People infected with #SARSCoV2 without noticeable symptoms (“asymptomatic”) can exhibit lung abnormalities upon chest CT. New paper in @NatureMedicine. However, despite no obvious symptoms, they make a robust neutralising antibody response. 1/4
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6#Sec9

As expected, there are some differences in cytokine profiles between “asymptomatic” and symptomatic individuals. I wouldn’t call the immune response “weaker” in the former. Just different (e.g. higher IL-6 in the symptomatic group - where fever is a symptom - is expected). 2/4

I agree with @florian_krammer and others that Fig 3 is difficult. The authors suggest “asymptomatics” are more likely to lose virus-specific IgG over time than “symptomatics” – but this seems more a limitation of the ELISA assay than a true finding. 3/4 https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1273613576771719175

Overall there’s some bad news and some good news. Bad news is discernible lung pathology in asymptomatic individuals. Good news is their robust neutralising antibody responses. Duration of immunity is still an open question, requiring longer timeframes than assessed here…4/4