Why is today’s convalescent plasma better than early on in the pandemic? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Convalescent plasma, which is donated by someone who’s had Covid-19 and survived, is a much more reliable treatment for infection today than it was early in the pandemic. Arturo Casadevall, a convalescent plasma expert at Johns Hopkins, explains why.

Casadevall: We lucked out in that now we can get extremely high titer plasma, something that did not exist in 2020. Why? Because people like myself, who’ve been vaccinated and then get Covid mount enormous antibody responses. So the quality of the plasma today is significantly better than anything that we ever used in the past. So you have better plasma, and you have need, and convalescent plasma is back. It’s also been documented that if you use monoclonals, which bind only to a single piece, that you select for monoclonal resistant variants.  :33 

Casadevall says people who are immunocompromised are the best candidates for convalescent plasma treatment. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.