More than half of Americans may have never had Covid, according to US government data, leaving scientists wondering whether those who’ve avoided the novel coronavirus might actually be immune to the virus altogether. This could offer new clues into how to attack Covid.
At this stage in the pandemic, people may be immune due to vaccines, a past infection, or a combination of both. There’s also evidence that, in rare instances, some people may be Covid-immune without infection or vaccination at all.
“It’s nearly impossible to gauge protection,” said Andy Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It may be hard to believe that at this stage of the pandemic so many people have still never gotten sick. Perhaps people were asymptomatic and never knew they were infected, or, despite exposure to the virus, they just never tested positive. But even half of the population getting Covid is actually an extraordinary number of infections. The 1918 Spanish flu is estimated to have only infected 25% of the US population at the time, despite causing a huge number of deaths.
It turned out that for those people, exposure to other human coronaviruses, such as those that cause cold-like symptoms, had helped their bodies to fight off the novel coronavirus. This is because T-cells, a critical part of the body’s immune response, were able to recognize and target genetic elements of prior seasonal coronaviruses that also happened to be present in SARS-CoV-2. That meant their bodies were able to attack the novel virus without the production of new antibodies specific to it.
Immunity to a virus occurs when the body is able to recognize a pathogen and effectively fend off infection or disease. Antibodies, such as those acquired from a vaccine or previous infection, attack a virus as soon as it enters the body. T-cells act as another line of defense, working to stop the spread of infection and development of disease once the virus has made it into the body.
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