People in SE Asia may already have immunity to the virus

[Oxx]

There's an interesting recent article in The Economist.  It speculates, amongst a number of other things, that related coronaviruses may already be circulating in the human populations of SE Asia, and that exposure to one coronavirus can help protect against infections by another one.  This would explain why the levels of infection and death in countries such as Vietnam with the new virus are so low.  It could also explain why the figures for Thailand are low (and it's not the government covering things up as some have suggested).

 

The hunt for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 will look beyond China - The virus may have been born in South-East Asia

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/07/22/the-hunt-for-the-origins-of-sars-cov-2-will-look-beyond-china

[ukrules]

Yes, there's a few other coronaviruses that we know about and probably a few more than we have no clue about. Two of the known viruses were only discovered after SARS back in 2003 / 2004. So before SARS we only knew for sure about 2 human coronaviruses. There's a lot more information about animal corona viruses though.

 

There is a very specific but as yet unknown reason as to why they find SARS-COV-2 specific T cells in 50% of blood samples dating back to 2015 and that was in Europe.

 

This is sounding like a cowpox and smallpox scenario as first popularised by some dude named Jenner back in the 1700's.

 

The word vaccine is based on the latin for cow due to the cowpox / smallpox cross immunity thing....it's definitely a factor here.

Edited July 23, 2020 by ukrules

[cmarshall]

Possible sources of Sars-Cov2 should certainly be investigated, but the Economist article has a whiff of the unfortunate attitude that the Asian countries that succeeded in suppressing the virus must have just been lucky somehow or enjoyed some natural advantage unavailable to the Western countries who then can be excused for their miserable failure at protecting their citizens from death.  It is quite clear that Vietnam has had zero deaths because of their early, vigorous, and stringent measures against the disease, which none of the Western countries employed, although they could have.  The Vietnamese were just smarter and more diligent than their Western counterparts.

 

Vietnam shutdown flights from China very early and then did precisely the kind of focused testing, isolation of positives, and contact tracing that has been the best practice since Sars-Cov1 was suppressed in 2004.  None, zero, zip of the Western countries did that.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vietnam-how-this-country-of-95-million-kept-its-coronavirus-death-toll-at-zero/ar-BB14MxiR

[mfd101]

8 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

Vietnam shutdown flights from China very early and then did precisely the kind of focused testing, isolation of positives, and contact tracing that has been the best practice since Sars-Cov1 was suppressed in 2004.  None, zero, zip of the Western countries did that.

Australia did all of that - first to shut down flights from China - and did it well. Looked good. Still does. But now a 2nd wave has taken on a complacent Victoria, with too many people bored with the self-disciplines required.

[fredwiggy]

10 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

Possible sources of Sars-Cov2 should certainly be investigated, but the Economist article has a whiff of the unfortunate attitude that the Asian countries that succeeded in suppressing the virus must have just been lucky somehow or enjoyed some natural advantage unavailable to the Western countries who then can be excused for their miserable failure at protecting their citizens from death.  It is quite clear that Vietnam has had zero deaths because of their early, vigorous, and stringent measures against the disease, which none of the Western countries employed, although they could have.  The Vietnamese were just smarter and more diligent than their Western counterparts.

 

Vietnam shutdown flights from China very early and then did precisely the kind of focused testing, isolation of positives, and contact tracing that has been the best practice since Sars-Cov1 was suppressed in 2004.  None, zero, zip of the Western countries did that.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vietnam-how-this-country-of-95-million-kept-its-coronavirus-death-toll-at-zero/ar-BB14MxiR

I'm an American living here, and with all the evidence available that Asian countries, especially Vietnam, have had concerning the Covid problem, some people, including some of my own family, still think Trump should be re-elected. I'm not a political person, believing most are crooked anyway, but anyone can see that him, being the leader and in a position to lock down the nation, hesitated and thousands of people died. There is no question at all that he had a chance to do this. Stopping flights was one thing, but other countries were doing  the lock down thing and they fared well, while the US is still having much trouble. The US people aren't stupid but arrogant and proud, thinking they can do whatever they want. They need a mandate forcing a lock down, for a few weeks in the beginning, and this would have stopped the majority of spread.

