Covid-19 vaccine may not work for at-risk older people, say scientists

[steve2470]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/covid-19-vaccine-may-not-work-for-at-risk-older-people-say-scientists

A vaccine against Covid-19 may not work well in older people who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and dying from the disease, say scientists, which may mean immunising others around them, such as children.

Prof Peter Openshaw, from Imperial, one of the members of the UK’s Sage scientific advisory sub-group Nervtag, told the House of Lords science and technology committee it was this week considering a paper on targeting different groups in the population with vaccines.

*snip*

Arne Akbar, professor of immunology at UCL and president of the British Society of Immunology, said scientists needed to work out what goes wrong with the immune system as people get older.

“One thing that’s apparent, even in healthy older people, is that there’s more inflammation all around the body. We need to understand where that inflammation is coming from,” he said. “And this baseline inflammation in older people is linked to frailty and many negative outcomes as we get older. And this seems to be exacerbated when you get a severe infection like Covid-19.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Untested hypothesis provokes hysterical headlines

Thanks, I’ll wait until there’s some actual evidence to review and discuss.

[Throck]

2. That's been the warning to my mom for the past 10 years.

She says once you hit 70, you're living on borrowed time.