no subject

[firecat]

MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine might partially protect against COVID:

https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1632291.html

Comments

[oursin]

I remember, when I was cataloguing the epidemiologist Alice Stewart's papers, she discovered I think in the early 60s or so that children who had had their vaccinations (I can't remember if it was a specific one, or the standard NHS set of the time - it would have been pre-MMR I think) were healthier than children who had not had them.

[firecat]

Did they control for socioeconomic status?

[oursin]

I think that would have been included: and this was a period when free routine childhood vaccinations under the NHS were pretty much universal except for a few conscientious objectors on religious/ideological grounds, i.e. access would not have been an issue.

[noelfigart]

Interesting. I lost my immunization records and had to get a titer test for a bunch of stuff back in 2013. Looked it up. I was immune by titer test as of 7 years ago, anyway.

[firecat]

Interesting, thanks!

[firecat]

I had to get a titer test for measles back around then when there were pockets of it in the US. Although I did get the vaccine in the 60s, I wasn't immune, so I re-vaccinated.

[zeborah]

Ehh, free routine childhood vaccinations in New Zealand are supposedly universal and yet mysteriously kids in poorer areas, especially more rural ones, are less likely to actually end up having had them. (You've still got to get the kids to the doctor after all. Even if you do it at school... poorer kids are more likely to miss school for various reasons... like already being sick.) So it does still need to be explicitly controlled for.

But the conclusion seems both interesting and plausible anyway. Illness weakens your immune system - some illnesses more so than others.