Khalid Simply Says

 Congratulations. You have taken a step towards being protected and towards the threshold of living without the fear of Covid-19 affliction. But you are not there yet.   An elder of my family recently wrote to me stating that he had himself tested for antibodies to the coronavirus a month after having been fully vaccinated. The result came back as disappointingly low level of antibodies.   So he asked: What am I supposed to do now?   Nothing different that you have been doing all along, I said.  The same standard operating principals: Maintain social distance, cover face and nose and hand hygiene. Since you don’t have a strong level of antibodies, you are not fully protected. Antibody testing after vaccination is not recommended by the CDC at this time.   He was not happy to hear this but recognized that Covid-19 being a new infection and a pandemic, there was no one straight answer.   No single action offers 100% protection, whereas the outc...

As of today, USA has over 1 million positive cases, that is 1/3 rd of the total 3 million cases reported worldwide. The rise in the number of cases has also brought about a surge in COVID-19 related medical literature. The shared experience of the worldwide medical community has started to be published in the medical journals. What we are learning is that whereas respiratory system takes the brunt of the viral attack, the other organs of the body are not immune. Before reviewing the impact of COVID-19 on other organs of the body, one must recognize that the data being published has been put together in a haste. Most of the published articles include the clinical information that we know so far. This includes data on presenting symptoms, what organs were affected, the laboratory test abnormalities, and the x-rays and CT scans findings.   Since China is ahead of others, most case reports are coming from there. Many are anecdotal and small case studies. These are often from sin...

Students, employees, and workers are getting cabin fever during the prolonged lock down and are eager to return to normalcy or the new normal. The authorities are torn between safeguarding the public health vs. allowing resumption of routine social and business activities. So when will it be safe to return to work or school? There is no one answer because each situation and circumstance will be different. One general answer is: When we will have herd immunity. To achieve that goal, we will need to test a lot of people, millions of people. That is easy said, but difficult to do. A key component of herd immunity is to know how many have developed antibodies to the virus and therefore have some level of protection against being re-infected. If we think of the virus as a “body” or a foreign entity that attacks us, then the “antibody” is the substance that is produced to repel and prevent the infection from taking hold. The “antibodies” produced by our immune system ar...

Most living organisms have immune systems that help them stay alive and healthy. But there are times when the immune response overshoots the boundary and becomes dangerous and even lethal to “self “. We know this because during this pandemic, many people are dying not only because of weak immune system but due to overactive immune response. A physiological phenomenon called “cytokine storm” that was unknown 50-60 years ago, is now commonly talked about during the coronavirus pandemic. Before we talk about the abnormal, lets learn a little bit about the normal immune system. Immune system is both “innate” (that we are born with) and acquired (we develop it over our lifetime). It is also classified as cellular (where the main players are cells) and humoral (where the main actors are proteins called antibodies). Innate immune system recognizes tissues that are “self” and rejects or destroys those that are “foreign”. A good example is blood group. An individual who inheri...