Fresno County school sues Newsom, claiming it has ‘herd immunity.’ Here’s what experts say
Immanuel Schools has made a claim of “herd immunity” from COVID-19 part of its lawsuit against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, arguing it’s safe to continue in-classroom instruction at its Reedley campus.
The claim is based on 198 blood samples of students, teachers and parents at the private Christian K-12 school that local pathologist Dr. Paul Atmajian – also an Immanuel Schools’ parent – said he tested this summer.
Atmajian told The Bee the majority of those samples show coronavirus was present because antibodies were generated to fight off the contagious virus.
He believes it’s safe for Immanuel Schools’ students to return to in-classroom learning. Other medical experts aren’t sure or disagree, including the Fresno County Department of Public Health, which unsuccessfully ordered the school this month to cease in-person instruction.
Court update
A Fresno County Superior Court judge last Tuesday denied the county’s request for a temporary injunction against the school. A full hearing is scheduled Sept. 15.
That’s different from the lawsuit against Newsom and the acting director of the California Department of Public Health now before the state Supreme Court, where Immanuel Schools is one of nine petitioners, including Clovis Christian Schools. Its herd immunity claim is among other arguments for reopening, including “constitutional violations” and alleging Newsom lacked the authority to issue his orders.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and his staff filed paperwork with the court on Friday, stating it should deny the schools’ petition because Immanuel and other petitioners have not demonstrated the court should hear their claims. The schools must reply to the preliminary opposition by 3 p.m. Tuesday.
The attorney general’s office said the governor and health department “quickly fashioned effective public policies that are based on up-to-date sound science, that are adjusted as necessary to changing circumstances, and that allow for local input and decision-making to the extent feasible.”
The state health department has prohibited in-person instruction in Fresno County and a number of other California counties until they are off the state’s COVID-19 monitoring list for 14 consecutive days.
Experts caution against COVID-19 ‘herd immunity’ claims
Atmajian said at least 59% of his Immanuel tests came back positive showing previous coronavirus exposure. The lawsuit claims that if Atmajian had used a less reliable form of testing, his results would have found an even higher number, approximately 80% of students with antibodies for COVID-19, “or as otherwise stated, herd immunity at Immanuel Schools.”
“It’s simply stunning,” Atmajian said, “that a population of students and teachers and parents have this much antibody to a virus that supposedly has not been in circulation for that long.”
Juris Grasis, an assistant professor of biology at UC Merced who studies virology and antiviral immunity – immune responses to viruses – didn’t question Atmajian’s tests, but cautioned against herd immunity conclusions when so little is still known about the coronavirus. As an example, he said over 60% of inmates at San Quentin State Prison tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies and yet more inmates there continue to get infected by the virus, “and that’s a static population that’s not going anywhere.”
“I don’t want to refute what the pathologist is saying. I like what he’s doing,” Grasis said of Atmajian’s antibody testing, “but I’m cautious about saying any herd or population immunity within a community that’s still interacting with lots of people.”
There are reports of people getting coronavirus more than once, including a recent reinfection in the U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that “herd immunity (the depletion of susceptible people) for COVID-19 has not been demonstrated to date. It is also unclear if an infected person develops immunity and the duration of potential immunity is unknown.”
Harvard Medical School said the presence of antibodies in a COVID-19 test means it’s “extremely likely” a person has been infected, and also previously warned that these antibodies “might not offer protection against getting reinfected in the future.”
The Mayo Clinic said this of potential herd immunity from COVID-19, which continues to be researched: “Experts estimate that in the U.S., 70% of the population – more than 200 million people – would have to recover from COVID-19 to halt the epidemic. If many people become sick with COVID-19 at once, the health care system could quickly become overwhelmed.”
The clinic said a coronavirus vaccine would be the “ideal approach to achieving herd immunity.”
In a column for The Washington Post, an associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University also urged caution.
