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1/ Recently, major media outlets in the US and France have mischaracterized our COVID-19 T cell findings. We have now published a summary of current knowledge to correct this. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0389-z
2/ While initial press coverage of our SARS-CoV-2 T cell findings were mostly accurate, there have been some alarming shifts in media and Facebook or Twitter claims of “50% immunity”. That is incorrect. Our paper, Grifoni et al., Cell 2020 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420306103 ...
3/ Our paper found T cells in ~50% of unexposed people that could recognize SARS-CoV-2. This observation was important because it MAY impact people’s responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection, or COVID-19 vaccines.
4/ Therefore, we have pointed out that these T cells are important to pay attention to in human COVID-19 studies this year.
5/ We SPECULATED that these T cells are probably memory T cells, and possibly from "common cold" coronavirus exposure. We further SPECULATED that it is conceivable that these T cells may potentially reduce COVID-19 disease severity, based on things we know about flu and T cells.
6/ These are only speculations (no data) and because of their potential importance it is key for scientists to test these ideas, as quickly as possible. While scientists are racing as fast as possible...
7/ sophisticated research like this usually takes a lot of time and resources to answer. We, and other labs, are working hard on these unanswered questions. @ljiresearch @settelab
