Coronavirus: How the common cold can boot out Covid

The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out of the body's cells, say researchers.

Some viruses are known to compete in order to be the one that causes an infection. And University of Glasgow scientists say it appears cold-causing rhinovirus trumps coronavirus.

The benefits might be short-lived but rhinovirus is so widespread, they add, it could still help to suppress Covid.

Think of the cells in your nose, throat and lungs as being like a row of houses. Once a virus gets inside, it can either hold the door open to let in other viruses, or it can nail the door shut and keep its new home to itself.

Influenza is one of the most selfish viruses around, and nearly always infects alone. Others, such as adenoviruses, seem to be more up for a houseshare.

There has been much speculation about how the virus that causes Covid, known as Sars-CoV-2, would fit into the mysterious world of "virus-virus interactions".

The challenge for scientists is that a year of social distancing has slowed the spread of all viruses and made it much harder to study.

The team at the Centre for Virus Research in Glasgow used a replica of the lining of our airways, made out of the same types of cells, and infected it with Sars-CoV-2 and rhinovirus, which is one of the most widespread infections in people, and a cause of the common cold.

If rhinovirus and Sars-CoV-2 were released at the same time, only rhinovirus is successful. If rhinovirus had a 24-hour head start then Sars-CoV-2 does not get a look in. And even when Sars-CoV-2 had 24-hours to get started, rhinovirus boots it out.

"Sars-CoV-2 never takes off, it is heavily inhibited by rhinovirus," Dr Pablo Murcia told BBC News.

He added: "This is absolutely exciting because if you have a high prevalence of rhinovirus, it could stop new Sars-CoV-2 infections."

Similar effects have been seen before. A large rhinovirus outbreak may have delayed the 2009 swine flu pandemic in parts of Europe.

Further experiments showed rhinovirus was triggering an immune response inside the infected cells, which blocked the ability of Sars-CoV-2 to make copies of itself.

When scientists blocked the immune response, then levels of the Covid virus were the same as if rhinovirus was not there.

'Hard winter' ahead
However, Covid would be able to cause an infection again once the cold had passed and the immune response calmed down.

Dr Murcia said: "Vaccination, plus hygiene measures, plus the interactions between viruses could lower the incidence of Sars-CoV-2 heavily, but the maximum effect will come from vaccination."

Prof Lawrence Young, of Warwick Medical School, said human rhinoviruses, the most frequent cause of the common cold, were "highly transmissible".

He added that this study suggests "that this common infection could impact the burden of Covid-19 and influence the spread of SarsCoV2, particularly over the autumn and winter months when seasonal colds are more frequent".

Exactly how all this settles down in future winters is still unknown. Coronavirus is likely to still be around, and all the other infections that have been suppressed during the pandemic could bounce back as immunity to them wanes.

Dr Susan Hopkins, from Public Health England, has already warned of a "hard winter" as a result.

"We could see surges in flu. We could see surges in other respiratory viruses and other respiratory pathogens," she said,

The results have been published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56483445

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Pfizer and Moderna are safe and effective in pregnant women, provide antibodies to newborns

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are safe and effective in pregnant and lactating women and those women are able to pass protective antibodies to their newborns, according to a new study.

To come to that conclusion, researchers studied a group of 131 reproductive-age women who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, including 84 pregnant, 31 lactating and 16 non-pregnant women and found antibody levels were similar in all three groups.

"That's a very important piece of information to our patients," said Dr. Andrea Edlow, co-author on the study which was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology on Thursday. "We know that this vaccine works for you."

Another common concern among pregnant patients is vaccine side effects. The study found no significant difference in vaccine side effects between pregnant and non-pregnant study participants.

Compared to pregnant women who had recovered from COVID, pregnant women who received the vaccine had "strikingly higher" antibody levels. Interestingly, women who received the Moderna version had greater antibody levels than those who received the Pfizer. Vaccine-generated antibodies were present in all of the umbilical cord and breast milk samples that were tested, which suggests that pregnant and lactating women pass COVID-19 protection to their fetuses or newborns.

"That is the most comforting piece of information that's out there," said Galit Alter, study author and professor of medicine at the Ragon Institute.

The antibodies that researchers found in the mother's blood were what's known as neutralizing, meaning they have the ability to kill SARS-CoV-2 in laboratory tests, but more research needs to be done to determine whether infants have robust immunity after receiving antibodies from their vaccinated mothers. Future research could also help women decide when the ideal time in pregnancy to get a vaccine is for maximum protective benefits and determine whether other vaccines, like Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, perform similarly to the two in the study.

The study had some limitations. It was small and participants were primarily white health care workers from a single city. On the other hand, it's the largest study of a group that was left out of initial vaccine trials. Leaving pregnant women out of drug trials is a common practice because of safety concerns, but in the case of COVID-19, exclusion left many pregnant women confused about whether it was safe to get vaccinated.

"They're among the most vulnerable and they weren't included," Edlow said of the first vaccine trials.

Pregnancy is considered to be a risk factor for severe COVID-19, including increased risk for hospitalization and death from the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of March 22, more than 80,500 pregnant women in the United States had been infected with the virus and 88 had died, the CDC found.

Edlow, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, described trying to counsel pregnant patients during the pandemic without data.

"On a daily basis we're taking care of patients who want to know if the vaccine is effective in pregnancy and what the risks are," Edlow said. "Having real scientific data to counsel people on goes a long way toward relieving vaccine hesitancy," she added.

