As you probably know by now, a lot of people all over the world are trying their best to develop a universal coronavirus vaccine that could bring back normality as we used to know it, or at least something as close to it as possible.
NewScientist notes that all these efforts mentioned above have now been boosted by the discovery that some healthcare workers had pre-existing immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the first wave of the pandemic.
“During the first half of 2020, around 700 healthcare workers in the UK were tested weekly as part of a crowdfunded study called COVIDsortium.”
The same online publication also noted the following:
“Most of these people, who wore protective equipment, never tested positive for covid-19 in PCR tests or developed covid-19 antibodies – proteins that bind to the outside of viruses, preventing cells from being infected.”
The most likely explanation is that these people were often exposed to the existing human coronaviruses that cause around 10 percent of colds, Leo Swadling and Mala Maini at University College London and their colleagues say.
“We don’t know the historic infections of these individuals, so we don’t know for sure where the T cells are coming from.”
The article mentioned on the website above also talks about another pandemic and the ways in which this could be prevented.
Covid booster vaccines
Earlier today, we revealed that during the course of this week, Pfizer asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize booster shots of its vaccine for all Americans age 18 and older.
The same online publication mentioned above notes that the FDA could approve the request before Thanksgiving, according to the New York Times.
It’s also been reported that Moderna is expected to submit a similar request to the FDA “soon,” the Times noted.
Stay tuned for more news, and make sure to stay safe as well.