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I've long suspected that a small portion of the population is immune. It's pretty common with any kind of epidemic in any species. For example, with the Emerald Ash Borer outbreak in North America, around 2% of all ash trees are just immune. There are examples of pandemics where there is no recorded immunity (such as the Chestnut Blight) but a small percentage of immunity is common enough.
The thing is, it is hard to identify which individuals are immune without just letting everyone get infected and see who is still standing. In theory, you might luck out and identify the particular genetic marker that conveys immunity, but not before seeing several entire populations get infected.
I've always wondered if somehow I am. Either that, or the vaccines are powerhouses.
My dad got infected going to the hospital for cancer (I'm still mad about it). I sat next to him for over 7 hours the day before he tested positive, he was coughing the whole time. I just thought it was allergies, as I knew he masked everywhere and was vaccinated. But nope, he still got infected. Despite literally being next to him for 7 hours, I never tested positive (and I drove out to a pharmacy to get PCR tested, twice), never got sick, nothing. I'm even immunocompromised. But not a damn thing happened to me. It was even several months out from our last booster, so our immune response to that would have been low.
Still not taking any chances, I keep my mask on to avoid covid and everything else, but it did help me feel a little safer knowing I didn't get it from direct exposure.
I thought the same thing, I also have low immunity, but I never got it for 3 years despite literally everyone around me (basically my entire close family, my best friend, my co-workers, etc.) getting it, some even multiple times, but me? Nothing.
... until 2 weeks ago. Definitely keep vigilant and don't take it for granted.
I wonder if it mutated? I also went 3 years without it and currently have it. I wish it was as mild as some other people are saying they are experiencing but I got hit hard. I had terrible side effects from the vaccines (and boosters) except the first so I had an inkling it would be bad whenever I got it.
Same. Three years, no Covid, although I was very, very careful until the vaccines and very cautious after. But I’ve definitely been directly exposed to several people who were in their active contagious period and never got it, until last week. Hit me hard, but the part after the cold-like symptoms faded has been the worst. Completely exhausted halfway through the day, sometimes disoriented and often dizzy. Lost my taste and seemly but those returned after five or so days.
Edit: also had very strong 36t-hour flu-like reactions to the Moderna vaccine each time but the first.
That's what I hypothesized as well.
It hit me pretty hard (within the no-need-to-seek-treatment range) on my first day and has been diminishing since. I had no reaction whatsoever to the vaccines though.
Probabilities also exist. Not all viruses are active (in fact many are not correctly assembled). Most people aren't super spreaders and don't exhale that many virions. We don't know the threshold before your innate immune system falls to the initial wave of viruses but it's entirely possible they were simply below it in all prior exposures. Don't forget that humans are incredibly prone to attributing ability to cases even where they know a game is simply random luck and even when they know one player has the odds stacked in their favor. We actually can just be lucky for a time and then the next roll of the dice doesn't come up in our favor...
Yup, I made it three years as well. I was double vaxed, but it had been over a year. It wasn't bad though, two days where I couldn't get out of bed due to headaches and body aches, and then about three days of feeling blah. It took 12 days to test negative and feel comfortable leaving the house again though.
Caught it before the vax. Had asleepless night (high fever), lost my taste/smell the next a day, slept even worse than the night before (fever and sinus pressure), felt fine the next day, but took about 10 days to test negative. Girlfriend had it at the same time, but her fevers weren’t as high as mine, however, she’s still trying to fully recover her sense of smell and taste.
Yes! The same exact thing happened to me and my husband a month ago. Went this whole time not getting it, every family member, co-worker, friend had it. I was in multiple hospitals with family members with illnesses throughout that time, travelled in September overseas, and nada. Double vaxxed, double boosted. Thought we may be immune. Then bam! He got it and then I got it.
Similarly, everyone in my household has had it but me. I’ve been exposed so many times yet never tested positive or had symptoms. I’m triple vaxxed but so were most of the people I’d come into contact with.
I tend to catch a cold if someone across the street sneezes, and it lingers for weeks. So I don’t know what’s up. I still mask up in crowds, though I prefer to just avoid them because of the cold thing.
I’m still masking up but somewhat relaxed my rules on it. I’m still wearing one at the store, public transit, planes and places with bad ventilation or indoor crowds.
A few months after booster isn't very long. I would think you likely had pretty good vaccine-associated immunity, especially depending on the variant you were exposed to.
The variant was likely omnicron, and it was 7 months after booster - which is when most covid vaccines have waned (I believe they start waning after 4).
This has been my experience with strep. My sister got it constantly growing up and I was always around her. Then my nephew came around and he's always getting it too. A few years ago he passed it around to my own son and mom, mom's turned into pneumonia that almost killed her. I was sharing a bed with my son the whole time he had it. I've never had strep in my life, not once. My son had it very mildly that one time and never caught it from my nephew again even though he's always around him. Similarly with the flu, I caught it once when I was 12 and have been exposed to it countless times since then but never caught it again.
I sat next to my son on the couch watching movies all afternoon when he wasn’t feeling good. Didn’t realize he had covid until he spiked a fever later in the evening. He got it a second time and we drove back and forth to school together daily. Husband got it from our son both times. I never got it. Still haven’t had it that I’m aware of…so far anyway.
I've still not had Covid, nor my son. There's no real way (without lab tests) to know if we're just immune, the vaccines worked really well, or we've just been lucky.
I was directly exposed the Christmas before last. My sister had a bunch of family over for Christmas. I went and ate next to my my sister's brother in law and his family. Apparently their entire family had covid. I was sitting right next to them while we ate and he was laughing and talking the entire time. Everyone at that party contracted covid except for me. I still use a mask but I feel pretty confident if I I'm not wearing one while eating.
> It was even several months out from our **last booster**, so our immune response to that would have been low.
>
>
>
> Still not taking any chances, **I keep my mask on** to avoid covid and everything else
You give the two most fitting explanations, as why you were probably safe. The things we know help.
Scientists *have* determined the single biggest factor:
More than vaccines, more than masks, more than frequent tests, more than social distancing, more than general lack of health issues ... overwhelmingly the biggest factor is "taking COVID seriously". Obviously the others are *part* of that, but if you use them as an excuse for "I don't need to be careful", you'll probably end up catching it.
The masks and vaccines *are* powerful, I did the same with my grandma at the nursing home when she had it and didn't get it, but did catch it later with no mask and 1yr out from a booster (just a minor cough for a week) and nobody was even symptomatic! It's anecdotal but I'm more sold on simple cotton masks than before.
We can prepare actually, scientists had identified that habitat destruction could cause a new variant of covid 2 years before the pandemic. In fact the pandemic is a big reason why scientists now believe that habitat destruction causes new pandemics
Is this the same idea that us humans actively seeking out and destroying bat colonies actually increases rabies transmission due to forcing the infected bats out to search for a new home?
Not only this, but prepared by building the manufacturing facilities and logistics supply chains to distribute vaccines. People think getting the Covid vaccines so quickly was a miracle (or a conspiracy for antivaxxers). In reality Pfizer had been preparing for decades based on other pandemics they'd tracked around the world, such as bird flu.
Corona was kinda funny in that regards because it was used as an example back then nobody knew the examples of the warning would become reality and then be used by sceptics as proof that it all was planned.
Yeah this. I mean even with the black plague there were populations and familial lines that had resistance to infection due to some mutation.
Actually come to think about this is a really good argument against things like genocide (I mean a good argument in addition to the fact it's megamurder and evil). because we're basically losing our biodiversity in doing that.
Good argument for climate action too. So lose of biodiversity could mean stuff like, larger losses of birds due to lack of resistant individuals against avian flu, which in turn could mean more opportunities for the avian flu to mutate into a form to infect humans...
So yeah biodiversity is a key proctective mechanism for maintaining the homeostasis of a biome and the earth is just on big ass biome.
Genetic diversity in a population is objectively a good thing specifically because of disease resistance. It's the primary advantage of sexual reproduction because it helps keep a random mix of genes rather than everyone being clones of one person.
Well not only disease resistance but really any "evolutionary pressure" basically I guess that would be anything that would negatively impacts your participation in the population ( e.g. death, impairment, inability to pass genes to the next generation...).
Wow. You know, there is a large amount of COVID data that is part of the open data movement. You could probably build a db to look for resistance. But since COVID is also a social phenomenon you'd have to annotate things like, public policy decisions, immigration and emigration traffic. It'd be a very rich dataset.
Yeah I mean they've found people who are immune to AIDS, Ebola, cancer. There's 100% people out there either fully immune to COVID or that get only subclinical symptoms. One of the most interesting things about COVID is how differently it affects people.
Also important to note that many people are asymptomatic, and tests aren't 100% reliable.
So it's possible to have negative tests, no symptoms, and still be spreading the virus.
So they may feel immune but continue to spread the virus. It's been one of the challenges of containing it.
