Also, because Covid-19 is new, we don’t have sufficient data as yet about the degree of immunity it confers upon recovered patients, or whether it is able to mutate to any degree. Experts are generally counting on low or no mutation, but none of them see relying on herd immunity to be a humane solution to the problem. Suppression is the name of the game at the moment (even though it will reduce herd immunity). That’s to say, the R0 mentioned above (which might be higher) is the figure without the application of physical distancing or other containment measures. The R0 number, if it can be ascertained, gives an indication of the percentage of immunity required to ‘protect the herd’. An R0 number of 2 will require about 50% immunity. If the R0 number is 3, some 66% immunity will be required. Measles has a very high R0 of 12, requiring 90% immunity, which explains why anti-vaccination movements can imperil whole communities.
So it’s a trade-off. Physical distancing measures will reduce the possibility of herd immunity – the production of antibodies. Going back to business as usual will increase infection rates – ok for those who recover, not so much for those who don’t. The cost of the second option, most will agree, is just too great.
References
the science of Covid19: testing
So here in South Australia we have fairly drastic social distancing rules with pubs and restaurants and many businesses closed and so on, though in terms of case numbers we’re doing better than other states, and Australia in general is doing a lot better than other countries with comparable populations. Our crude case fatality rates (deaths per million) are smaller than any country ahead of us in number of cases in general – we’re currently ranked twentieth in case numbers. All of this is based on worldometer figures, which we can only hope are as reliable as they can be.
Our relative success has been attributed by some to our testing system. Worldometer has recently added a couple of new lines to their country-by-country statistics, ‘total tests’ and ‘tests per million’, which gives some idea of the testing rate, though little idea of the testing criteria, or the spread of testing throughout the country. According to these figures, the testing rate here is impressive compared to any other country of similar or larger population. Of course, there are just too many variables to make a direct connection between testing and fatality rates, but all experts agree that high rates of testing are beneficial. Worldometer also allows us to make some telling comparisons. For example, neighbours Sweden and Norway are recording a similar number of Covid-19 cases, 6400 and 5500 respectively, though Sweden has almost twice the population. That looks bad for Norway. But Sweden has had 373 fatalities compared to only 62 for Norway. That looks very bad for Sweden. And when we compare the testing, we find that, for half the population, Norway has carried out almost three times the number of tests that Sweden has. That’s almost 6 times the rate of testing. In fact Norway has the highest testing rate in Europe (apart from those with much smaller populations such as Iceland and Luxembourg). Other countries that appear to have greatly reduced fatality rates through comprehensive testing include Germany and South Korea. Clearly, large scale testing is working to keep fatalities down. It’s not unreasonable to attribute the escalating rate of infections in the US to the lack of a co-ordinated and comprehensive testing system, though the fatality rate there is relatively low. It’s clear that, with testing as well as with other responses, the states have failed to unite, largely due to a complete absence of federal governance.
The essential test for Covid-19 is polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and the detection process is well explained in the illustration above, and a little more fully on the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) website. Or, at least, I assume so, as a non-scientific person. But in order to fully understand the process I need to capture it in my own words.
So SARS CoV-2 infects humans by binding to their ACE2 receptors by means of their spike proteins, one of four types of structural proteins pertaining to the virus. Studies have found that SARS CoV-2 has ‘a higher affinity to human ACE2 than the original SARS virus strain’, which presumably goes some way to explain its greater infectiousness. A PCR test is able to detect specific genetic material within the virus. A swab sample is taken from the throat or the nose or the lower respiratory tract or the stool, depending on test type. The JAMA website puts it this way:
After a sample is collected, RNA, which is part of the virus particle, is extracted and converted to complementary DNA for testing. The PCR test involves binding sequences on the DNA that only are found in the virus and repeatedly copying everything in between. This process is repeated many times, with doubling of the target region with each cycle. A fluorescent signal is created when amplification occurs, and once the signal reaches a threshold, the test result is considered positive. If no viral sequence is present, amplification will not occur, resulting in a negative result.
Australia’s Department of Health describes two types of test for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, nucleic acid/PCR tests (as above) and serology antibody tests, but the department sounds a warning:
The reliability of COVID-19 tests is uncertain due to the limited evidence base. Available evidence mainly comes from symptomatic patients, and their clinical role in detecting asymptomatic carriers is unclear.
This statement is dated March 27, and with the fast-moving situation, may no longer be relevant. And speaking of fast-moving situations, here in South Australia we’ve had our first recorded death from the virus, while I’ve been writing this. There’s also news overnight that a tiger from the Bronx zoo has tested positive. This has been confirmed by further testing. Other cats there are showing milder versions of the same symptoms but haven’t been tested. The tiger is described as being in a stable condition, and authorities are claiming that there’s no evidence of transmission from zoo or domestic animals to humans, but this kind of news may well lead to a public panic. And after all, absence of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean evidence of absence. There’s no doubt that the tiger’s infection raises a host of worrisome questions. Was the tiger infected by humans, as seems likely? If not, where did it get the virus from? And if the other cats are positive (they haven’t been tested due to problems with anaesthetics), then where will it end?
Antibody tests look not at infection but immunity. An effective test will show whether a person’s immune system has detected and neutralised the virus. Demand for these types of tests is extremely high, as immunity would mean that these people would be able to return to normal activity., with all the attendant economic benefits. Antibody detection would be of particular importance for current health workers. Such tests would show that the workers have already been infected by SARS-CoV-2 (perhaps without symptoms), and have developed immunity. Widespread use of the tests would also reveal the number of asymptomatic cases. Currently the number of people infected can only be an estimate based on current testing (the worldometer figures tell of confirmed cases, which can only be confirmed by testing). Children, for example, may be infected (and infectious) but asymptomatic, but the extent of this is pure guesswork. Getting real data would be useful in determining schools’ operations.
However, there are difficulties with antibody tests. According to The Lancet,
the technology behind antibody tests is fundamentally distinct and generally harder to get right. “If you have a sequence today, you have a PCR tomorrow”, says Linfa Wang, director of Duke-NUS Medical School’s programme in emerging infectious diseases, in Singapore. “Whether the sensitivity [of PCR] will be enough is another thing, but usually in the first round, it will give you data that you can use. Serology is different.”
One of the issues is knowing which protein, or antigen, on the virus to target. The spike protein is seen as the obvious target, as it’s the means of entering the host cell. Virologists in China have been using the spike protein (due to its specificity) and the nucleocapsid protein (due to its abundance). At least ten antibody test types have already been used throughout China. Specificity is important because, according to The Lancet, ‘the more unique [the protein] is, the lower the odds of cross-reactivity with other coronaviruses—false positives resulting from immunity to other coronaviruses’. These include those that cause the common cold, as well as SARS-CoV.
So that’s enough for now, I’ll continue to try and inform myself, having nothing better to do, and post some more results from that process next time. Keep well!
References
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2764238
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30788-1/fulltext
https://www.livescience.com/how-coronavirus-tests-work.html