The Common Cold

Angie SzumlinskiNews

Remember when you got sick with a bad cold as a child and seriously thought you were dying? Mom told us we wouldn’t die and the good news was that our immune system would recognize that virus in the future and destroy it, leaving us free from colds forever. Not! However, mom wasn’t totally wrong! In fairness, our body would …

Mix and Match

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured, Health

In a recent podcast posted on NPR, the practice of mixing different kinds of COVID-19 vaccines was discussed. Typically, if you get a COVID-19 vaccine that requires two doses, you should get two of the same vaccine. Two Pfizer shots, or two Moderna shots, not one and then the other. “In the U.K. at the moment, we’re sort of calling …

FDA – CoV-2 Antibody Test and Immunity

Angie SzumlinskiHealth

“The FDA is reminding the public of the limitations of COVID-19 antibody, or serology, testing and providing additional recommendations about the use of antibody tests in people who received a COVID-19 vaccination.“ Antibody tests can play an important role in identifying individuals who may have been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and may have developed an adaptive immune response. However, …

One and Done?

Angie SzumlinskiHealth, Studies

Recent studies have suggested that to reach immunity, immunocompetent SARS-CoV-2 seropositive adults may only require 1 dose rather than 2 doses of a messenger RNA vaccine, however, these studies did not include older adults. Older adults living in nursing homes are at higher risk for severe COVID-19, and the immune response to the vaccine may differ from that of younger, …

Reinfection Debate Continues

Angie SzumlinskiNews

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 117 million cases and over 2.6 million deaths worldwide as of March 7, 2021, as estimated by the World Health Organization. Little is known about protection against SARS-CoV-2 repeat infections but two studies in the UK have found that immunity could last at least 5-6 months after infection. This data suggests that reinfection …

Annual COVID-19 Vaccine?

Angie SzumlinskiHealth

The CEO of Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday that people may need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 annually for the next several years; similar to seasonal flu shots. “Unfortunately, as the virus spreads, it can also mutate,” Alex Gorsky said in an interview on CNBS. “Every time it mutates, it’s almost like another click of the dial, so to speak, …

COVID-19 – Overpowers Immune System

Angie SzumlinskiHealth, Studies

Seeking to understand why COVID-19 is able to suppress the body’s immune response, new research from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology suggests that mitochondria are one of the first lines of defense against COVID-19 and identifies key differences in how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 affects mitochondrial genes when compared to other viruses. Pinchas Cohen, professor of …

Mutations and Vaccines

Angie SzumlinskiHealth, News

As scientists are trying to track the spread of a new, more infectious coronavirus variant, it has been identified that the mutation identified in South Africa and Brazil, changes a part of the virus that your immune system’s antibodies get trained to recognize after you’ve been infected or vaccinated. What the lab studies have shown is that the antibodies we …

Immunity – Asymptomatic COVID-19

Angie SzumlinskiHealth, Studies

Much debate has focused on the possibility that the Ab response to SARS-CoV-2 may be short-lived, while T cell recognition may be strong, durable, and more common. Mild or asymptomatic infections are very common but are not usually diagnosed, making an assessment of the durability of immunity in this common group challenging. A study was done on an exposed health …

Vaccine Triggers Immune Response

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured, Health

A CNBC article announced that AstraZeneca is developing its potential COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with the University of Oxford and that the vaccine has produced a similar immune response in older and younger adults. The World Health Organization has said that older people, in addition to people of all ages with pre-existing medical conditions, appear to develop serious illness on …