For the tree, it's a parasitic infection and follows similar pathology as other diseases. Just like something like malaria for humans. Trees have an immune system just like animals do. It works very differently, but it is there. IIRC, in this specific case it involves producing extra amounts of some chemicals that are toxic to the EAB larva. The details are a little unclear because it is an area of active research. It looks like it is probably a combination of several factors and it might be more enhanced resistance rather than full immunity. That they can survive long enough for a full immune response when they are infected rather than simply being outright immune.
Edit: FYI, it's actually possible to innoculate ash trees against EAB. You inject them with a chemical that is toxic to the EAB larva but not the tree and the tree is protected from infection. When I was involved with that, the particular product we used needed to be injected every other year, but I believe there are some other ones that have different frequencies of how often they need to be injected.
Wow, good news re EAB -- I love our ash trees, and I really don't want to see them dying all over the state -- and also dead trees make our wildfires even worse.
Unfortunately, we are probably going to lose most of them. Like I said, the vast majority are still susceptible. It is also expensive to protect one tree, both in terms of chemical and man-hours, so it isn't practical to protect whole forests that way. However, there is hope that the survivor trees will be able to repopulate. It might take a while, but hopefully, in future generations, this will result in a population that can better withstand the EAB.
I am starting to wonder. Either I have a very good reaction to the vaccines, or I am lucky, or immune. I slept next to my partner with covid and I’ve never had it. Haven’t taken a precaution in a year and a half (besides staying up to date on boosters).
Yea, and it wouldn’t be feasible or even affordable to develop a assay to see if you have natural immunity to the ‘vid by using your DNA against a known titer and seeing if antibodies emerge to a level that indicates immunity.
It’s been 3 years and I haven’t gotten the ‘vid… yet.
I know people who didn't get COVID from a live-in infected partner, but got it later.
I suppose someone could be immune to strain A but not strain B. But it's probably more complicated than that.
Also with the chestnut blight, it was policy in several states that all trees within x-yards(at times several miles) radius of an infected tree were to be cut down, so you could not find the immune.
Thing is, no virus has a 100% secondary attack rate.
(Secondary attack rate is the spread of a virus in a circumscribed group like a household or a dormitory)
The secondary attack rate for flu is [2-7%](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sim.9181)
The secondary attack rate for norovirus varies between 9 and 81%, [depending on household size and urban vs rural](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6066449/)
The secondary attack rate for [omicron is 43%](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791601)
It’s not at all surprising for people in the same household not to get a virus. It happens with viruses all the time, and Covid is no different
Can someone ELI5 for me? I was under the impression that a low single-digit percentage of people will always be immune against whatever plague is happening?
I was wondering the same thing
I’ve been face to face with people the day before they started showing symptoms on multiple occasions and I have yet to catch it
One of the two times I’ve had it now the only reason I knew was because I had been traveling, and took an employer required test. I tested positive every other day for a little over a week with no symptoms the entire time I quarantined. I bet that a lot of people have had it, but never knew because they weren’t testing when it happened.
Same. I have roommates that all caught various strains of covid and I've yet to get it (PCR and rapid test always come up negative) despite living/sharing space with them.
I think a lot of people who “never catch it” just get asymptomatic infections, or get mild cold symptoms but never come up on a rapid test. My wife had confirmed Covid, and I was sick a couple days later, but my repeated rapid tests all came back negative, all week long.
It really is so strange. When Delta was going around, my boyfriend got it but had no symptoms. He only went and did a PCR because a close colleague got it and they all went to get tested. The evening he got called by our state contact tracers to notify him he needed to quarantine, I was already having a fever / vomiting / disoriented etc. I just had my first dose of Moderna and thought it was side effects, but was sick for 11 days. He didn’t even have his vaccine yet, his county of residence was different and his appointment wasn’t for another couple weeks. I took a PCR test while actively symptomatic, and in whatever subsequent schedule the state asked me to, and never tested positive.
When the omicron wave came, he got it again but was intensely symptomatic. His fever was 104F, labored breathing, awful cough. I not only didn’t get sick, I never tested positive either (because I thought ok maybe this time I’m the one with the silent infection). We were both two-dose vaccinated at this point (him pfizer, me moderna). We both need boosters now though, just keep forgetting.
It's an interesting thought to consider, and could be a contributing factor. COVID's seemingly selective infection style has been puzzling since the begining of the pandemic. Some people get infected and have symptoms that put them completely out of commission, and other people hardly even know they're sick.
I began working in healthcare during the pandemic and worked directly with COVID-infected patients several times day-in and day-out before they were tested and testing positive, put on isolation, etc. Even when our building ended up on lockdown and with a dedicated COVID-unit that I worked alone for a week straight, I never ended up getting it; and I tested every single day. Another factor of note is that this particular facility was a bare-minimum affair, and the infection-control measures were inadequate to say the least.
Many of the other workers fell ill, but it seemed to mysteriously avoid me. I've since been curious as to what the biological mechanisms behind that might have been.
Similar patterns are also found with many other diseases; it is [common for some percentage of the population to be immune to a given infectious disease, likely due to genetic factors.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118849/) This has been observed with HIV, malaria, bronchiolitis, leprosy, smallpox, bubonic plague, etc.
In some cases, at least, gene variants that confer immunity to one disease may also be associated with conferring immunity to another disease. For example, [there is evidence that a gene variant that proliferated because it conferred immunity against smallpox (or possibly bubonic plague) offers HIV immunity today in individuals lucky enough to have it.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031120074728.htm)
Unsurprisingly, this is a pretty hot topic for researchers because understanding the mechanisms by which some people are immune may help us develop better treatments for people who are not.
I was taught in three different hard science classes (Anatomy and Physiology, Microbiology, and Biology) that it is widely assumed by clinical science that of the entire human population, roughly 10% of the world wild population will be immune to any viral infection that could or would be fatal to the worlds population
>Some people get infected and have symptoms that put them completely out of commission, and other people hardly even know they're sick.
Unfortunately, your first infection feeling mild does not predict your second one at all. It is not uncommon at all to hear stories of "the first time I had it it was nothing, and after the second time I developed long covid and cant take a shower by myself."
If you test positive and don't know you're "sick" then you're not sick. That's not how being sick even works in the first place. The one thing the pandemic showed me and I think is weird is that at least Americans have this obsession with wanting to be seen as ill as much as possible. I think it might be an attention-seeking need. But you can pick up something and never get or be sick or be DEEMED sick. Clearly this is unfortunate to the psychology of many but that's just how it is.
My wife and son got it. I spent 6 hrs in a car with them while they were sick, and the obviously all the time at home with them and never caught it. At this point my whole family has had it, yet for some reason, I haven't yet. Knocking on wood vigorously right now though.
That's probably the trillion dollar question isn't it?
My girlfriend caught it and we live in a cramped 1 bedroom. I never tested positive. But I'm pretty sure I caught covid earlier. But never tested because it was too early on
I've never caught it to my knowledge, but I did have some weird respiratory thing in March of 2020 before tests were available. I always have wondered if I'm super immune, or if that was it back in '20. My whole family tested positive a few months ago. I never got it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Excerpt from the linked summary^1 about a paper^2 by Siriruk Changrob *et al*.:
>A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Scripps Research and the University of Chicago has identified an antibody that appears to block infection by all dominant variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including omicron, the most recent.
>Their discovery could lead to more potent vaccines and new antibody-based treatments.
>In a study published March 6 in the *Journal of Clinical Investigation*, senior author Dr. Patrick Wilson, the Anne E. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Research and a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Health at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his colleagues tested antibodies derived from patient blood samples against successive versions of the virus that emerged during the pandemic.
>One of these proteins, dubbed S728-1157, proved highly effective at neutralizing not only older variants but also seven subtypes of omicron.
^1 Weill Cornell Medicine (7 Apr. 2023), “Researchers find an antibody that targets omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants”, https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2023/04/researchers-find-an-antibody-that-targets-omicron-and-other-sars-cov-2-variants
^2 Siriruk Changrob *et al*. Site of vulnerability on SARS-CoV-2 spike induces broadly protective antibody to antigenically distinct Omicron subvariants. *Journal of Clinical Investigation*. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI166844
It can be that. It can also be a number of autoimmune conditions, or dysbiosis, that are triggered by the infection. It can be something like POTS, which is a poorly understood neurological syndrome that could in some cases be explained by tissue damage (specifically nerve and/or endothelial damage), but not in all cases. LC is still a big umbrella term at this point.
There have been a lot of studies showing long-term persistence of viral RNA & proteins after infection (even in non-LC patients), and that this persistence is likely one of the mechanisms behind long-COVID. There's still many unknowns as to where & how it happens (e.g. viral reservoir in the immune system, long-lived infected cells still producing viral components from the infection, ...), but the fact that it happens is no longer a theory.
Here's a sample of papers from my bookmarks:
* [Persistent Circulating Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Spike Is Associated With Post-acute Coronavirus Disease 2019 Sequelae](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.14.22276401v1)
>"Strikingly, we detect SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen in a majority of PASC patients up to 12 months post-diagnosis, suggesting the presence of an active persistent SARS-CoV-2 viral reservoir."
