# MMR vaccine for COVID-19 protection? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [July 10, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978 "2020-07-10T22:25:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/1 "2020-07-10T22:25:53Z")
Some preliminary research suggests vaccines using live attenuated viruses, such as the MMR vaccine, could activate an immune response that could lessen the severity of symptoms if the person is later infected with SARS-COV-2. How much later is an open question; while the MMR vaccine confers lifelong immunity to measles, mumps, and rubella, the broader protection may only last weeks or months. > Adults who received the MMR vaccine as a child will likely still have antibodies against the measles, mumps and rubella viruses, but are unlikely to still have MDSCs, says Dr. Fidel. This means they would require a ‘booster’ vaccination to obtain the potential benefits against COVID-19. > “While the MDSCs are long-lived, they are not life-long cells. So, a booster MMR would enhance the antibodies to measles, mumps, and rubella and reinitiate the MDSCs. We would hope that the MDSCs induced by the MMR would have a fairly good life-span to get through the critical time of the pandemic.” > The researchers have proposed a clinical trial of the MMR vaccine in high-risk healthcare workers and first responders in New Orleans. They have also been awarded a grant to compare the MMR and BCG vaccines in a primate model of COVID-19. > “While we are conducting the clinical trials, I don’t think it’s going to hurt anybody to have an MMR vaccine that would protect against the measles, mumps, and rubella with this potential added benefit of helping against COVID-19.” > – Dr. Paul Fidel > If their hypothesis is correct, the authors say use of the MMR vaccine could present a ‘low-risk-high-reward’ measure to save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. > **[MMR vaccine could prevent worst symptoms of COVID-19](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/amp/articles/mmr-vaccine-could-prevent-worst-symptoms-of-covid-19)** > > New research finds that the MMR, the common vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella, can prevent the most severe symptoms in COVID-19. I decided to go ahead and get a booster shot, since there didn’t seem to be much downside. Kaiser’s benefits department ignored my message asking if I’d be eligible, and since money wasn’t an issue I just paid out of pocket at an unaffiliated urgent care clinic. (Some pharmacies offer these vaccines, but my local one was out of it.) It was $140 and 30 minutes out of my day, including travel time, and it stung but only for a few seconds. I hope there doesn’t end up being a shortage of these vaccines, which are critically important for serving their original purpose (we’ve had some recent measles outbreaks due to anti-vaxxers). But at least until there’s reason to suspect the manufacturers can’t keep up with demand, maybe this is a reasonable harm reduction strategy while we wait for a SARS-COV-2 vaccine. ---
**Author:** ![RealityCheck71](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitycheck71/32/3493_2.png) [@RealityCheck71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityCheck71)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2020, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/2 "2020-07-10T23:06:13Z")
I’ve seen similar proposals using the polio vaccine. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2020, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/3 "2020-07-11T00:52:36Z")
I guess it’s a good thing that I just had a booster last year - I was in the age cohort that might not have complete immunity to measles, so my doc did a tiger, and it turned out that I wasn’t completely immune to mumps instead. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2020, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/4 "2020-07-11T01:20:55Z")
I wonder why they’re not experimenting with the flu vaccine, especially considering how nervous the CDC etc. are about the possibly of a second wave hitting in time to overlap with flu season. Plus, there’s yet to have been a year even as many as 50% of Americans have gotten a flu shot so it’s much easier to find vaccine naive people to try it on than the MMR that most children have gotten over the past 50+ years, the recent dip caused by antivaxxers notwithstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2020, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/5 "2020-07-11T01:33:34Z")
I think it’s only the nasal spray, not the flu shot, that contains live virus. But maybe that would work? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2020, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/6 "2020-07-11T02:02:51Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > I guess it’s a good thing that I just had a booster last year - I was in the age cohort that might not have complete immunity to measles, so my doc did a titer, and it turned out that I wasn’t completely immune to mumps instead. Me, too, but my titer came back “immune”, so I didn’t get a booster. I had mumps as a child, and I was tested for rubella when I got married – the only question was the measles part. I don’t know if they tested for the others or not. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2020, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/7 "2020-07-11T02:21:12Z")
GAH titer, not tiger! That would have been quite an experience! ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/8 "2020-07-11T02:23:35Z")
Tigers might be worth trying as a preventive measure at this point. Gotta enforce social distancing somehow. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/9 "2020-07-11T21:54:21Z")
