Creationist mode: 
This is turning out to be a great day for devotees of Creationism's supernatural sadistic malevolence!
Not only have we learned that its brilliantly redesigned omicron (ο) variant is good at evading the antibodies produced by medical science's vaccines as well as being much more infectious than earlier variants such as δ and α, but we now learn that if it can cause a severe enough case of COVID-19, it will produce a dysfunctional B cell response to the spike proteins, so reducing its victim's ability to fight off future infections. In other words, if it doesn't quite kill you the first time, it makes it more likely to kill you on its second or subsequent try.
Brilliant, eh? Just when you think you've beaten it, it sets you up for a sucker punch.
Creationist mode: 
At least, that's the inevitable conclusion an honest ID advocate would have to draw from the findings of a group of researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, published a couple of days ago, open access, in PLOS ONE. The researchers found that:
Infection-fighting B cells retain better memory of the coronavirus spike protein in University Hospital patients who recover from less-severe cases of COVID-19 than in those recovering from severe COVID-19The UT Health news release explains:
The definition of severe disease was made based on the need for mechanical ventilation or ECMO, because this distinguishes the most critical patients, who are the most likely to develop impaired immune responses.
Thomas Patterson, MD, senior author
Professor and chief of infectious diseases
UT Health, San Antonio, Texas, USA
Professor and chief of infectious diseases
UT Health, San Antonio, Texas, USA
The study focused on memory B cells that react against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Blood samples were analyzed one month after symptom onset and five months post-onset. After one month, a significant proportion of spike-specific B cells were active.The authors explain more in the abstract to their published paper:
However, samples from eight individuals who recovered from less-severe disease showed increased expression of markers associated with durable B cell memory as compared to individuals who recovered from severe disease, the authors wrote. The markers include T-bet and FcRL5.
The increased percentage of B cells associated with long-lived immunity in non-severe COVID-19 patients may have consequences for long-term immunity against SARS-CoV-2 re-infection or severity of the resulting disease.T-bet-positive, spike-specific B cells nearly disappeared from the blood samples five months post-symptom onset, the authors noted. Overall, a more dysfunctional B cell response is seen in severe disease cases, they wrote.
The authors
Non-severe cases were defined as not requiring supplemental oxygen or invasive ventilation, while severe cases needed invasive mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
AbstractBut, before Creationists get too carried away by the brilliance of their favourite mass murderer, a word of caution: this study is based on a small number of cases in both the severe and less severe categories and there is another possible reason for these findings - the more severe cases could have been more severe because they already had a dysfunctional B cell response.
SARS-CoV-2 infection elicits a robust B cell response, resulting in the generation of long-lived plasma cells and memory B cells. Here, we aimed to determine the effect of COVID-19 severity on the memory B cell response and characterize changes in the memory B cell compartment between recovery and five months post-symptom onset. Using high-parameter spectral flow cytometry, we analyzed the phenotype of memory B cells with reactivity against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein or the spike receptor binding domain (RBD) in recovered individuals who had been hospitalized with non-severe (n = 8) or severe (n = 5) COVID-19. One month after symptom onset, a substantial proportion of spike-specific IgG+ B cells showed an activated phenotype. In individuals who experienced non-severe disease, spike-specific IgG+ B cells showed increased expression of markers associated with durable B cell memory, including T-bet and FcRL5, as compared to individuals who experienced severe disease. While the frequency of T-bet+ spike-specific IgG+ B cells differed between the two groups, these cells predominantly showed an activated switched memory B cell phenotype in both groups. Five months post-symptom onset, the majority of spike-specific memory B cells had a resting phenotype and the percentage of spike-specific T-bet+ IgG+ memory B cells decreased to baseline levels. Collectively, our results highlight subtle differences in the B cells response after non-severe and severe COVID-19 and suggest that the memory B cell response elicited during non-severe COVID-19 may be of higher quality than the response after severe disease.
Reyes, Raphael A.; Clarke, Kathleen; Gonzales, S. Jake; Cantwell, Angelene M.; Garza, Rolando; Catano, Gabriel; Tragus, Robin E.; Patterson, Thomas F.; Bol, Sebastiaan; Bunnik, Evelien M. (2021)
SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific memory B cells express higher levels of T-bet and FcRL5 after non-severe COVID-19 as compared to severe disease.
PLoS ONE 16(12): e0261656. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261656
Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by PLOS
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
Notwithstanding those limitations, Creationists must be feeling really proud of the lengths their divine sadist is going to with the SARS-CoV-2 virus to kill as many people as possible and to maximise the suffering in its creation. The puzzle is, why Creationists continue to insist that this evil genius is one and the same as the allegedly all-loving god of the Bible and Qur'an.
Maybe there is an honest Creationist with sufficient personal integrity to explain this curiously irrational belief without the traditional condescention and abuse.
This Covid is something from the pits of hell created by a cruel, sadistic demon. Its been 2 years and 3 months it has afflicted the entire planet. It has ruined countless lives and has made the world a worse place. Theres no end in sight, theres no light at the end of the tunnel.
ReplyDeleteHow screwed up a world this is where infants have to wear masks? This is unforgivable, inexecusable evil. How long is this hell going to continue? 10 more years? A century? Forever? This illustrates that the Devil rules this world and not a loving God.
Its criminally embarrassing, its heinously embarrassing, its beyond embarrassing, its beyond disgusting, its beyond criminal. Hopeless.