“We need to be careful about declaring the epidemic over in a given location simply because cases have started to decline,” Justin Lessler said. “What may be adequate immunity to stem the virus in summer may not be enough to stop epidemic spread in the winter – a phenomena seen in each of the four modern influenza pandemics, where an initial summer wave quickly receded only to be followed by a large epidemic in the fall or winter.”
High number of COVID-19 cases in central San Joaquin Valley
Coronavirus cases remain high in the central San Joaquin Valley and Fresno County, where infections have been rising dramatically since June and spiked even higher this month.
More than three dozen people died from COVID-19 in Fresno County last week alone. At the end of last week, 738 people had died from the virus across the region, just looking at Fresno, Tulare, Kings, Madera, Merced and Mariposa counties.
More than 24,000 people in Fresno County have been infected since the pandemic began – more than 3,300 of them children. The county said that Reedley – where Immanuel Schools is located – has had nearly 1,200 coronavirus cases.
Grasis said coronavirus kills 2% to 3% of people who get it, compared to less than 1% who get the flu, making COVID-19 far more lethal. In addition, those with the flu will know they have it, getting symptoms within a few days. He said that’s different from coronavirus, where some people are asymptomatic and spread it that way. Also, Grasis said, COVID-19 can result in lifelong damage to the body and its organs.
Grasis hopes more coronavirus testing will be done in the Valley going forward, including COVID-19 spit tests recently approved by the FDA, which he said can help medical professionals get a better sense of how many people are asymptomatic. Atmajian said he also wants to see more coronavirus testing.
Coronavirus antibody testing of Immanuel Schools
Atmajian said he didn’t set out to test for herd immunity. It started with testing his family, including his four children who attend Immanuel Schools. After results came back positive, he offered in mid-July to test the school.
He said nurses associated with the school drew blood samples from those interested, and he received 198 vials on Aug. 3 to test and got results Aug. 13.
Atmajian used three proteins he described as specific to COVID-19 – S1 with RBD, RBD alone, and the Nucleocapsid protein – to test for antibodies. Antibodies are produced to counter what’s considered alien to the body, including viruses. In his testing, Atmajian said he considered someone as having had coronavirus if they developed antibodies related to two of the three proteins, but in some cases, just one where a response was high. He said this is a higher threshold than many tests available.
He said he modified what’s known as the Elisa procedure – what Atmajian and Grasis each independently described as a “gold standard” for testing.
A more common form of COVID-19 testing is nasal swabs, which look for the presence of the virus in a cell. Antibody testing looks for antibodies in the blood that are created in reaction to COVID-19, which can take days or weeks to develop after exposure to the virus.
Atmajian said his results show there is little risk for Immanuel students to return to in-classroom learning and that they should be allowed to do so.
Immanuel Schools has approximately 600 students. It lists 37 teachers on its website.
Atmajian acknowledged the reality of asymptomatic spread of COVID-19, but said it shouldn’t keep Immanuel Schools’ students away from the classroom. Those who are more vulnerable should take proper precautions to protect themselves from the virus, Atmajian said, “but these children should not really be put through this shelter-in-place process. … Put that on adults, not on the children.”
He also said something similar to Immanuel Schools Superintendent Ryan Wood, who wrote in a statement that “preventing schools from teaching students on campus is detrimental to students’ academic, physical, emotional, and spiritual development, while also imposing a burden to working families.” The school last week again declined to speak with The Bee.
Pathologist Atmajian
Pathologists perform lab tests and help health care professionals reach diagnoses.
Atmajian said he offered his Immanuel samples and procedures used to the Fresno County Department of Public Health to check, but they didn’t want them. The department didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.
Atmajian said he’s been working on his own for a few years. He was formerly a hospital pathologist with Pathology Associates, which has an office in Clovis. When asked if he was fired or decided to leave, Atmajian said it was a “little complicated” but came down to making a decision, and that he was a partner with a group he had a disagreement with. He also said the matter is in “private arbitration.”
The Medical Board of California reports Atmajian has a current physician license and that he graduated from UCLA School of Medicine in 1990. Atmajian is certified by the American Board of Pathology, according to an online list by the American Board of Medical Specialties.
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
