Jean-Luc Murk was one of the faces of the corona crisis as a virologist at the Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital. It was an intense time for him where he had nightmares almost every night. Not only because of the corona virus, but everything that came with it. “It was a madhouse.”
The coronavirus is tackling well in the Netherlands. Most people adhere neatly to the RIVM measures and there are not as many infections as in the first two months. But Murk sounds cautious: “I miss the pioneering studies. Many drugs have limited effectiveness. It is still unclear how we can treat the virus. I think we have to take into account that the population must be flexible. Sometimes the reins and then we have to tighten them again. ”
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Antibodies
Now, the results of a recent study show that the antibodies of someone who has had corona again sink from the blood. But that is not so bad. It seems normal that antibodies disappear from the blood again, because otherwise it would become too viscous from all the antibodies it has to transport. We couldn’t live with that blood.
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“But the immune system has a memory, and when the virus returns, those old antibodies are recreated in large quantities,” the virologist explains. Moreover, this study only looked at the antibodies, but white blood cells also fight the virus and these were not included in the study.
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Another year later
Corona will not quickly disappear from the world view. Murk: “I don’t expect things to go that fast with a vaccine. It is yet to come and before it can really be used, you will be back a year later.”
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Watch the whole conversation with Jean-Luc Murk here:
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