BCG vaccine and COVID

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Roadrunner6 11 Jul 2020

Interesting paper. It's been suggested for a long time that the BCG vaccine confers broad protection against other infectious diseases. This study observed significant associations between BCG vaccination and reduced COVID-19 deaths.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/07/2008410117

 girlymonkey 11 Jul 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

Well given that most of the UK will have had the BCG, and we are one of the worst countries for it, I dread to think what we could have been like!

The contraceptive pill is looking like it has had a fairly significant protective effect too. (Well, eostrogen in general but most markedly measured in pre menopausal women when comparing those who do and don't take the pill)

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-estrogen-hrt

 Yanis Nayu 11 Jul 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

Yes, I thought the same as you re: BCG when it was first mooted several weeks ago. 

 duchessofmalfi 11 Jul 2020
In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Before you get excited about this you need to examine figure 2.d which is the basis for this.  Once you look at a graph that looks like a pissed up blind dart player assembled it throwing darts backward over their shoulders at the graph you'll probably be left with the same impression as me that other factors were more significant than the BCG vaccine and the the correlation is purely coincidental.

2
 wintertree 11 Jul 2020
In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I’m on the fence.

One interpretation of 2.c and 2.d is that you don’t need BCG to have low deaths, but that it’s a nice emergency backup to having a government totally jump the shark in their response...

Really there’s not enough data there to be conclusive about the benefits, but also there’s no data in the paper to demolish the hypothesis.  It’s hard to see how data at the national level could ever give high quality support.  Longitudinal studies might but that’ll be an awful lot of work.  Histology studies of ACE va ACE2 in the dead would be more conclusive I should think. I doubt suitable samples have routinely been harvested before burial/cremation?

Post edited at 09:41
Roadrunner6 11 Jul 2020
In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I doubt it’s coincidental, they’ve known about the immune boost for years.

 Yanis Nayu 11 Jul 2020
In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I didn't get excited as it doesn't fit with what you can see around you.

 jethro kiernan 11 Jul 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

Anything in your youth that gives your immune system a bit of a mild work out without causing any lasting damage is probably useful once something comes along that isn’t nt treatable with the usual medications.

 wercat 11 Jul 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

I had it twice, at 12 and 13 by different methods.  Perhaps they cancel out.

 freeflyer 12 Jul 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

Estrogen is definitely a thing and not adopted as an interesting direction by the mainstream of research for some reason. Anything generating an eosinophilic reaction is good in the early stages of covid infection. Unfortunately I am not a qualified researcher!

 girlymonkey 12 Jul 2020
In reply to freeflyer:

Presumably there is no way of using it to treat men without fairly detrimental side effects though?

 wbo2 12 Jul 2020
In reply to duchessofmalfi: A little harsh but one you look attherelative positions of Australia, the US and some other countries this doesn't look significant at all.

Roadrunner6 12 Jul 2020
In reply to wbo2:

It’s a pretty Strong association. The science behind it is pretty solid In terms of increased immunity. Just two points wouldn’t remove that association.

but of course there’s a lot of noise in there.


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