I know a guy who lives on the east coast who is (was) in exceptional shape. He is 65 years old, but has lived on health food forever and this past summer bicycled across the country. He is religious and so his stress level is not terrible. He is never sick. He has had all of the covid shots and all of the boosters. He has never caught covid; he wears an N95.
About ten days ago he started to feel terrible; it was like nothing he had felt before. He developed a bad cough, a bronchial infection, and red and oozing eyes. His tests (flu, covid, RSV) came back negative; he just had a high white blood cell count. His GP put him on Amoxicillin Clavulanate and his eye doctor put him on eye drops. However, his eye doctor said that he had never seen an eye infection like his before, so he was going to consult with his colleagues. It's was at an academic hospital so it was creepy that it was something new to this doctor.
After consultation, the eye doctor decided that my friend has "adult Haemophilus influenza". I was really surprised since I did assume he had finally caught covid but wasn't testing positive for it.
I don't think this guy should be catching this kind of ailment. It is not common; it is typically found in children and the immunocompromised. I wonder if his countless covid vaccines and boosters were a factor.
If it may interest you, I came across this preprint. I'm not sure if you have seen it yet but it looked at repeat doses of Novavax's spike-based vaccine and the results seem to suggest less IgG4 conversion compared to mRNA vaccines even after 4 doses of Novavax. The big caveat is that this study carries a huge sticker of "funded by Novavax", but it seems like one of the only comparative pieces of work out there to compare the mRNA formulations with the other available ones.
This is a different topic, and I apologize for that, but you and Rintrah are the only people who seem to think about these things, at least in public. I keep reading that each case of covid makes a person more susceptible to long covid. But if the problem is reservoirs, why should that be? If you have a reservoir, you have a reservoir; why would adding to it matter? Unless the antibodies from one of the infections affects the action of the antibodies from one of the other infections. But if you have a reservoir for long enough, the virus will mutate in the reservoir, and you will get that same effect just from one infection.
I wonder if the "more covid infections are worse" effect is just a matter of the passage of time; that people who have more covid infections have just had more time pass since their first infection; I don't know if they take that into account.
Maybe it is just that each covid infection causes more direct physical damage, and long covid has nothing to do with reservoirs. But the effect of multiple infections does seem to be independent of how bad the acute phase was.
I've read that catching measles can wipe out existing immune memory. So maybe multi vaccinated people who are infected by measles will get a reset? But they were mostly vaccinated for measles as children, so can't catch measles. But if their immune systems are shot due to multiple covid infections, then they can catch measles anyway, and can get a reset?
Interesting post Brian. It will be fascinating to see how this situation develops.
I’m trying to tie up the data you have presented, here and previously, with anecdotal outcomes of recent infections from my peer group.
Of 3 couples infected/exposed this winter (35 yr olds in the uk, all 3 dose pzifer, all suspected first infection after their 3rd dose in 2022 - so theoretically ig4 converters)
- Couple 1
- quote ‘was literally coughing up bits of lung’
- Partner had week long infection
Couple 2 and couple 3
- 1 had mild 5 day infection
- Partner not infected
This ‘sample’, assuming that infection history of 3 doses before first infection is an accurate case history, has got me pondering: Are there other factors that could contribute to severity of infection (or susceptibility to infection) for vaccinees with ig4 conversion? I’m wondering about the effect of innate immunity for example.
Or put another way, would we be able to accurately predict severity of infection for an individual if we measure a groups’ ig4 levels, or are there many other confounders?
I know a guy who lives on the east coast who is (was) in exceptional shape. He is 65 years old, but has lived on health food forever and this past summer bicycled across the country. He is religious and so his stress level is not terrible. He is never sick. He has had all of the covid shots and all of the boosters. He has never caught covid; he wears an N95.
About ten days ago he started to feel terrible; it was like nothing he had felt before. He developed a bad cough, a bronchial infection, and red and oozing eyes. His tests (flu, covid, RSV) came back negative; he just had a high white blood cell count. His GP put him on Amoxicillin Clavulanate and his eye doctor put him on eye drops. However, his eye doctor said that he had never seen an eye infection like his before, so he was going to consult with his colleagues. It's was at an academic hospital so it was creepy that it was something new to this doctor.
After consultation, the eye doctor decided that my friend has "adult Haemophilus influenza". I was really surprised since I did assume he had finally caught covid but wasn't testing positive for it.
I don't think this guy should be catching this kind of ailment. It is not common; it is typically found in children and the immunocompromised. I wonder if his countless covid vaccines and boosters were a factor.
Someone else's writing on IgG4 ... needs a subscription for the whole article:
https://veryvirology.substack.com/p/igg4-antibody-class-switch-end-of
If it may interest you, I came across this preprint. I'm not sure if you have seen it yet but it looked at repeat doses of Novavax's spike-based vaccine and the results seem to suggest less IgG4 conversion compared to mRNA vaccines even after 4 doses of Novavax. The big caveat is that this study carries a huge sticker of "funded by Novavax", but it seems like one of the only comparative pieces of work out there to compare the mRNA formulations with the other available ones.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.17.24301374v1
This is a different topic, and I apologize for that, but you and Rintrah are the only people who seem to think about these things, at least in public. I keep reading that each case of covid makes a person more susceptible to long covid. But if the problem is reservoirs, why should that be? If you have a reservoir, you have a reservoir; why would adding to it matter? Unless the antibodies from one of the infections affects the action of the antibodies from one of the other infections. But if you have a reservoir for long enough, the virus will mutate in the reservoir, and you will get that same effect just from one infection.
I wonder if the "more covid infections are worse" effect is just a matter of the passage of time; that people who have more covid infections have just had more time pass since their first infection; I don't know if they take that into account.
Maybe it is just that each covid infection causes more direct physical damage, and long covid has nothing to do with reservoirs. But the effect of multiple infections does seem to be independent of how bad the acute phase was.
I've read that catching measles can wipe out existing immune memory. So maybe multi vaccinated people who are infected by measles will get a reset? But they were mostly vaccinated for measles as children, so can't catch measles. But if their immune systems are shot due to multiple covid infections, then they can catch measles anyway, and can get a reset?
Interesting post Brian. It will be fascinating to see how this situation develops.
I’m trying to tie up the data you have presented, here and previously, with anecdotal outcomes of recent infections from my peer group.
Of 3 couples infected/exposed this winter (35 yr olds in the uk, all 3 dose pzifer, all suspected first infection after their 3rd dose in 2022 - so theoretically ig4 converters)
- Couple 1
- quote ‘was literally coughing up bits of lung’
- Partner had week long infection
Couple 2 and couple 3
- 1 had mild 5 day infection
- Partner not infected
This ‘sample’, assuming that infection history of 3 doses before first infection is an accurate case history, has got me pondering: Are there other factors that could contribute to severity of infection (or susceptibility to infection) for vaccinees with ig4 conversion? I’m wondering about the effect of innate immunity for example.
Or put another way, would we be able to accurately predict severity of infection for an individual if we measure a groups’ ig4 levels, or are there many other confounders?
Okay good, it's not a sure sign of terrible things for transfected people (which happens to be most everyone I love).