Both researchers hope that examples like their study encourage pharmaceutical companies to offer pregnant women the opportunity to participate in future vaccine studies, even beyond COVID-19.

"Otherwise this population sits at home cowering because they have no idea what to do," Alter said.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/pfizer-moderna-safe-effective-pregnant-women-provide-antibodies/story?id=76675301

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The real anti-vaxxers

The clots in Brussels, Berlin and Paris have done far more to cast doubt on the vaccines than any internet troll.

‘Disinformation in times of the coronavirus can kill. We have a duty to protect our citizens by making them aware of false information, and expose the actors responsible for engaging in such practices.’ So said Josep Borell, high representative of the European Union, in June 2020.

Of course, the agents of disinformation this EU luminary had in mind were the kind of people the great and the good want to kick off social media and have beaten up or arrested when they gather in public. But over the past few months, the greatest source of Covid crankery has come, not from a fringe of anti-vaxxers, but from the clots that run Europe from Brussels, Berlin and Paris.

Europe’s leaders have been running a vicious smear campaign against the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine. President Macron – Europe’s Karen-in-chief – infamously pronounced the jab ‘quasi-ineffective’ in the elderly, even though it is 100 per cent effective at preventing severe disease from the virus. Similarly, the German government, via a leak to the financial paper Handelsblatt, tried to portray the AstraZeneca vaccine as just six per cent effective on the elderly. Its health agency banned use of the vaccine on anyone above the age of 65. This led the German chancellor Angela Merkel, aged 66, to announce she would not take the jab. She has, only this week, clarified that she would take it.

And in the past few weeks, European governments have hyped up the appearance of blood clots in some recipients of the jab. Despite the repeated insistence of even the European Medicines Agency – the EU health regulator – that the AstraZeneca vaccine is effective and safe, member state after member state suspended their use of the vaccine, supposedly following the ‘precautionary principle’. An Italian health official let the cat out of the bag, however, when he admitted that his own country’s suspension was ‘political’ rather than scientific – Italy was going along with decisions made in France and Germany. The Polish prime minister’s chief of staff went further, warning of a ‘planned disinformation campaign’ against the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The catastrophic consequences of this ‘disinformation campaign’ are now impossible to ignore. Europeans’ confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine has plummeted in the past few weeks. A shocking 61 per cent of French people believe it is unsafe – up by 18 percentage points since the beginning of March. Majorities in Germany and Spain also – groundlessly – believe the vaccine is unsafe.

The EU’s vaccine rollout has been so badly botched that, according to Germany’s health minister, there aren’t enough doses to avoid a deadly ‘third wave’ of the virus (even as much of the continent remains in, or is returning to, strict lockdown). And yet, stockpiles of unused AstraZeneca vaccines are piling up. Some reports suggest that less than half of the doses in EU countries have actually been put to use, as Europeans cancel their appointments as soon as they learn they could be given the AstraZeneca jab. That compares to 70 per cent of available Pfizer doses which have ended up in Europeans’ arms. Germany currently has 1.4million unused AstraZeneca doses and France has 1.3million. Other EU countries have hundreds of thousands, or tens of thousands, of unused jabs. There is no question that Europe’s leaders have made a bad situation worse.

In an overly cautious Europe, a slower vaccine rollout means longer lockdowns. Longer lockdowns mean yet more economic pain for Europe’s beleaguered citizens. Goldman Sachs, Barclays, ING and Berenberg have all cut their growth forecasts for the eurozone’s economy. Another summer tourist season – vital for southern Europe in particular – could be lost to lockdown. Civil unrest will continue.

To distract from this catastrophe, EU leaders are threatening to block exports of certain ingredients needed for the AstraZeneca vaccine to the UK. Ursula von der Leyen has explicitly taken aim at ‘countries that have higher vaccination rates than us’ — ie, Brexit Britain. Expert analysis for the Guardian suggests that an EU export ban will delay the UK’s rollout by two months, but speed up the EU’s by just one week. Besides, the vaccine von der Leyen and others are desperate to seize is the same one they have been publicly trashing as useless and dangerous.

It’s not just Europe that will pay the price for the EU’s psychotic anti-vaccination crusade. Africa is far more dependent on the AstraZeneca jab than anywhere else in the world. Given its low cost ($3 per dose compared to $6.75 for a Pfizer dose and $10 for a Janssen dose), as well as the ease with which it can be stored and transported, the AstraZeneca jab is the obvious choice for vaccinating the world. As the New Statesman points out, Africa could be where European disinformation does the most damage. Not only does Africa have a great deal of vaccine hesitancy to overcome in some countries, but the African Union also relies on AstraZeneca for three-quarters of its vaccine doses (compared to just one quarter for the EU and the UK).

Africa has already suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, even though the coronavirus itself has killed far fewer people than in rich and middle-income countries. Lockdowns have caused health crises which are orders of magnitude worse than Covid-19. For instance, they have set back the fight against tuberculosis by 12 years. Progress against malaria and HIV has also been disrupted. Thanks to the economic carnage – partly local, partly global – an additional 59million Africans are predicted to fall below the extreme poverty line this year, if the Covid pandemic is not contained. And yet European leaders have recklessly sabotaged the only effective weapon against the pandemic in the developing world.

EU propagandists like to portray their favourite institution as enlightened, open and rational – a defender of science and stability. In reality, the EU has become more deranged and dangerous than any basement-dwelling conspiracy theorist or internet troll.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/03/23/the-real-anti-vaxxers/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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