I know I am all over the place today but my 2 favorite COVID-19 topics are masking & immunity. Today good day for masking & here is another study (super important) showing us that T-cells are what matters to confer SARS-CoV-2 immunity (not antibodies); https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.02.20222778v1

I will add this to my teeny tiny jpeg on good news for immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Vaccine news yesterday, big news for non-pharmaceutical interventions (specifically masking) today, immunity literature growing. Consider this all good news for COVID-19; we will combat it.

Please do look at that study on T-cells in essential workers carefully. These are individuals who cannot shelter in place- 2,826 participants working in hospitals and
Fire and Police services in England, they looked at T-cells and antibodies.

25% of people who had "been out" (essential workers) have T-cell responses. T-cell responses in 665/2672 (24.8%) of essential workers, including
377/475 (79.4%) of seropositive individuals (more associated with symptoms) and 283/2197 of (12.9%) seronegative individuals.

Bottom line? SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells can arise even when antibodies don't after exposure (symptomatic infection likely leads to both but still get T-cells after asymptomatic as other studies show) and T-cells are protective against re-infection at least for some duration.