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Qs people asked me on science and my replies to them - Part 201

Q: Why are children not getting infected with COVID 19 as much as adults do?

Krishna: We can have only theories now as research is still going on.

One prevailing theory (1)for children under 10 don’t seem to get as sick has to do with an enzyme called ACE2. When SARS-CoV-2 enters the body, the spikey proteins encircling the virus latch on to ACE2 like a key fitting into a lock.

One of the theories is that children have the [ACE2] receptors for this virus more in the nose [and] in the upper respiratory system than in the lungs, and adults have these receptors in the lungs. Producing more ACE2 receptors in the lungs is one theory for why adults have more serious COVID-19 infections.

One study of 305 people from four to 60 years old found that ACE2 enzymes were least active in children under 10.

More resilient and adaptive immune systems may also help young children fend off the disease.

two methods of attack used by a person’s immune system: “one that doesn’t require memory and one that does.”

Over time, as we age and get exposed to bacteria and viruses, our bodies' immune systems create cells that remember specific viruses and can later attack them more efficiently. A child’s body that’s still building this memory relies on the immune system’s other method of attack.

“That’s the innate immune system,” says Moreira. “And we know children are less likely to mount an exaggerated innate response.”

When the innate immune system attacks, immune cells indiscriminately take on pathogens that enter the body. It’s also during this onslaught that the body releases molecules called cytokines, which help cells communicate with one another. When the immune system unleashes too many cytokines, they attack healthy tissue. Some of the sickest adult COVID-19 patients have died from these so called “cytokine storms.”

Kids tend to have lower cytokine levels to protect them from such storms.

Young children are exposed to new infections all the time, so when their bodies are exposed to a new virus like COVID-19, their immune systems may be primed to respond just strong enough to fight the virus and not cause their bodies harm.

While a child’s immune system might seem biologically primed to ward off COVID-19, not all children are equally affected.

“The vast majority of children with severe COVID tend to have other risk factors.Obesity in children over two was associated with more severe manifestations of the disease. lower-income kids and racial minorities are infected more.

Overall, even young kids who do get sick seem more likely to recover than sick adults. And the same ways adults stay safe—social distancing, wearing masks, and hand washing—will ultimately help kids contain the virus.

Q: Why do some people don't show any symptoms for COVID 19?

Krishna: Researchers think (2), perhaps asymptomatic people don’t carry as much virus to begin with, or their immune systems behave like those found in bats. “Bats have these viruses, but they don’t get sick at all. They seem to have an immune response that allows them to clear the virus.

These theories could shed light on new Chinese research showing asymptomatic individuals have a weaker immune response overall and produce fewer antibodies, one of the immune system’s weapons.

Another factor could be age. younger people being healthier in general. One theory holds that the most vulnerable people have more ACE2 receptors, the cellular doorways for the coronavirus. Older adults have more ACE2 located throughout the body and in their virus-welcoming noses than youths.

Obese people also have more of them.

Another theory that’s gaining traction is that younger people have more respiratory viral infections in general, so by the time they get COVID-19, it’s less dangerous. “Their exposure to multiple coronaviruses gives them some partial protection against COVID-19.

A peer-reviewed but not yet edited manuscript that was published last week in Nature makes the case that people who’ve recovered from certain kinds of coronaviruses might have pre-existing “memory T cells” that ward off COVID-19 or make them more likely to have a milder case.

Other research suggests asymptomatic people simply might be genetically luckier. Some people have variations of the ACE2 genes that make them more susceptible to getting infected by COVID-19’s spike protein, or more prone to inflammation, scarring in their lungs, or narrowed blood vessels that makes them sicker. Early reports from Italy and Spain claimed some blood types increase the risk for being hospitalized, but larger studies released this month counter this idea.

Some people, when told they were infected, concluded they weren’t completely asymptomatic, after all. When asked about their symptoms, they realized they were feeling out of sorts. There’s a gray area where you can have a mild thing like a tickle in your throat or a headache, or you don’t know if it’s a symptom of an infection or something that happened because you didn’t sleep well.

Now they include loss of taste or smell, a purple rash on your toes, and even gastrointestinal woes such as nausea or diarrhea. A recent paper in Nature Medicine showed that people with no outward symptoms could still experience lung damage.

