The story is an outbreak of COVID 19 that occurred
on a fishery vessel here in the Pacific Northwest.
So we'd also done some pre-departure testing for the ship.
So we actually had serum from these individuals before they left.
And we went back and looked and saw that the three people
who had neutralizing antibodies, which is one of the
thought to be a correlative protection but hadn't been shown in people yet,
the three people that neutralizing antibodies were protected
from being infected with SARS-CoV-2.
So this is the first time to show that having
these antibodies is a corollary protection in people.
It's one of the things people have thought would be associated with protection.
It's one
that we followed the vaccine trials for but really is the first demonstration
that we can protect against reinfection in people.
So the other thing
is that the antibody titers that they had were not completely off the charts.
They're very attainable by the vaccines that we've seen to date.
So again, it's a very sort of positive story in that way.
It looks like the titers of antibodies are being made by the vaccine,
the vaccine in the phase one and phase two, they've been comparable
to levels that have been found in people who are naturally infected.
And then here we're showing
that those levels don't actually have to be incredibly high for
what looks like protection in this particular boat outbreak scenario.
It's a fishing vessel had about 120 people on it.
It's not the size of a cruise ship.
It's both sort of a reasonable size boat, but also not you, ginormous.
And I think
what the main focus for here is just having that that high attack rate
over a sort of a two week, a two week window, that really indicates
the when we know how transmissible this virus is.
This virus has shown
the ability to infect a lot of people on boats.
Ever since the beginning of the pandemic.
So in a way, we're sort of turning the tide on the ships here.
We're using them to learn things about our ability, protect ourselves.
We don't know the length. I mean, it takes time, right?
The virus has only been present in humans now for about eight to ten months.
Right. To to know these sort of things.
So it takes time to do these studies to get those longitudinal.
We have to find out for them.
Ultimately, we're going to really care about is how the vaccines work
and how long the immunity lasts there and how long the protection occurs.
I mean, that's the real the real true, interesting and interesting data point.
But, you know, we can't answer questions about length.
Right now, I do think that this really highlights the importance
of running of getting serological tests against the spike protein
for the virus, which is of what we do for hepatitis B.
Right.
Everyone here, University of Washington, medicine's been tested for hepatitis B
to show they have antibodies against it and been vaccinated against it.
And that's sort of we know that those are that the, the,
the titers of the antibodies, the levels of binding
and we run those assays in the clinical lab
that that's a correlated protection that you're going to be protected
against hepatitis B if you're positive by this assay.
And that's where we'd like to move toward SARS-CoV-2.
It just takes it takes time to build that evidence base and to do all the studies.
The problem with every longitudinal study is it takes the time it takes.
Right. You can't can't speed it up in a way.
And the only way we can speed it up is by sort of by being here in Seattle,
we can sort of
go back to those individuals who were infected in February and March
because we get the longest of the longitudinal.
But really you're only speeding it up by a handful of weeks.
There just takes time.
And so for the people who are currently undergoing
the phase three trials for vaccines, you can go back to people at phase one
and see how long their their antibody titers are lasting.
I'm sure that's because all these trials are vaccine
trials, you know, are more than a year or two years to follow
those sort of questions because everyone's interested in exactly that question.
But right now, we take the good news where we can get it.
And right now it suggests that
you can be
protected against reinfection if you have these neutralizing antibodies.
In the short run, it's it's still social distancing,
masking up, trying to prevent transmission of the virus.
Keep doing what we're doing here in Washington State.
We're doing a pretty good job.
You always do better for us.
We're doing a pretty good job.
All told.
And just try to keep this this virus at bay until we get those vaccines on board.