Had to read up on myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs). After doing so very unimpressed with the article, even if I think that live vaccines boosting the innate response has some promise and should be tested. [MDSCs](https://jhoonline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13045-019-0797-3) are a recently studied immature cell line mostly identified as having high numbers correlated with worse cancer outcomes. They make jumps that MMR can increase MDSCs, and that the suppression of the immune response caused by increased MDSCs, would lower the risk of harmful excessive immune responses in COVID-19. They also then argue for that by noting that “epidemiological data suggest a correlation between subjects in geographical locations who routinely receive live attenuated measles-rubella vaccines such as the commonly available MMR vaccine, and reduced COVID-19 death rates” (shots given in childhood) but also discuss how MMR booster would be needed because MDSCs don’t last long enough …? I suspect/hope the hypothesis that attenuated live vaccines like the MMR and BCG (and likely other _real_ infections) provide some level of innate system protection in some way will pan out, but they are real stretching with their hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/10 "2020-12-02T14:58:04Z")
Here’s another article on a different study. [Analysis of Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) Titers of Recovered COVID-19 Patients](https://mbio.asm.org/content/11/6/e02628-20?_ga=2.20998139.1501987780.1606228230-894866702.1605819311#sec-6) They studied blood titer levels for mumps, comparing a group who had received the MMRII vaccine as a child versus those who did not, but got mumps protection from other means. > [@](#): > > We divided 80 subjects into two groups, comparing MMR titers to recent COVID-19 severity levels. The MMR II group consisted of 50 subjects who would primarily have MMR antibodies from the MMR II vaccine, and a comparison group of 30 subjects consisted of those who would primarily have MMR antibodies from sources other than MMR II, including prior measles, mumps, and/or rubella illnesses. There was a significant inverse correlation ( _rs_ = −0.71, _P_ \< 0.001) between mumps virus titers (mumps titers) and COVID-19 severity within the MMR II group. There were no significant correlations between mumps titers and severity in the comparison group, between mumps titers and age in the MMR II group, or between severity and measles or rubella titers in either group. Within the MMR II group, mumps titers of 134 to 300 arbitrary units (AU)/ml ( _n_ = 8) were found only in those who were functionally immune or asymptomatic; all with mild symptoms had mumps titers below 134 AU/ml ( _n_ = 17); all with moderate symptoms had mumps titers below 75 AU/ml ( _n_ = 11); all who had been hospitalized and had required oxygen had mumps titers below 32 AU/ml ( _n_ = 5). Our results demonstrate that there is a significant inverse correlation between mumps titers from MMR II and COVID-19 severity. > [@](#): > > **IMPORTANCE** COVID-19 has presented various paradoxes that, if understood better, may provide clues to controlling the pandemic, even before a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available. First, young children are largely spared from severe disease. Second, numerous countries have COVID-19 death rates that are as low as 1% of the death rates of other countries. Third, many people, despite prolonged close contact with someone who is COVID-19 positive, never test positive themselves. Fourth, nearly half of people who test positive for COVID-19 are asymptomatic. Some researchers have theorized that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine may be responsible for these disparities. The significance of our study is that it showed that mumps titers related to the MMR II vaccine are significantly and inversely correlated with the severity of COVID-19-related symptoms, supporting the theorized association between the MMR vaccine and COVID-19 severity. Very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/11 "2020-12-02T15:10:45Z")
I found it hard to understand the implications of the study from the part you quoted. Here’s the first paragraph of the “discussion”: > We found that high mumps titers (134 to 300 AU/ml) from MMR II vaccinations were found only in subjects with asymptomatic and functionally immune COVID-19 cases. Subjects with moderate and severe cases of COVID-19 all had low mumps titer values (below 75 AU/ml). The significant inverse correlations that we observed in the MMR II group between mumps titers and severity, as well as between mumps titers and symptom scores, indicate that there is an association between mumps titers and COVID-19. This significant inverse correlation existed at all ages. In contrast, similar associations were not identified for measles or rubella titers. Prior research had suggested a possible relationship between COVID-19 and measles or rubella, in addition to mumps, based on the sequence homology of each with SARS-CoV-2 ([13](https://mbio.asm.org/content/11/6/e02628-20?_ga=2.20998139.1501987780.1606228230-894866702.1605819311#ref-13)). Our findings, however, have placed more emphasis on mumps. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mmr-vaccine-for-covid-19-protection/914978/12 "2020-12-03T14:45:08Z")
I will admit the study had a small sample size. 80 people is tiny. But the strong correlation within that sample is very suggestive and recommends further study. My interest was the part quoted in the Importance paragraph. It outlines specifically the peculiar behaviors of COVID19 - particularly that children are affected at such a tiny rate. Typically respiratory viruses hit children hard. That there may be some protection granted to covid by current immunization for other diseases is heartening, because it supports that vaccines can give long-term immunity or suppression. Also, it might give people an alternative to taking these new-fangled vaccines with fancy technology rushed through the approval process. If this study bears out, people who are skeptical of anything pumped out by the Trump administration might be more inclined to take a vaccine that is already previously in wide use with known safety.