[JHicks]

17 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Possible sources of Sars-Cov2 should certainly be investigated, but the Economist article has a whiff of the unfortunate attitude that the Asian countries that succeeded in suppressing the virus must have just been lucky somehow or enjoyed some natural advantage unavailable to the Western countries who then can be excused for their miserable failure at protecting their citizens from death.

I hear you but I think you're projecting there.

 

It's an interesting theory but I don't really buy it. I guess one indicator would be whether SE Asian expatriates in the Western hotspots are less likely to pick it up than the rest of us. I'm not sure whether the Economist article looked at that, as most of it is behind a paywall. My impression from the reports of imported cases is that they're just as vulnerable as anyone else, but obviously that's just an impression. I'm also sceptical about the idea that a virus would stay localised in SE Asia for many years and not even make it as far as South Korea or Indonesia. Malaysia and Singapore haven't been completely spared either. There's definitely something going on but I think it's still a mystery. Months ago I was putting it down to the weather, but with what has happened in places like India that can't be it.

[asiacurious]

Very interesting article.  One though I had with the idea that there may be some kind of generalized immunity (at least as far as Thailand is concerned) is that each day there are new cases reported of returning Thai expats in quarantine testing positive.  If there was a generalized immunity among Thais, I would expect there to be almost no cases.

 

There was also the March 6th Muay Thai match at Lumpini Stadium that infected over 100 people, several of who died.   https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1892820/recent-covid-19-deaths-linked-to-lumpinee-boxing-stadium

 

It's easy to forget now that there have been two months with no local transmissions reported, that it wasn't always this way.  From that same early April Bangkok Post I linked to above:
 

Quote

 

The centre confirmed 103 new cases on Friday, bringing the nationwide total to 1,978 with 19 deaths.

 

Bangkok leads the national tally at 1,049 cases.

 

 

So I suspect the answers for Thailand's relative lack of cases may lay more in the actions that were taken, like the implementation of the curfew, shutting down of malls/restaurants/entertainment venues, and the early voluntary adoption of mask wearing by many.   (I started wearing a mask in early February.  I'd estimate at least half the people in Bangkok were wearing them by that time.)

 

But there may also be something to the ideas presented in the Economist article.

 

Thank you for sharing it!

 

[timendres]

20 hours ago, Oxx said:

It could also explain why the figures for Thailand are low (and it's not the government covering things up as some have suggested).

On 20 July 2020 at 12.00, Thailand announced that 1,872 additional people met the criteria for PUI, raising the total to 350,522 PUI, as shown in Table 2.

https://ddc.moph.go.th/viralpneumonia/eng/file/situation/situation-no197-200763.pdf

 

Nope. No coverup whatsoever...

Edited July 23, 2020 by timendres

[cmarshall]

4 hours ago, JHicks said:

I hear you but I think you're projecting there.

 

It's an interesting theory but I don't really buy it. I guess one indicator would be whether SE Asian expatriates in the Western hotspots are less likely to pick it up than the rest of us. I'm not sure whether the Economist article looked at that, as most of it is behind a paywall. My impression from the reports of imported cases is that they're just as vulnerable as anyone else, but obviously that's just an impression. I'm also sceptical about the idea that a virus would stay localised in SE Asia for many years and not even make it as far as South Korea or Indonesia. Malaysia and Singapore haven't been completely spared either. There's definitely something going on but I think it's still a mystery. Months ago I was putting it down to the weather, but with what has happened in places like India that can't be it.

The telltale for me in the Economist article is that there is no mention whatever of the vigorous efforts of the government in Vietnam to suppress the virus.  If you weigh the competing theories in a way that the Economist did not, supposed bats in SE Asia versus the documented and even extreme measures employed by the government against the virus such as forcibly putting infected people in camps, then the weight of evidence seems clearly against the phantom bats, unless you are looking for a reason to exculpate Western governments, most conspicuously, the British government.