Wayland said:
So somehow the first time I saw this one. And not that I believe it, but interesting in the correlation vs causation world.
Does MMR Vaccine Confer some level of protection from COVID-19? Take it all with a high degree of skepticism.
https://world.org/COVID-19
I was going to post about this earlier, but did not have time. I am somewhat skeptical, but it would go a long way to explain why younger people are not getting the virus and if they are, their symptoms are mild to non-existent. There has to be a reason for this to happen. If you think about it, most all children for the past 30 years or so have received the MMR vaccine as a standard vaccine you get as an infant. As you get older, the antibodies produced by the vaccine lessen and in some cases, older people never received a measles vaccine. As a result, people under the age of 30 or 40 would be more likely to have some protection and older people would be the ones who are the least protected.
I read through a couple of studies about this last night and it explained the linkage between the spike protein for the coronavirus and the spike protein for the measles virus. The proteins are not identical, but they are 26% similar. The theory is there is enough similarity for the antibodies generated for the measles (it is an antibody that inhibits the ability of the virus to attach to a cell) that it could also be inhibiting the coronavirus's ability to attach to the cell wall. The spike protein on the outside of the coronavirus is what allows the virus to attach to the ACE2 receptor on a cell. Without this attachment, the virus (same with measles) can not gain entry to the cell and begin reproduction.
Not all organs have an ACE2 receptor, but the ones that do are in the nose, mouth, lungs, stomach, small intestines, colon, and a few other places I can not remember. This is why the virus can attack these areas of the body. Blood cells (red and white) do not contain ACE2 receptors and this is why most people do not believe the virus can infect the blood. The issues with blood are coming from the body's immune system reaction to the virus and not an infection of the blood itself.
One of the key reasons the coronavirus is thought to be more infectious is that it's spike protein is much stronger (physically) than other coronavirus' spike proteins. This is why the coronavirus requires a lower viral load to infect someone, compared to other virus. So, anything you can do to disrupt the ability of the virus to attach to the ACE2 receptor, the more likely you are to decrease the virus' infection abilities. A week ago there was a lot of attention being paid to a trial being developed by the University of Louisville researchers. Their approach is similar, but it does not involve a vaccine. Their theory is to inject a drug that causes the production of a short segment enzymes that would bind to the spike protein and render it ineffective in attaching to the ACE2 receptor. In theory, it makes sense and it should be going into trials soon.
Also, there is another trial underway (currently underway with mice) that genetically modifies the measles vaccine to more directly attack the spike protein on the Coronavirus. So far, it has been successful in preventing the virus in mice and they are now planning to move to expanded trials. The key advantage of this approach is manufacturing of the measles vaccine is much simpler, so it could be more easily produced in volume.