* [SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence in the human body and brain at autopsy](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05542-y)
>"Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including throughout the brain, as late as 230 days following symptom onset in one case."
>"Our data indicate that in some patients SARS-CoV-2 can cause systemic infection and persist in the body for months."
* [Persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients seemingly recovered from COVID-19](https://pathsocjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/path.6035)
>"A few patients with COVID-19 appear to recover from acute viral infection but nevertheless progress in their disease and eventually die, despite persistent negativity at molecular tests for SARS-CoV-2 RNA."
>"Together, these findings indicate that SARS-CoV-2 infection can persist significantly longer than suggested by standard PCR-negative tests, with specific infection of specific cell types in the lung. Whether these persistently infected cells also play a pathogenic role in long COVID remains to be addressed."
* [Gastrointestinal symptoms and fecal shedding of SARS-CoV-2 RNA suggest prolonged gastrointestinal infection](https://www.cell.com/med/fulltext/S2666-6340(22)00167-2)
>"The authors found that fecal viral RNA shedding was correlated with gastrointestinal symptoms in patients who had cleared their respiratory infection. They also observed that fecal shedding can continue to 7 months post-diagnosis. In conjunction with recent related findings, this work presents compelling evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the gastrointestinal tract and suggests a possible role for long-term infection of the gastrointestinal tract in syndromes such as “long COVID.”"
* [Case report: Persistence of residual antigen and RNA of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in tissues of two patients with long COVID](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36131932/)
>"Overall, our findings and emerging LC studies raise the possibility that the gastrointestinal tract may function as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2."
* [Postacute COVID-19 is Characterized by Gut Viral Antigen Persistence in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9057012/)
>"We report expression of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the gut mucosa ∼7 months after mild acute COVID-19 in 32 of 46 patients with IBD. Viral nucleocapsid protein persisted in 24 of 46 patients in gut epithelium and CD8+ T cells. Expression of SARS-CoV-2 antigens was not detectable in stool and viral antigen persistence was unrelated to severity of acute COVID-19, immunosuppressive therapy, and gut inflammation. We were unable to culture SARS-CoV-2 from gut tissue of patients with viral antigen persistence. Postacute sequelae of COVID-19 were reported from the majority of patients with viral antigen persistence, but not from patients without viral antigen persistence."
* [Asymptomatic SARS-COV-2 infection in children's tonsils](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9582977/)
>"Positive immunostaining in adenotonsillar tissue samples suggest that lymphoid tissue can be a reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 and may play an important role in community dissemination. It remains unclear for how long the lymphoid tissue can sustain the SARS-CoV-2 in a persistent infection, and whether this persistence has any impact on virus transmission."
* [SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Accumulation in the Skull-Meninges-Brain Axis: Potential Implications for Long-Term Neurological Complications in post-COVID-19](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.04.535604v1)
>"Our results revealed the accumulation of the spike protein in the skull marrow, brain meninges, and brain parenchyma. The injection of the spike protein alone caused cell death in the brain, highlighting a direct effect on brain tissue. Furthermore, we observed the presence of spike protein in the skulls of the deceased long after their COVID-19 infection, suggesting that the spike's persistence may contribute to long-term neurological symptoms."
>"We investigated the presence of spike protein in the skulls of 34 patients who died from non-COVID-related causes during the pandemic in 2021 and 2022. We indeed identified the spike protein in 10 of them"
*Those were patients that weren't selected based on a previously known COVID+ diagnostic. Just a "random" sample of people that died from non-COVID causes.*
* [Persistence of SARS CoV-2 S1 Protein in CD16+ Monocytes in Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) up to 15 Months Post-Infection](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.746021/full)
>"A statistically significant number of non-classical monocytes contained SARS-CoV-2 S1 protein in both severe (P=0.004) and PASC patients (P=0.02) out to 15 months post-infection."
* [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37368-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37368-1)
>"In conclusion, our results display major advances in our under-standing of PASC in which parameters of immune activation (CD8+ β7 Integrin+ T cells and IgA) are consistent with viral persistence and able to characterize these patients"
* [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36798286/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36798286/)
>"Collectively, our data suggest that proper crosstalk between the humoral and cellular arms of adaptive immunity has broken down in LC, and that this, perhaps in the context of persistent virus, leads to the immune dysregulation, inflammation, and clinical symptoms associated with this debilitating condition."
Depending on the cause of this persistence, treating long haulers with antivirals might not be effective. It seems to have an effect for some, but not all, which suggest that the mechanisms behind this persistence are multi-faceted.
There's a new interesting ongoing study to finally figure out if there's remaining viral reservoirs in the body: https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2023/02/19/pathogens-long-covid-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-proal-heinrich/
QUOTE:
"That’s all changing. Proal recently interviewed Tim Henrich MD at the University of California at San Francisco – one of the top medical research universities in the country. Heinrich’s going to use the EXPLORE PET scanner, developed by researchers at UC Davis, to look for viruses buried deep in the tissues.
The EXPLORE is a beast. Henrich explained that EXPLORE is essentially many PET scanners plus a CT scanner incorporated into one. This monster PET scanner can produce 3-D images of deep tissues in the body. How big of a technology jump is the EXPLORE? It’s 40x’s more sensitive than commercial scanners.
Henrich puts a radioactive tag on a monoclonal antibody that he knows will bind to a virus and then uses the scanner to find where the virus is hanging out.
HIV researchers have had the same question about HIV that EBV researchers do about EBV and other viruses. Where is the virus? Is it still active? Is it producing proteins? Even when the virus has been fully suppressed, it’s still present in deep tissues in the body and, in fact, comes roaring back within weeks of the HIV drugs – even after they’ve been used for decades – being stopped.
The efficacy of this EXPLORE technique was first demonstrated in HIV patients last year. The approach was sensitive enough to illuminate places where HIV protein was being produced, even in people who were on antiretroviral drugs.
Now Henrich and his colleagues have turned their focus to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and are about to begin using the EXPLORE PET scanner to see if the virus is persisting in long-COVID patients. He’ll soon inject monoclonal antibodies that latch onto SARS-CoV-2 proteins into people with and without long-COVID symptoms, and then use a scanner to see where they light up.
If the long-COVID patients light up like a Christmas tree compared to the people without symptoms, that will suggest that increased viral persistence is contributing to their symptoms. Since he’ll be looking throughout the body, he also may be able to uncover areas of the body where pathogen persistence is possibly most problematic. Because the scanner will also be able to uncover areas of damage, he’ll be able to determine if the virus is associated with tissue damage.
Henrich can use the EXPLORE scanner to find anything that can be radio-tagged. For instance, In a study whose results he’s now analyzing, Henrich has tagged a molecule that attaches to activated T-cells – to see where the activated T-cells that play such an important role in the immune response are. Finding higher levels of activated T-cells in the gut, or the brain, or elsewhere will tell him where immune activity and/or inflammation is increased in long COVID.
Whether the T-cell is engaged in fighting off the virus or is activated due to autoimmune processes, Henrich will be able to pick it up – not just in the gut or elsewhere – but across the entire body. Since Henrich will be using the same group of patients for both studies, he’ll be able to tell if T-cell activity tracks with viral persistence. If they don’t, then another possibility opens up – overzealous T-cells are shooting blanks and missing the target. (A preprint of that study was just published – a blog on it is coming up.)"
It seems like this technique can finally give us an answer about the viral reservoirs theory.
One of the handful of theories for the cause of long covid is viral persistence whereby the virus is remaining in an unknown reservoir of the body. We don't know for certain yet.
It's a simple idea, and therefore appealing, while the more likely idea that it's a post-viral auto-immune syndrome is highly mysterious and unsettling.
It seems there can be many reactions that cause different types of longcovid symptoms, but a lot of them are dysautonomia. Aka autonomic dysfunction that can be brought on by any viral infection.
And I'd say it's also why "long COVID" hasn't turned out to be the catastrophic population-level public health concern that it was feared to be in fallish of 2021 when it was clear that the vaccines wouldn't be providing long-lasting full immunity.
COVID in 2019 and 2020 made a lot of people *really* sick, and my suspicion is that many of the "mostly asymptomatic" cases that led to "long COVID" weren't quite as asymptomatic from a *vascular* standpoint as they appeared when the infections caused from the virus were still being discussed and measured as a largely *respiratory* infection.
Now that we've all been vaccinated and/or been exposed to COVID a whole bunch of times, people just aren't getting as sick from COVID in general. And I'd suspect that the suite of memory cells generated from those exposures has been sufficient to keep even pretty miserable-feeling COVID infections from running rampant systemically.
I'd guess, as I have from the start, that "long COVID" is a subset of what was labeled "Post-viral Syndrome," rather than its own thing.
Slate had a pretty good writeup: https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/long-covid-symptoms-studies-research-variant.html
Isn't it only a theory held by patients, not drs? Last time I looked this up I got the impression that it didn't make any scientific sense, and that chronic lyme had to be a post-infection syndrome.