In other words, what researchers thought were truly asymptomatic cases might actually be what’s known as paucisymptomatic, meaning their few symptoms are so mild they never suspect an infection. These are things that don’t make you feel like yourself, but you don’t chalk it up to COVID-19. It would be valuable to understand what mild symptoms are common

Q: What is the possible reason why covid 19 couldn't be controlled until now despite advancement in scientific research and availability of tools and expertise?

Krishna: Because Governments and people are not co-operating and not following what the experts advice.

Governments give more importance to economic issues than science. Some give more importance to religion than science. Sometimes Governments are headed by people who don’t trust science. Need i mention the names here? And adequate funds are not given to scientific research to stop pandemics.

People don’t follow what scientists tell them to, become reckless and believe in religion more than science, think what scientists say is hoax, like this man who learnt the lesson in his final moments .... sadly at the cost of his life.

'I thought this was a hoax': Patient in 30s dies after attending 'COVID party'

Coronavirus Is What You Get When You Ignore Science

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/i-thought-this-was-a-hoax-pa...

I have seen hundreds of people partying recklessly , not wearing masks while shopping, not maintaining physical distance, not listening to us and laughing when we tell them to follow the guidelines ….

Who are we trying to hoodwink? COVID science hits back if you act recklessly. You can’t fool science!

The results are before you. The reasons are quite obvious.

Q: Why has Covid19 shown scientists in poor light?

Krishna: This is a perception based Q and even answers give perception based analysis.

This is what happens if you don’t understand scientific method properly. Science is an extremely slow process and can’t be rushed through. But people want magical instant solutions to their problems. Sorry science doesn’t work that way. You have to wait patiently to get your vaccines, medicines and full control over the situation.

Somebody here says, “The history of this pandemic is littered with premature, and often inaccurate, scientific predictions ranging from the estimates of the numbers of people who will die unless nations impose a lockdown to the effectiveness of drug treatments,” writes Vikram patel, the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School,in the indian express.

“Crowning these scientific disciplines is the field of modelling, for it was its estimates of mountains of dead bodies which fuelled the panic and led to the unprecedented restrictions on public life around the world,” he writes.

This is a ‘blind assessment’.

When something just begins in gigantic proportions, you can never have an accurate picture in an instant. We first take only the ‘information available’ at the time and make models and predictions and information available will not be correct most of the time in the initial stages. As the time progresses and as more and more information made available, the estimates and models improve. If you take hasty and lopsided decisions based on inadequate information and half models, the results will not be good. Why blame scientists for this mess?

Scientists don’t take decisions. Politicians and governments do. But the latter are panicking because of economic implications and are taking only half-hearted measures. Why blame scientists for this inadequacy in implementation of the right recommendations?

Then we have a part of general public that just rebel against any restrictions. Because they don’t understand science in the right way. They cause devastating consequences. But you blame scientists for this disarray!

Then, there are people who take decisions on providing funds who deliberately starve the scientific community of funds. How can you expect solutions from poor labs then? Do you think scientists have magical powers to work in empty labs and get solutions to your problems?

Then there are people who are against science and scientists. They attack us at every available opportunity, show us in a bad light, put all the blame on us and enjoy peoples’ reactions to this misinformation campaign.

Okay, if you don’t trust science and scientists, go to places of worship and pray for an immediate solution and see the results. Or you yourself ‘invent’ a solution.

Don’t just sit in the AC rooms and criticise the only people who are toiling day and night and can provide a solution to this pandemic. If anybody can rescue the world from this pandemic, it is the scientists. Get that right first.

We are progressing slowly but steadily despite all the problems we face.

And we have support from the public too. Here is my evidence:

Public trust in science ‘soars following pandemic’

Survey results from Germany also suggest people think public disagreement between scientists is good, as it will lead to better results

Public trust in science ‘soars following pandemic’

Why we turn to scientists in times of crisis

Those who fully understand science and its methods will trust it anyway and those who don’t, criticise it and ask silly Qs and answers them in a negative way to malign it like this.

The way you follow tells a lot about your understanding and perception about science and scientists, not the facts.

If you want right information about science, follow the space Science Communication on quora.

Q: What are the causes of covid-19 severity in young patients?

