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Do Influenza Vaccines Work?
NorthwestFresh
Member Posts: 7,972
in Tug Tavern
Millions around the world still die from it every year and that’s without testing everyone ill for the specific cause of death.
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Like the Vid, common cold is a coronavirus, no vaccine there. I'm not as sanguine on vaccine prospects.
HTH
Coronaviruses (4 main types; NL63, OC43, 229E, and HKU1) make up only about 20% of "common cold" infections.
OC43 and HKU1 duration of immunity for both strains is about 40 weeks. There has been some scientific evidence that infection from some coronavirus strains can provide temporary increased immunity from other coronavirus strains. This is likely what people are talking about when they talk about possible cross immunity or even false antibody positives.
Vaccines for Coronaviruses are tricky because they contain the proofreading Nsp14-ExoN that removes mis-incorporated nucleotide and limits coronavirus mutations make them particularly resistant to the anti-viral medication typically used to treat some viruses (Reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (RTIs) or Nucleoside analogs). Think treatment of HIV, Hep B, Herpes.
The positive for a vaccine is because coronavirus have exonuclease proofreading in their replicases; they actually have a self check for accurate replication that limits mutations.
TLDR; Too high level for this bored... Took a few biomedical engineering classes at UW once... the high strung, overly stressed, first generation Asian (RIP meek) pre-med girls were fucking wild after a drink or two.
Makes no sense to me.
Coronavirus have a low mutation rate but have the "check valve" I described above that prevents mutations but also prevents typical anti virals or vaccines from working
The flu, specifically influenza A has a very rapid mutation rate due to the way it replicates its RNA polymerase and that the influenza genome is segmented and can mix during infection.
The flu vaccine each year is the best the guess at how the various virus strands will mutate and what will spread the most that season.
You and your wifes different reactions to the seasonal flu are a combination of luck, exposure, and genetic superiority.
Given the production cycle of the flu vaccine, experts try to guess which strains may be most prevalent in each year (said above).
NIAID has been working on a universal flu vaccine that targets a protein on the outside of the virus, which should account for most variations of the virus year-over-year, so you might see that around in the future.
I've heard melanin in the key to success.
If I like my melanin, can I keep it?