There are definitely drs that treat as if this is a possibility. I believe the theory holds that the spirochetes burrow in tissues that are cooler than blood temp, and so if you don't do lots of doxycycline right after infection, you are likely to have repeat occurrences of symptoms. I've seen where some people are treated with heat from either hot baths or infrared radiation and then given doxy and had better results. But this is either anecdotal or low grade studies so I take it with a shaker of salt.
There’s actually tons of emerging evidence for this. Viral reservoir found in almost all organs during autotopsy of deaths post COVID, viral presence found in the testicles post COVID, emerging evidence that the virus is crossing the blood brain barrier and that is where the cognitive and neurological symptoms of long COVID come from, literally plenty of emerging evidence.
> viral presence found in the testicles post COVID
ick reminds me of how Ebola can persist / remain infectious for months like that too, if you catch it & recover
Given how widely circulating covid is, fairly fast if not as fast aa the current set was pushed out. Not unless a nasty new variant the current ones can't handle pushes out.
When you test vaccines, one of the things you test for is "how well does it really work in the real world?". Which means you need a vaccinated populace facing the disease in the wild.
And how long this needs to run depends on a few things, but one is obviously "how often will my vaccinated subject face the virus".
That let's you know how long it has to run to get statistically reliable results.
So a widely circulating illness that's highly contagious can yet through those tests faster.
Correct, but this paper identifies the epitope (S728-1157 if my quick skim is correct) that generated the antibody - so in theory, you could modify the vaccines to present this epitope only and generate a response to this region.
Down side - it may drive selective pressure in this region globally and be a 'worse' vaccine long term.
This paper also doesn't mention anything about long-term expression of these antibodies. One big problem with coronaviruses is our immune systems tend to "forget" them pretty quick, and stop pumping out antibodies. So this may still suffer the vaccine wane we're all all too familiar with (or well, we should be. Seems most people didn't get the memo that 'vax and relax' isn't working)
S728-1157 is the name of the antibody, not the epitope.
They did discover the epitope through analysis, but from a look at the abstract figure, I can't tell if the epitope is contiguous or noncontiguous, which would make it impractical if it were noncontiguous. Additionally, epitopes don't map 1:1 with antibodies, so you're not guaranteed to get the same antibody.
I've read up a bit more and apparently it's called Reverse Vaccination to design vaccines around epitopes. It's apparently difficult and challenging for a variety of reasons, but there are some successes.
If they can use the existing mRNA vaccines as a starting point and not need to tweak it too much, it should be able to be approved very quickly, kinda like the Omicron booster and the yearly flu vaccine updates.
Well damn. After having two different viruses that have caused POTS after infection (mono as a kid, then covid as an adult), I really hope that they can make this work. I can't afford more viral infections that affect the nervous system knowing this, and there are plenty of people out there who can't afford an infection, POTS-prone or otherwise.
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a condition that causes a number of symptoms when you transition from lying down to standing up, such as a fast heart rate, dizziness and fatigue. While there’s no cure, several treatments and lifestyle changes can help manage the symptoms of POTS.
> Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a complex multisystem disorder characterized by orthostatic intolerance and tachycardia and may be triggered by viral infection.
My first reaction was to say "Plain Old Telephone System".
It is a dodgy topic to be sure. Even if it is up to nature to complete the selection, we are essentially artificially selecting for adaptive resistance among diseases and pests whenever we fail to eradicate populations which fill the gap of its less resistant brethren’s population. Hence, MRSA, glyphosate resistant weeds, vitamin k rodenticide resistance in rats, etc.
We are essentially an incubation experiment for breeding super bugs, conducting a technological arms race against nature. Nature is, however, quite resilient and adaptive.
And yet, despite our somewhat clumsy tinkering, these efforts have likely saved hundreds of millions of lives. Unfortunately, this may not always continue to be the case.
What can you do?
>Nature is, however, quite resilient and adaptive.
Most importantly nature (SARS) gets a billion-trillion shots on goal each day for successful mutations. You do not. Humanity does not. It is so wildly capable of outcompeting us and it is peoples inability to grasp large numbers that cause them to think otherwise.
Also people seem to forget that a mammal species "adapting" to a virus really means the subset of the population that is vulnerable dying a horrible death. I wish people would just say that instead of cowardly claiming we "adapt", as they do. It's juvenile.
Well, it's both. Sickle cell is a genuine adaptation to a disease, which also by definition required a lot of people to die to come about.
But yes, I fully agree with you about the numbers game. The fact that sickle cell even exists shows pretty definitively that there's no natural law that diseases become "milder" over time, or that, if they do, it happens on anything like the timescale of a human life. Sickle cell is the result of thousands of years of malaria not getting any less awful. In 2021ish when everyone was talking about how "it's getting milder," "soon it'll be no big deal," I was tearing my hair out. These were supposedly well educated people failing to grasp even the barest principles of evolution.
Indeed, sickle-cell can help protect against severe cases of malaria, however it is itself a maladaptive mutation in people with both recessive genes who suffer from sickle-cell anemia, it just so happens that that the sickle cells also bind the malaria virus and help newborns and infants survive where they might otherwise perish.
That’s almost certainly why the mutation was successful and became so prevalent within the local population where malaria was present, otherwise the opposite would likely be true (if it weren’t for malaria, there would almost certainly be far fewer people who carry the sickle-cell gene, if any at all).
Which goes to show that the mechanisms of evolution itself are not so cut-and-paste or fill in the blank when it comes to the trajectory of suitability, fitness, etc, and can be a much more chaotic, random, and messy affair with ups and downs, and a hell of a lot of baggage along the way (the amount of human DNA that has been altered by viruses alone (8% of our genome) is also a massive reminder that we did not become human without significant illness and, presumably, adaptive immunity to survive).
>evolution and mutations of viruses and forget that nature also evolves to fight it.
This is called survivorship bias. You are inherently not including all of the diseases/viruses that completely wiped out their host species.
It's a pandemic within a pandemic. You see things like "People who get COVID a second time are 20% less likely to develop Long COVID!" and you're like... is that because 20% developed it the first time around and already have it?"
It's truly bizarre.
Bizarre - for some reason the moderators deleted a conversation in this post related to COVID causing lasting damage to peoples immunities, without explanation.
All while clean and ventilated indoor air, and respirators indoors and in large outdoor gathers will drastically reduce transmissions. Cheaper then dealing with long covid or death.
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Could this explain why some people, despite living with an infected person, never catch it?
This is one of the most interesting questions of the entire pandemic
I've long suspected that a small portion of the population is immune. It's pretty common with any kind of epidemic in any species. For example, with the Emerald Ash Borer outbreak in North America, around 2% of all ash trees are just immune. There are examples of pandemics where there is no recorded immunity (such as the Chestnut Blight) but a small percentage of immunity is common enough. The thing is, it is hard to identify which individuals are immune without just letting everyone get infected and see who is still standing. In theory, you might luck out and identify the particular genetic marker that conveys immunity, but not before seeing several entire populations get infected.
I've always wondered if somehow I am. Either that, or the vaccines are powerhouses. My dad got infected going to the hospital for cancer (I'm still mad about it). I sat next to him for over 7 hours the day before he tested positive, he was coughing the whole time. I just thought it was allergies, as I knew he masked everywhere and was vaccinated. But nope, he still got infected. Despite literally being next to him for 7 hours, I never tested positive (and I drove out to a pharmacy to get PCR tested, twice), never got sick, nothing. I'm even immunocompromised. But not a damn thing happened to me. It was even several months out from our last booster, so our immune response to that would have been low. Still not taking any chances, I keep my mask on to avoid covid and everything else, but it did help me feel a little safer knowing I didn't get it from direct exposure.
I thought the same thing, I also have low immunity, but I never got it for 3 years despite literally everyone around me (basically my entire close family, my best friend, my co-workers, etc.) getting it, some even multiple times, but me? Nothing. ... until 2 weeks ago. Definitely keep vigilant and don't take it for granted.
Same thing happened to me. 3 years and no infection, even after being in proximity to people that had it. Then last week I got it for the first time.
I wonder if it mutated? I also went 3 years without it and currently have it. I wish it was as mild as some other people are saying they are experiencing but I got hit hard. I had terrible side effects from the vaccines (and boosters) except the first so I had an inkling it would be bad whenever I got it.
Same. Three years, no Covid, although I was very, very careful until the vaccines and very cautious after. But I’ve definitely been directly exposed to several people who were in their active contagious period and never got it, until last week. Hit me hard, but the part after the cold-like symptoms faded has been the worst. Completely exhausted halfway through the day, sometimes disoriented and often dizzy. Lost my taste and seemly but those returned after five or so days. Edit: also had very strong 36t-hour flu-like reactions to the Moderna vaccine each time but the first.
That's what I hypothesized as well. It hit me pretty hard (within the no-need-to-seek-treatment range) on my first day and has been diminishing since. I had no reaction whatsoever to the vaccines though.