Krishna: Initially it was thought that only older people 're at risk. But now reality shows even young people could have fatal consequences.

There can be a few reasons for this.

1. Even young people, because of their careless life styles, can have obesity, BP and heart conditions.

2. The amount of virus (microbial dosage or inoculum, the number of viral particles that cause infection) that infects an individual may have crucial outcomes. Small numbers of viral particles are more likely to be contained effectively by the body’s defenses. Then, infection may cause no symptoms or only mild disease. Get a huge dose which can lead to increased viral growth, and your outcome may be worse. A person with a high viral load has more virus particles than one with a low load. Either your immune system can't cope as it would be overwhelmed or can cause severe fatal reactions. Viral load is a deciding factor here.

3. For some genetic susceptibility may be involved: in other words, there are individuals whose genetic makeup leaves them more vulnerable to the virus as it spreads through their bodies. Viruses often gain access to host cells via surface proteins, which vary in presence and nature from person to person. Someone with no such surface proteins may be resistant to infection. In the case of HIV, for example, some people lack the receptors needed for viral infection and are not susceptible to the virus. So your genetic make up is responsible for the danger here.

4. The route by which a virus enters the body also influences infection outcome. It’s possible that virus inhaled in the form of aerosolized droplets triggers different immune defenses than does virus acquired by touching contaminated surfaces and then touching one’s face. The nose and the lung differ in local defenses, so the route of infection could significantly affect the outcome.

5. The virulence of the virus. Viruses differ in virulence — their capacity to damage host tissues or immunity — even when they are all the same species. This is why flu seasons vary in severity from year to year. The varieties of a virus such as coronavirus differ depending on small genetic characteristics and how these affect the interaction with human hosts. As the coronavirus spreads from person to person, it may undergo unique changes in its genetic structure that enhance or attenuate its capacity to do harm. Strains that are more virulent could lead to more severe disease. How deeply into the lungs the viral particles penetrate is also a factor.

6. Which infections the immune system has fought in the past. People’s immune status — especially their history of prior infectious diseases — crucially determines how they respond to a new infection. The immune system remembers previous encounters with microbes, and that affects how it fights and responds to new ones. In the case of dengue, infection with one type of the virus can make the individual more susceptible to infection with a different type of the same virus. In other situations, a recent infection with a virus can affect susceptibility to an unrelated new infection. For example, having had the flu before coronavirus infection could change the course of Covid-19 disease in unpredictable ways. When a person’s immune system has no memory of an infectious agent, it may be unable to rapidly respond, and this may allow the invader to escape detection, giving it more time to cause damage.

Taken together, these variables create a complex picture. The amount of virus, our genes, the route of infection, the variety of the virus and our immunological history combine to produce outcomes ranging from asymptomatic infection to death. And because these parameters can vary so much from infected person to infected person, it’s impossible to predict who will live and who will die. Therefore, despite accumulating evidence that most who acquire the coronavirus will not develop severe disease, the uncertainty of who is at grave risk enhances the pandemic’s terror.

So youngsters don't be so confident and careless.

Q: Why do some people get covid despite taking vaccines?

Krishna: Cases like these are not surprising and do not indicate that there was something wrong with the vaccines or how they were administered. Here is why.

— Vaccines don’t work instantly. It takes a few weeks for the body to build up immunity after receiving a dose. And the vaccines Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both require a second shot a few weeks after the first to reach full effectiveness.

— Nor do they work retroactively. You can already be infected and not know it when you get the vaccine — even if you recently tested negative. That infection can continue to develop after you get the shot but before its protection fully takes hold, and then show up in a positive test result.

— The vaccines prevent illness, but maybe not infection. Covid vaccines are being authorized based on how well they keep you from getting sick, needing hospitalization and dying. Scientists don’t know yet how effective the vaccines are at preventing the coronavirus from infecting you to begin with, or at keeping you from passing it on to others. (That is why vaccinated people should keep wearing masks and maintaining social distance.)

— Even the best vaccines aren’t perfect. The efficacy rates for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are extremely high, but they are not 100%. With the virus still spreading out of control in some parts of the world some of the millions of recently vaccinated people were bound to get infected in any case.

Citations:

1. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/coronavirus-infe...

2. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/why-do-asymptoma...

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