2 ms·
> Like the flu, every year there are new strains (so surviving it doesn’t grant immunity) Even if it mutates, the immune systems of people who recovered from i
by logicchains 7y ago
> Like the flu, every year there are new strains (so surviving it doesn’t grant immunity)
Even if it mutates, the immune systems of people who recovered from it this year will still be able to fight it much better next year, because they've learned how to fight that kind of virus. This is why even though the flu mutates every year, it isn't particularly lethal: our bodies have learned how to fight that kind of virus.
If however one were to take the flu to e.g. an uncontacted tribe who'd never encountered influenza before, it'd completely devastate them, much as how viruses from European settlers were estimated to have killed a double-digit percentage of the native American peoples.
- ffdjjjffjj 7y agoWe don’t develop immunity to other coronaviruses such as the common cold, so I don’t think we can assume we will for this one.
- PeterisP 7y agoWe do develop immunity to other coronaviruses such as the ones causing common cold - thing is, there are so many different viruses (some of them are coronaviruses, some not - there's a huge variety) causing similar symptoms, so we don't even attempt to diagnose which of the many common-cold-group viruses you have because we don't care; but you do develop immunity against that particular single virus.
- rimliu 7y agoWe do. Actually they find antibodies for the orignal SARS ten years after.
- adrr 7y agoOther corona viruses are different. We only get chicken pox once in our lives, but we can be infected with other herpes viruses after chicken pox(infection or vaccine).
- sfj 7y agoThere are some virii, such as dengue fever, where getting one strain, makes getting the next strain much worse. This is because the change to the immune system to fight off the first strain creates a new pathway for the second strain to use to infect.