Alex Dowell

Research Fellow, Uni of Bham, UK.
Immunology, virus and cancer.

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@dgurdasani1 Consider WHEN this study was run, ie Mid-2021, not yesterday. Protocol probably written early 2021. What was known/accepted about long-COVID then? Does it seem wise to do now, probably not. Would it even be possible, no. Is it incredibly valuable data, undoubtedly!

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@maini_lab @Leo1401j @iit_ucl Fantastic, congratulations 👏

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@1979HAB @mgh1029 @STVNews Asks for source, gets source, replies with a meme, good argument.

Another fun stat, 100% (i.e all) of people born before the smallpox vaccine was available died!

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@dgurdasani1 We just finished test, kids when they see yet another new (to them) CoV, 50% don't know they have it the other 49.9% (ish) sniff/cough few days. What happens to adults, bad things! until we provide workout in the form of Vacc, immunity needs to develop in kids as evolved to do

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@stellacreasy Using the tragic death of a baby that had greater than 95% chance of survival for your own political gain is low, have you considered being a conservative? There was literally 6 months that abortion was an option

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@DuntonRosalind @1goodtern We want to keep kids safe but if we mitigate against infection in childhood there would be an ever increasingly vulnerable population, not just to COVID, but all others infection too. First exposure later in life would just result in far worse outcomes.

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@DuntonRosalind @1goodtern Yes there were, COVID probably helped development.
Wasn't minimizing RSV, I was meaning we shouldn't inflate COVID to be a boogeyman.
We lived with RSV, if 60% of 0-5yrs saw RSV first time in 1yr I'd guess hosp rate would be higher than COVID.

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@duolingo sorry to hear, given up after +1yr, feel free to roll back the horrible update and I'll be back, until then tìoraidh an dràsta

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@Simon7Holmes @Anto_Berto @ShamezLadhani and in large population studies of COVID vaccines there has been NO indication for ADE.

Our study highlights T may be associated with reduced (symptomatic) infections, which follows in depth studies in adults showing similar effects of some T responses in adults. 2/2

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@Simon7Holmes @Anto_Berto @ShamezLadhani Antibody dependant enhancement (ADE) was suggested as a theoretical problem, mainly due to results from one study of a different type of coronavirus (before COVID) in animals using a specific type of inactive vaccine. No other study has reproduced this 1/2

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@dgurdasani1 @karamballes @ShamezLadhani Could @dgurdasani1 explain why this and other big studies are wrong?
Vaccination studies including our own, but is there ANY data on vaccine response after a primary Omicron!? Primary Omi is +50% of children in UK 2/2

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@dgurdasani1 @karamballes @ShamezLadhani Excuses me, you have picked data. You have omitted our previous NAT Immunol study showing children make good antibody responses.
In both cases we used the MSD platform, which has been used in the PITCH studies and ChAdOx1 trial. note MSD tested against Roche, 100% concordant.

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@dgurdasani1 @karamballes @ShamezLadhani Excuses me this is misleading, you seem to have cherry picked data. You omitted our prior Nat Immunol study. Showing children make good antibody response to pre-Omicron variants.
We used the MSD platform, as used in PITCH and the ChAdOx-1 trial, from which you have quoted. Also

[Shamez Ladhani @ShamezLadhani]

1/ Our preprint on immune responses of kids to #SARSCoV2 #Omicron is online

Top line: Primary Omicron infection induces poor antibody responses in unvaccinated kids, but robust T cell responses which will protect against severe #COVID19 in the future🧵

👉https://t.co/F9vyvCyTAl

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@ShamezLadhani Good to know all those pre-2020 nursery bugs were worth while! HCoV maybe, but I wonder perhaps just the bulk of infection enhancing 'trained' innate response, better primed mucosal immunity like in kids, might be suggested when effect is lost with older children

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@AlexRichter3 Happy Birthday 🥳

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@fitterhappierAJ Where's the control for other proteins?

Bathing cells in 50ug/ml protein, not really physiological... And choosing a concentration to study inhibition based on a titration with inhibition as the read out... a bit tautological!

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

@dgurdasani1 In Aug ~50 attend hospital, daily rate ~50000, now ~150 attend, but daily rate +4x higher. Surely reflective of increased cases, not severity. Also no info on preexisting conditions, nor granularity of age ie <1yr higher rate of attend for a lot of resp virus

[Alex Dowell @AlexD_81]

Don't understand rational, surely aSy where likely hood of false POS is highest is exactly where PCR should confirm. Sympto even if not Covid still not bad to isolate. Surely this just risks healthy people being stuck at home, making short staffing worse!

[Hugh Pym @BBCHughPym]

UKHSA has confirmed that the requirement for asymptomatic people testing positive on lateral flow to do confirmatory PCR will be suspended - from Jan 11 in England - devolved administrations possibly sooner.