Well, God can’t punch up by definition.
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Are you particularly worried about pneumococcal issues?
Atopy is weird in general. It is reasonable that there would be consequences in infectious disease emerging from differences in chronic inflammation, polymorphisms in key gene regulatory elements, and/or Th2-like polarization. It’s something we’ll learn a lot more about over the next decade as post-genomics techniques keep getting cheaper, but for now it’s hard to reduce causation to specific genes or inflammatory patterns for a group of patients with pneumococcal vs, say, aspergillal infections. I don’t know if aspergillal is the right conjugation here, but it seems right that pneumococcal is to pneumococcus as aspergillal would be to aspergillus.
Huh. I did more reading on SPD, turns out it’s bacteriological. I’d thought it was a generic immune response.
At any rate, my primary concern (I have atopic dermatitis) is that I have an immune system that loves to overreact. I’m on Dupilimab (Dupixent), a biologic $1000/2wk shot IL-4Rα receptor antagonist that regulates interlukin 4 & 13. It was originally designed for immune-regulated asthma, and works wonders… without it, I was covered in 30-50% of my body with open rashes for decades. We’re talking weeping sores that would bind to my tshirts. Showers were painful.
I choked up and nearly cried when offered a chance out of the blue to be on the clinical trial for Dupixent. By my late 30s, I’d resigned myself to the hand I was dealt.
Now, I’m nearly clear.
Given above, I think it’s reasonable to be worried about cytokine storms.
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This one?
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If you’re on dupilimab, then in theory you’re less likely to wind up with a cytokine storm. IL4/13 both contribute to inflammation and can help amplify IL2 and IFNg in early cytokine storm formation, so if you’re blocked on one interaction the potential for positive feedback loop formation is decreased.
I feel I should stress I am not a doctor. I am a research scientist.
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This obsession (or is it already an addiction?) to consume every scrap on information about worrying cases and developments of this pandemic worries me, that can’t be good for our mental health.
There‘s so many skills we can build, so many things we can put our efforts in that would really help people, from building skills for remote work to putting pressure on representatives to stand up for labour rights, health care for all, or basic universal income, or just get off our asses and help other people in the neighborhood. But instead we’re consuming corona porn.
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That’s what I was thinking/hoping. Though, my shipment is a month overdue. I’ll be feeling better once it arrives today.
Thanks for the conversation! Nice to run into someone that can hypothesize with at least some knowledge. 
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