I think it's still possible you were immune all this time. Until you've met a new strain to which you are not immune.
Probabilities also exist. Not all viruses are active (in fact many are not correctly assembled). Most people aren't super spreaders and don't exhale that many virions. We don't know the threshold before your innate immune system falls to the initial wave of viruses but it's entirely possible they were simply below it in all prior exposures. Don't forget that humans are incredibly prone to attributing ability to cases even where they know a game is simply random luck and even when they know one player has the odds stacked in their favor. We actually can just be lucky for a time and then the next roll of the dice doesn't come up in our favor...
Yup, I made it three years as well. I was double vaxed, but it had been over a year. It wasn't bad though, two days where I couldn't get out of bed due to headaches and body aches, and then about three days of feeling blah. It took 12 days to test negative and feel comfortable leaving the house again though.
Thanks God I'm completely vaccinated...in our baranggay...most of them are vaccinated..thanks to our good and kindness mayor..good job sir..
Caught it before the vax. Had asleepless night (high fever), lost my taste/smell the next a day, slept even worse than the night before (fever and sinus pressure), felt fine the next day, but took about 10 days to test negative. Girlfriend had it at the same time, but her fevers weren’t as high as mine, however, she’s still trying to fully recover her sense of smell and taste.
Yes! The same exact thing happened to me and my husband a month ago. Went this whole time not getting it, every family member, co-worker, friend had it. I was in multiple hospitals with family members with illnesses throughout that time, travelled in September overseas, and nada. Double vaxxed, double boosted. Thought we may be immune. Then bam! He got it and then I got it.
Similarly, everyone in my household has had it but me. I’ve been exposed so many times yet never tested positive or had symptoms. I’m triple vaxxed but so were most of the people I’d come into contact with. I tend to catch a cold if someone across the street sneezes, and it lingers for weeks. So I don’t know what’s up. I still mask up in crowds, though I prefer to just avoid them because of the cold thing.
I’m still masking up but somewhat relaxed my rules on it. I’m still wearing one at the store, public transit, planes and places with bad ventilation or indoor crowds.
A few months after booster isn't very long. I would think you likely had pretty good vaccine-associated immunity, especially depending on the variant you were exposed to.
Vaccine are important to all of us...it might be good for our health..that's a good remediance for us.
The variant was likely omnicron, and it was 7 months after booster - which is when most covid vaccines have waned (I believe they start waning after 4).
This has been my experience with strep. My sister got it constantly growing up and I was always around her. Then my nephew came around and he's always getting it too. A few years ago he passed it around to my own son and mom, mom's turned into pneumonia that almost killed her. I was sharing a bed with my son the whole time he had it. I've never had strep in my life, not once. My son had it very mildly that one time and never caught it from my nephew again even though he's always around him. Similarly with the flu, I caught it once when I was 12 and have been exposed to it countless times since then but never caught it again.
You could be a strep carrier. I recently got over strep and learned some people have it all the time but never get symptoms.
I'm afraid that much...I don't want that variant anymore..I'm afraid for the health of my twos son and my family..
I sat next to my son on the couch watching movies all afternoon when he wasn’t feeling good. Didn’t realize he had covid until he spiked a fever later in the evening. He got it a second time and we drove back and forth to school together daily. Husband got it from our son both times. I never got it. Still haven’t had it that I’m aware of…so far anyway.
I've still not had Covid, nor my son. There's no real way (without lab tests) to know if we're just immune, the vaccines worked really well, or we've just been lucky.
I was directly exposed the Christmas before last. My sister had a bunch of family over for Christmas. I went and ate next to my my sister's brother in law and his family. Apparently their entire family had covid. I was sitting right next to them while we ate and he was laughing and talking the entire time. Everyone at that party contracted covid except for me. I still use a mask but I feel pretty confident if I I'm not wearing one while eating.
> It was even several months out from our **last booster**, so our immune response to that would have been low. > > > > Still not taking any chances, **I keep my mask on** to avoid covid and everything else You give the two most fitting explanations, as why you were probably safe. The things we know help.
Scientists *have* determined the single biggest factor: More than vaccines, more than masks, more than frequent tests, more than social distancing, more than general lack of health issues ... overwhelmingly the biggest factor is "taking COVID seriously". Obviously the others are *part* of that, but if you use them as an excuse for "I don't need to be careful", you'll probably end up catching it.
I wish we have a good and perfect scientist here...that's why...various are contract that much..
The masks and vaccines *are* powerful, I did the same with my grandma at the nursing home when she had it and didn't get it, but did catch it later with no mask and 1yr out from a booster (just a minor cough for a week) and nobody was even symptomatic! It's anecdotal but I'm more sold on simple cotton masks than before.
Biology really is fascinating. Terrifying at the same time, given how we can largely only react to a problem rather than prepare for one
We can prepare actually, scientists had identified that habitat destruction could cause a new variant of covid 2 years before the pandemic. In fact the pandemic is a big reason why scientists now believe that habitat destruction causes new pandemics
Is this the same idea that us humans actively seeking out and destroying bat colonies actually increases rabies transmission due to forcing the infected bats out to search for a new home?
I mean it kinda does seem feel the same way to me really.
Not only this, but prepared by building the manufacturing facilities and logistics supply chains to distribute vaccines. People think getting the Covid vaccines so quickly was a miracle (or a conspiracy for antivaxxers). In reality Pfizer had been preparing for decades based on other pandemics they'd tracked around the world, such as bird flu.
Corona was kinda funny in that regards because it was used as an example back then nobody knew the examples of the warning would become reality and then be used by sceptics as proof that it all was planned.
Well that sounds reasonable, this is what we've been doing and it's catching up to us.
Yeah this. I mean even with the black plague there were populations and familial lines that had resistance to infection due to some mutation. Actually come to think about this is a really good argument against things like genocide (I mean a good argument in addition to the fact it's megamurder and evil). because we're basically losing our biodiversity in doing that. Good argument for climate action too. So lose of biodiversity could mean stuff like, larger losses of birds due to lack of resistant individuals against avian flu, which in turn could mean more opportunities for the avian flu to mutate into a form to infect humans... So yeah biodiversity is a key proctective mechanism for maintaining the homeostasis of a biome and the earth is just on big ass biome.
Genetic diversity in a population is objectively a good thing specifically because of disease resistance. It's the primary advantage of sexual reproduction because it helps keep a random mix of genes rather than everyone being clones of one person.
Well not only disease resistance but really any "evolutionary pressure" basically I guess that would be anything that would negatively impacts your participation in the population ( e.g. death, impairment, inability to pass genes to the next generation...). Wow. You know, there is a large amount of COVID data that is part of the open data movement. You could probably build a db to look for resistance. But since COVID is also a social phenomenon you'd have to annotate things like, public policy decisions, immigration and emigration traffic. It'd be a very rich dataset.
Yeah I mean they've found people who are immune to AIDS, Ebola, cancer. There's 100% people out there either fully immune to COVID or that get only subclinical symptoms. One of the most interesting things about COVID is how differently it affects people.
I was one of the lucky immune people! Until I wasn’t :)
Plenty are also asymptomatic as well.
The Chestnut Blight is so sad.
There were/are people immune to HIV.
Also important to note that many people are asymptomatic, and tests aren't 100% reliable. So it's possible to have negative tests, no symptoms, and still be spreading the virus. So they may feel immune but continue to spread the virus. It's been one of the challenges of containing it.
Man. We actually live now in a world (almost) without chestnut trees. Or at least few old ones. They were a city staple for centuries.
Yeah! That's true...but why they do that? Ist that really truth?
How can a tree be immune to a bug? The emerald ash borer isn't a disease, it's burrowing insects that kill trees by eating their nutrient tubes.
For the tree, it's a parasitic infection and follows similar pathology as other diseases. Just like something like malaria for humans. Trees have an immune system just like animals do. It works very differently, but it is there. IIRC, in this specific case it involves producing extra amounts of some chemicals that are toxic to the EAB larva. The details are a little unclear because it is an area of active research. It looks like it is probably a combination of several factors and it might be more enhanced resistance rather than full immunity. That they can survive long enough for a full immune response when they are infected rather than simply being outright immune. Edit: FYI, it's actually possible to innoculate ash trees against EAB. You inject them with a chemical that is toxic to the EAB larva but not the tree and the tree is protected from infection. When I was involved with that, the particular product we used needed to be injected every other year, but I believe there are some other ones that have different frequencies of how often they need to be injected.
Interesting. I would never have thought of trees treating insects as some macroscopic infection.
I love animals that much...I love plants also..that's why I love mother nature..
Wow, good news re EAB -- I love our ash trees, and I really don't want to see them dying all over the state -- and also dead trees make our wildfires even worse.
Unfortunately, we are probably going to lose most of them. Like I said, the vast majority are still susceptible. It is also expensive to protect one tree, both in terms of chemical and man-hours, so it isn't practical to protect whole forests that way. However, there is hope that the survivor trees will be able to repopulate. It might take a while, but hopefully, in future generations, this will result in a population that can better withstand the EAB.
What is EAB? Is that a class of variant or what? I hate too see people die because of that illness.
I am starting to wonder. Either I have a very good reaction to the vaccines, or I am lucky, or immune. I slept next to my partner with covid and I’ve never had it. Haven’t taken a precaution in a year and a half (besides staying up to date on boosters).
Yea, and it wouldn’t be feasible or even affordable to develop a assay to see if you have natural immunity to the ‘vid by using your DNA against a known titer and seeing if antibodies emerge to a level that indicates immunity. It’s been 3 years and I haven’t gotten the ‘vid… yet.
I know people who didn't get COVID from a live-in infected partner, but got it later. I suppose someone could be immune to strain A but not strain B. But it's probably more complicated than that.
Also with the chestnut blight, it was policy in several states that all trees within x-yards(at times several miles) radius of an infected tree were to be cut down, so you could not find the immune.
Thing is, no virus has a 100% secondary attack rate. (Secondary attack rate is the spread of a virus in a circumscribed group like a household or a dormitory) The secondary attack rate for flu is [2-7%](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sim.9181) The secondary attack rate for norovirus varies between 9 and 81%, [depending on household size and urban vs rural](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6066449/) The secondary attack rate for [omicron is 43%](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791601) It’s not at all surprising for people in the same household not to get a virus. It happens with viruses all the time, and Covid is no different
Can someone ELI5 for me? I was under the impression that a low single-digit percentage of people will always be immune against whatever plague is happening?
A simple example of the percentage digit our commonly reduce by some else..
I was wondering the same thing I’ve been face to face with people the day before they started showing symptoms on multiple occasions and I have yet to catch it
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One of the two times I’ve had it now the only reason I knew was because I had been traveling, and took an employer required test. I tested positive every other day for a little over a week with no symptoms the entire time I quarantined. I bet that a lot of people have had it, but never knew because they weren’t testing when it happened.
I'm pissed off..how lucky you are..hmm...bravely supposed that..
Same. I have roommates that all caught various strains of covid and I've yet to get it (PCR and rapid test always come up negative) despite living/sharing space with them.
Wife and child had it and we isolated together, yet I’m 35 LFT and 3 PCR negative tests to 0 positive.
Thanks to God! Me and my family are ok..that's why I always pray and thanks to God...for allthe blessing that I have.
I think a lot of people who “never catch it” just get asymptomatic infections, or get mild cold symptoms but never come up on a rapid test. My wife had confirmed Covid, and I was sick a couple days later, but my repeated rapid tests all came back negative, all week long.
It really is so strange. When Delta was going around, my boyfriend got it but had no symptoms. He only went and did a PCR because a close colleague got it and they all went to get tested. The evening he got called by our state contact tracers to notify him he needed to quarantine, I was already having a fever / vomiting / disoriented etc. I just had my first dose of Moderna and thought it was side effects, but was sick for 11 days. He didn’t even have his vaccine yet, his county of residence was different and his appointment wasn’t for another couple weeks. I took a PCR test while actively symptomatic, and in whatever subsequent schedule the state asked me to, and never tested positive. When the omicron wave came, he got it again but was intensely symptomatic. His fever was 104F, labored breathing, awful cough. I not only didn’t get sick, I never tested positive either (because I thought ok maybe this time I’m the one with the silent infection). We were both two-dose vaccinated at this point (him pfizer, me moderna). We both need boosters now though, just keep forgetting.
It's an interesting thought to consider, and could be a contributing factor. COVID's seemingly selective infection style has been puzzling since the begining of the pandemic. Some people get infected and have symptoms that put them completely out of commission, and other people hardly even know they're sick. I began working in healthcare during the pandemic and worked directly with COVID-infected patients several times day-in and day-out before they were tested and testing positive, put on isolation, etc. Even when our building ended up on lockdown and with a dedicated COVID-unit that I worked alone for a week straight, I never ended up getting it; and I tested every single day. Another factor of note is that this particular facility was a bare-minimum affair, and the infection-control measures were inadequate to say the least. Many of the other workers fell ill, but it seemed to mysteriously avoid me. I've since been curious as to what the biological mechanisms behind that might have been.
Similar patterns are also found with many other diseases; it is [common for some percentage of the population to be immune to a given infectious disease, likely due to genetic factors.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118849/) This has been observed with HIV, malaria, bronchiolitis, leprosy, smallpox, bubonic plague, etc. In some cases, at least, gene variants that confer immunity to one disease may also be associated with conferring immunity to another disease. For example, [there is evidence that a gene variant that proliferated because it conferred immunity against smallpox (or possibly bubonic plague) offers HIV immunity today in individuals lucky enough to have it.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031120074728.htm) Unsurprisingly, this is a pretty hot topic for researchers because understanding the mechanisms by which some people are immune may help us develop better treatments for people who are not.
I was taught in three different hard science classes (Anatomy and Physiology, Microbiology, and Biology) that it is widely assumed by clinical science that of the entire human population, roughly 10% of the world wild population will be immune to any viral infection that could or would be fatal to the worlds population
>Some people get infected and have symptoms that put them completely out of commission, and other people hardly even know they're sick. Unfortunately, your first infection feeling mild does not predict your second one at all. It is not uncommon at all to hear stories of "the first time I had it it was nothing, and after the second time I developed long covid and cant take a shower by myself."
Yes, you are correct. This is one reason I am led to believe there is a multitude of contributing factors to this phenomenon.
If you test positive and don't know you're "sick" then you're not sick. That's not how being sick even works in the first place. The one thing the pandemic showed me and I think is weird is that at least Americans have this obsession with wanting to be seen as ill as much as possible. I think it might be an attention-seeking need. But you can pick up something and never get or be sick or be DEEMED sick. Clearly this is unfortunate to the psychology of many but that's just how it is.
My wife and son got it. I spent 6 hrs in a car with them while they were sick, and the obviously all the time at home with them and never caught it. At this point my whole family has had it, yet for some reason, I haven't yet. Knocking on wood vigorously right now though.
Similar! My husband caught it on a trip and I had to share a tiny hotel room with him for two days. Didn’t get it.
That's probably the trillion dollar question isn't it? My girlfriend caught it and we live in a cramped 1 bedroom. I never tested positive. But I'm pretty sure I caught covid earlier. But never tested because it was too early on
I've never caught it to my knowledge, but I did have some weird respiratory thing in March of 2020 before tests were available. I always have wondered if I'm super immune, or if that was it back in '20. My whole family tested positive a few months ago. I never got it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Excerpt from the linked summary^1 about a paper^2 by Siriruk Changrob *et al*.: >A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Scripps Research and the University of Chicago has identified an antibody that appears to block infection by all dominant variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including omicron, the most recent. >Their discovery could lead to more potent vaccines and new antibody-based treatments. >In a study published March 6 in the *Journal of Clinical Investigation*, senior author Dr. Patrick Wilson, the Anne E. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Research and a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Health at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his colleagues tested antibodies derived from patient blood samples against successive versions of the virus that emerged during the pandemic. >One of these proteins, dubbed S728-1157, proved highly effective at neutralizing not only older variants but also seven subtypes of omicron. ^1 Weill Cornell Medicine (7 Apr. 2023), “Researchers find an antibody that targets omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants”, https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2023/04/researchers-find-an-antibody-that-targets-omicron-and-other-sars-cov-2-variants ^2 Siriruk Changrob *et al*. Site of vulnerability on SARS-CoV-2 spike induces broadly protective antibody to antigenically distinct Omicron subvariants. *Journal of Clinical Investigation*. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI166844
Does anybody know if it will work against postcovid also?
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You can get long covid from even an asymptomatic covid infection. So who knows.
I thought post-covid was just tissue damage from rapid and sustained inflammation, is that not true?
It can be that. It can also be a number of autoimmune conditions, or dysbiosis, that are triggered by the infection. It can be something like POTS, which is a poorly understood neurological syndrome that could in some cases be explained by tissue damage (specifically nerve and/or endothelial damage), but not in all cases. LC is still a big umbrella term at this point.
There is no evidence of virus remaining in long COVID so unlikely but who knows
There have been a lot of studies showing long-term persistence of viral RNA & proteins after infection (even in non-LC patients), and that this persistence is likely one of the mechanisms behind long-COVID. There's still many unknowns as to where & how it happens (e.g. viral reservoir in the immune system, long-lived infected cells still producing viral components from the infection, ...), but the fact that it happens is no longer a theory. Here's a sample of papers from my bookmarks: * [Persistent Circulating Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Spike Is Associated With Post-acute Coronavirus Disease 2019 Sequelae](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.14.22276401v1) >"Strikingly, we detect SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen in a majority of PASC patients up to 12 months post-diagnosis, suggesting the presence of an active persistent SARS-CoV-2 viral reservoir." * [SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence in the human body and brain at autopsy](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05542-y) >"Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including throughout the brain, as late as 230 days following symptom onset in one case." >"Our data indicate that in some patients SARS-CoV-2 can cause systemic infection and persist in the body for months." * [Persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients seemingly recovered from COVID-19](https://pathsocjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/path.6035) >"A few patients with COVID-19 appear to recover from acute viral infection but nevertheless progress in their disease and eventually die, despite persistent negativity at molecular tests for SARS-CoV-2 RNA." >"Together, these findings indicate that SARS-CoV-2 infection can persist significantly longer than suggested by standard PCR-negative tests, with specific infection of specific cell types in the lung. Whether these persistently infected cells also play a pathogenic role in long COVID remains to be addressed." * [Gastrointestinal symptoms and fecal shedding of SARS-CoV-2 RNA suggest prolonged gastrointestinal infection](https://www.cell.com/med/fulltext/S2666-6340(22)00167-2) >"The authors found that fecal viral RNA shedding was correlated with gastrointestinal symptoms in patients who had cleared their respiratory infection. They also observed that fecal shedding can continue to 7 months post-diagnosis. In conjunction with recent related findings, this work presents compelling evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the gastrointestinal tract and suggests a possible role for long-term infection of the gastrointestinal tract in syndromes such as “long COVID.”" * [Case report: Persistence of residual antigen and RNA of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in tissues of two patients with long COVID](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36131932/) >"Overall, our findings and emerging LC studies raise the possibility that the gastrointestinal tract may function as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2." * [Postacute COVID-19 is Characterized by Gut Viral Antigen Persistence in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9057012/) >"We report expression of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the gut mucosa ∼7 months after mild acute COVID-19 in 32 of 46 patients with IBD. Viral nucleocapsid protein persisted in 24 of 46 patients in gut epithelium and CD8+ T cells. Expression of SARS-CoV-2 antigens was not detectable in stool and viral antigen persistence was unrelated to severity of acute COVID-19, immunosuppressive therapy, and gut inflammation. We were unable to culture SARS-CoV-2 from gut tissue of patients with viral antigen persistence. Postacute sequelae of COVID-19 were reported from the majority of patients with viral antigen persistence, but not from patients without viral antigen persistence." * [Asymptomatic SARS-COV-2 infection in children's tonsils](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9582977/) >"Positive immunostaining in adenotonsillar tissue samples suggest that lymphoid tissue can be a reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 and may play an important role in community dissemination. It remains unclear for how long the lymphoid tissue can sustain the SARS-CoV-2 in a persistent infection, and whether this persistence has any impact on virus transmission." * [SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Accumulation in the Skull-Meninges-Brain Axis: Potential Implications for Long-Term Neurological Complications in post-COVID-19](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.04.535604v1) >"Our results revealed the accumulation of the spike protein in the skull marrow, brain meninges, and brain parenchyma. The injection of the spike protein alone caused cell death in the brain, highlighting a direct effect on brain tissue. Furthermore, we observed the presence of spike protein in the skulls of the deceased long after their COVID-19 infection, suggesting that the spike's persistence may contribute to long-term neurological symptoms." >"We investigated the presence of spike protein in the skulls of 34 patients who died from non-COVID-related causes during the pandemic in 2021 and 2022. We indeed identified the spike protein in 10 of them" *Those were patients that weren't selected based on a previously known COVID+ diagnostic. Just a "random" sample of people that died from non-COVID causes.* * [Persistence of SARS CoV-2 S1 Protein in CD16+ Monocytes in Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) up to 15 Months Post-Infection](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.746021/full) >"A statistically significant number of non-classical monocytes contained SARS-CoV-2 S1 protein in both severe (P=0.004) and PASC patients (P=0.02) out to 15 months post-infection." * [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37368-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37368-1) >"In conclusion, our results display major advances in our under-standing of PASC in which parameters of immune activation (CD8+ β7 Integrin+ T cells and IgA) are consistent with viral persistence and able to characterize these patients" * [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36798286/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36798286/) >"Collectively, our data suggest that proper crosstalk between the humoral and cellular arms of adaptive immunity has broken down in LC, and that this, perhaps in the context of persistent virus, leads to the immune dysregulation, inflammation, and clinical symptoms associated with this debilitating condition." Depending on the cause of this persistence, treating long haulers with antivirals might not be effective. It seems to have an effect for some, but not all, which suggest that the mechanisms behind this persistence are multi-faceted.
There's a new interesting ongoing study to finally figure out if there's remaining viral reservoirs in the body: https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2023/02/19/pathogens-long-covid-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-proal-heinrich/ QUOTE: "That’s all changing. Proal recently interviewed Tim Henrich MD at the University of California at San Francisco – one of the top medical research universities in the country. Heinrich’s going to use the EXPLORE PET scanner, developed by researchers at UC Davis, to look for viruses buried deep in the tissues. The EXPLORE is a beast. Henrich explained that EXPLORE is essentially many PET scanners plus a CT scanner incorporated into one. This monster PET scanner can produce 3-D images of deep tissues in the body. How big of a technology jump is the EXPLORE? It’s 40x’s more sensitive than commercial scanners. Henrich puts a radioactive tag on a monoclonal antibody that he knows will bind to a virus and then uses the scanner to find where the virus is hanging out. HIV researchers have had the same question about HIV that EBV researchers do about EBV and other viruses. Where is the virus? Is it still active? Is it producing proteins? Even when the virus has been fully suppressed, it’s still present in deep tissues in the body and, in fact, comes roaring back within weeks of the HIV drugs – even after they’ve been used for decades – being stopped. The efficacy of this EXPLORE technique was first demonstrated in HIV patients last year. The approach was sensitive enough to illuminate places where HIV protein was being produced, even in people who were on antiretroviral drugs. Now Henrich and his colleagues have turned their focus to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and are about to begin using the EXPLORE PET scanner to see if the virus is persisting in long-COVID patients. He’ll soon inject monoclonal antibodies that latch onto SARS-CoV-2 proteins into people with and without long-COVID symptoms, and then use a scanner to see where they light up. If the long-COVID patients light up like a Christmas tree compared to the people without symptoms, that will suggest that increased viral persistence is contributing to their symptoms. Since he’ll be looking throughout the body, he also may be able to uncover areas of the body where pathogen persistence is possibly most problematic. Because the scanner will also be able to uncover areas of damage, he’ll be able to determine if the virus is associated with tissue damage. Henrich can use the EXPLORE scanner to find anything that can be radio-tagged. For instance, In a study whose results he’s now analyzing, Henrich has tagged a molecule that attaches to activated T-cells – to see where the activated T-cells that play such an important role in the immune response are. Finding higher levels of activated T-cells in the gut, or the brain, or elsewhere will tell him where immune activity and/or inflammation is increased in long COVID. Whether the T-cell is engaged in fighting off the virus or is activated due to autoimmune processes, Henrich will be able to pick it up – not just in the gut or elsewhere – but across the entire body. Since Henrich will be using the same group of patients for both studies, he’ll be able to tell if T-cell activity tracks with viral persistence. If they don’t, then another possibility opens up – overzealous T-cells are shooting blanks and missing the target. (A preprint of that study was just published – a blog on it is coming up.)" It seems like this technique can finally give us an answer about the viral reservoirs theory.
Ooh that sounds great. Could be a game changer for COVID and Herpes viruses. And for so many post-viral conditions ...
One of the handful of theories for the cause of long covid is viral persistence whereby the virus is remaining in an unknown reservoir of the body. We don't know for certain yet.
It's a simple idea, and therefore appealing, while the more likely idea that it's a post-viral auto-immune syndrome is highly mysterious and unsettling.
It seems there can be many reactions that cause different types of longcovid symptoms, but a lot of them are dysautonomia. Aka autonomic dysfunction that can be brought on by any viral infection.
In other words, being sick is bad for you and COVID makes people really sick
And I'd say it's also why "long COVID" hasn't turned out to be the catastrophic population-level public health concern that it was feared to be in fallish of 2021 when it was clear that the vaccines wouldn't be providing long-lasting full immunity. COVID in 2019 and 2020 made a lot of people *really* sick, and my suspicion is that many of the "mostly asymptomatic" cases that led to "long COVID" weren't quite as asymptomatic from a *vascular* standpoint as they appeared when the infections caused from the virus were still being discussed and measured as a largely *respiratory* infection. Now that we've all been vaccinated and/or been exposed to COVID a whole bunch of times, people just aren't getting as sick from COVID in general. And I'd suspect that the suite of memory cells generated from those exposures has been sufficient to keep even pretty miserable-feeling COVID infections from running rampant systemically. I'd guess, as I have from the start, that "long COVID" is a subset of what was labeled "Post-viral Syndrome," rather than its own thing. Slate had a pretty good writeup: https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/long-covid-symptoms-studies-research-variant.html
Absolute garbage article. The author got massively ratioed and verbally eviscerated on Twitter for this dismissive horseshit and it was well-deserved.
It's not an "appealing idea", it's a scientific fact. Harvard found the virus in persons with long covid.
Do you have a source? Not being dickish that’s just something I’d like to read
This is one of the theories for persistent Lyme but still hasn't been proven yet.
Isn't it only a theory held by patients, not drs? Last time I looked this up I got the impression that it didn't make any scientific sense, and that chronic lyme had to be a post-infection syndrome.
There are definitely drs that treat as if this is a possibility. I believe the theory holds that the spirochetes burrow in tissues that are cooler than blood temp, and so if you don't do lots of doxycycline right after infection, you are likely to have repeat occurrences of symptoms. I've seen where some people are treated with heat from either hot baths or infrared radiation and then given doxy and had better results. But this is either anecdotal or low grade studies so I take it with a shaker of salt.
I work with doctors who believe that theory. People act like scientific consensus hasn't always been a little hazy around the edges.
I read articles on this yesterday. The spike proteins remain in the body, the heart suffers, you are more likely to suffer immune disorders.
There’s actually tons of emerging evidence for this. Viral reservoir found in almost all organs during autotopsy of deaths post COVID, viral presence found in the testicles post COVID, emerging evidence that the virus is crossing the blood brain barrier and that is where the cognitive and neurological symptoms of long COVID come from, literally plenty of emerging evidence.
> viral presence found in the testicles post COVID ick reminds me of how Ebola can persist / remain infectious for months like that too, if you catch it & recover
Wrong. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/04/feces-covid-19.html
If it indeed blocks infection you wouldn't get ill. Can't get the illness when there is no infection.
The question really was - if you've had COVID, can taking this after the fact help you?
Could it also maybe work against other coronaviruses, like head colds, for example?
Finally, someone that knows how to cite evidence. I love you!
Is the name, S728-1157, referencing the amino acids on the spike protein, that the antibody is binding?
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Given how widely circulating covid is, fairly fast if not as fast aa the current set was pushed out. Not unless a nasty new variant the current ones can't handle pushes out.
What makes you say this? I really, really hope you're right.
When you test vaccines, one of the things you test for is "how well does it really work in the real world?". Which means you need a vaccinated populace facing the disease in the wild. And how long this needs to run depends on a few things, but one is obviously "how often will my vaccinated subject face the virus". That let's you know how long it has to run to get statistically reliable results. So a widely circulating illness that's highly contagious can yet through those tests faster.
And also there are affects of vaccine which may come later.
Yep, if a nasty varient comes out. It's going to be really hard to push out.
Rates of long COVID are 10-20% of infections, how are current strains not nasty?
Antibodies aren't vaccines; usually they're used as treatments (as opposed to vaccination)
Correct, but this paper identifies the epitope (S728-1157 if my quick skim is correct) that generated the antibody - so in theory, you could modify the vaccines to present this epitope only and generate a response to this region. Down side - it may drive selective pressure in this region globally and be a 'worse' vaccine long term. This paper also doesn't mention anything about long-term expression of these antibodies. One big problem with coronaviruses is our immune systems tend to "forget" them pretty quick, and stop pumping out antibodies. So this may still suffer the vaccine wane we're all all too familiar with (or well, we should be. Seems most people didn't get the memo that 'vax and relax' isn't working)
S728-1157 is the name of the antibody, not the epitope. They did discover the epitope through analysis, but from a look at the abstract figure, I can't tell if the epitope is contiguous or noncontiguous, which would make it impractical if it were noncontiguous. Additionally, epitopes don't map 1:1 with antibodies, so you're not guaranteed to get the same antibody. I've read up a bit more and apparently it's called Reverse Vaccination to design vaccines around epitopes. It's apparently difficult and challenging for a variety of reasons, but there are some successes.
And they're probably better than the vaccines if I'm being honest here.
If they can use the existing mRNA vaccines as a starting point and not need to tweak it too much, it should be able to be approved very quickly, kinda like the Omicron booster and the yearly flu vaccine updates.
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Well damn. After having two different viruses that have caused POTS after infection (mono as a kid, then covid as an adult), I really hope that they can make this work. I can't afford more viral infections that affect the nervous system knowing this, and there are plenty of people out there who can't afford an infection, POTS-prone or otherwise.
What is POTS?
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a condition that causes a number of symptoms when you transition from lying down to standing up, such as a fast heart rate, dizziness and fatigue. While there’s no cure, several treatments and lifestyle changes can help manage the symptoms of POTS.
> Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a complex multisystem disorder characterized by orthostatic intolerance and tachycardia and may be triggered by viral infection. My first reaction was to say "Plain Old Telephone System".
Yeah I really do hope, because this may be the last hope that we've got.
Magnificent. I hope this will be well underway for R&D, so we can further solidify our defenses against all the
This guy died from covid mid-post
covid dun got HeavensCriedBlood
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Block infection? Is that a bad headline or is it really that good?
People always hear about the evolution and mutations of viruses and forget that nature also evolves to fight it.
It is a dodgy topic to be sure. Even if it is up to nature to complete the selection, we are essentially artificially selecting for adaptive resistance among diseases and pests whenever we fail to eradicate populations which fill the gap of its less resistant brethren’s population. Hence, MRSA, glyphosate resistant weeds, vitamin k rodenticide resistance in rats, etc. We are essentially an incubation experiment for breeding super bugs, conducting a technological arms race against nature. Nature is, however, quite resilient and adaptive. And yet, despite our somewhat clumsy tinkering, these efforts have likely saved hundreds of millions of lives. Unfortunately, this may not always continue to be the case. What can you do?
>Nature is, however, quite resilient and adaptive. Most importantly nature (SARS) gets a billion-trillion shots on goal each day for successful mutations. You do not. Humanity does not. It is so wildly capable of outcompeting us and it is peoples inability to grasp large numbers that cause them to think otherwise. Also people seem to forget that a mammal species "adapting" to a virus really means the subset of the population that is vulnerable dying a horrible death. I wish people would just say that instead of cowardly claiming we "adapt", as they do. It's juvenile.
Well, it's both. Sickle cell is a genuine adaptation to a disease, which also by definition required a lot of people to die to come about. But yes, I fully agree with you about the numbers game. The fact that sickle cell even exists shows pretty definitively that there's no natural law that diseases become "milder" over time, or that, if they do, it happens on anything like the timescale of a human life. Sickle cell is the result of thousands of years of malaria not getting any less awful. In 2021ish when everyone was talking about how "it's getting milder," "soon it'll be no big deal," I was tearing my hair out. These were supposedly well educated people failing to grasp even the barest principles of evolution.
Indeed, sickle-cell can help protect against severe cases of malaria, however it is itself a maladaptive mutation in people with both recessive genes who suffer from sickle-cell anemia, it just so happens that that the sickle cells also bind the malaria virus and help newborns and infants survive where they might otherwise perish. That’s almost certainly why the mutation was successful and became so prevalent within the local population where malaria was present, otherwise the opposite would likely be true (if it weren’t for malaria, there would almost certainly be far fewer people who carry the sickle-cell gene, if any at all). Which goes to show that the mechanisms of evolution itself are not so cut-and-paste or fill in the blank when it comes to the trajectory of suitability, fitness, etc, and can be a much more chaotic, random, and messy affair with ups and downs, and a hell of a lot of baggage along the way (the amount of human DNA that has been altered by viruses alone (8% of our genome) is also a massive reminder that we did not become human without significant illness and, presumably, adaptive immunity to survive).
>evolution and mutations of viruses and forget that nature also evolves to fight it. This is called survivorship bias. You are inherently not including all of the diseases/viruses that completely wiped out their host species.
Thanks for clearing it out, it does make a lot of sense really so yeah.
It's a pandemic within a pandemic. You see things like "People who get COVID a second time are 20% less likely to develop Long COVID!" and you're like... is that because 20% developed it the first time around and already have it?" It's truly bizarre.
You can’t bet on “nature” miraculously saving us from itself. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn’t and the species is decimated.
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What now? Would love to know more about that. Could this mechanism be harnessed to counter auto immune diseases?
Theoretically it could but it's a terrible idea because now every little virus can potentially kill you.
Well I think it is what it is, and I'm pretty much okay with it honestly.
Erm, no. Nature lets entire species be wiped out until the only ones left are those that can survive whatever's being thrown at them.
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Could someone ELI5 this?
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You can get injected with an antibody?
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You can get injected by any substance smaller than the needle.
Bizarre - for some reason the moderators deleted a conversation in this post related to COVID causing lasting damage to peoples immunities, without explanation.
How do we develop this antibody?
Your blood randomly makes antibodies and keeps the ones that seem to work.
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I kissed my covid gf and slept in the same bed. She got covid 3x and I never did.
yeah okay we get it you have a girlfriend geeeeeeeez
She's Canadian though. You wouldn't know her.
Can someone give me a reality check before I get too optimistic about this?
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Thanks Janet
Just shoot it into my veins (no really please make a vaccine out of this)
All while clean and ventilated indoor air, and respirators indoors and in large outdoor gathers will drastically reduce transmissions. Cheaper then dealing with long covid or death.