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What you feel as symptoms are your immune responses, you can not "feel" the actual virus. The immune reponse should go on for longer than the virus is functiona

What you feel as symptoms are your immune responses, you can not "feel" the actual virus. The immune reponse should go on for longer than the virus is functional. Also, there has to be above a certain viral load to be contagious. I am however far from qualified to even guess what the thresholds are and I would think that it is mostly a matter of definition.

nikolay 6y ago
Coughing is a taxing activity - it wastes energy, and causes discomfort. We cough for a reason - I doubt it's from the solidarity to infect others. Of course we can sense the virus, but the irritation it causes. Do all viruses, which replicate in the nasopharyngeal tract, trigger coughs? Maybe some viruses evolve to cause irritation similar to air passage obstruction, which triggers the instrict to clear your throat up?
- kadoban 6y ago
  Our bodies are not perfect or omniscient. We cough because it is evolutionarilly favored as a way to dislodge irritants, and viruses are evolutionarily favored to cause that coughing response strongly in order to spread. Coughing too long seems like a very possible consequence of those.
- noselasd 6y ago
  The irritation still persists from the damaged tissue after the virus is eliminated. It takes time to rebuild.
  - nikolay 6y ago
    So, senescent cells are just left for days to build up damage? We have mechanisms to clear up dead cells, many of them which actually killed themselves via apoptosis and were not directly killed by the virus.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Live virus doesn't really cause symptoms as such, although they evolve to take advantage of it. The virus is basically re-purposing then melting a bunch of cells. The body's immune response is killing the viral structures and turning whole areas into the cellular equivalent of a battleground, killing off anything that is or is likely to be controlled by the virus. Many of the worst symptoms aren't related to the presence or absence of the virus itself. If someone is turning blue from lack of oxygen, it isn't that the virus is doing anything here and now. It is that their lungs are non-functional from damage that the virus already did (note: past tense). You could remove every trace of active coronavirus from them and while they'd probably not get worse they also wouldn't get better very quickly. New lungs don't grow overnight.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    This is not true. Viruses can directly kill the cells, by interfering with biological processes, necessary for cellular survival.
    - grayhatter 6y ago
      The clarification is helpful, but everything said was in fact true. Omitting this clarification doesn't negate everything else they said.
      - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
        What the poster said above is incorrect. Covid does produce damage directly to the lung and neural cells, which especially evident as loss of smell and taste. The severe, deadly reaction is indeed of the immune system.
        nikolay 6y ago
        That's what I saw in many explainer videos, too.
squarefoot 6y ago
Are also the loss of smell and messed up taste effects of the immune system? I caught Covid at the end of October, and those symptoms lasted well beyond the final negative molecular swab test, so it seems the case.

nikolay 6y ago

Coughing is a taxing activity - it wastes energy, and causes discomfort. We cough for a reason - I doubt it's from the solidarity to infect others. Of course we can sense the virus, but the irritation it causes. Do all viruses, which replicate in the nasopharyngeal tract, trigger coughs? Maybe some viruses evolve to cause irritation similar to air passage obstruction, which triggers the instrict to clear your throat up?

kadoban 6y ago
Our bodies are not perfect or omniscient. We cough because it is evolutionarilly favored as a way to dislodge irritants, and viruses are evolutionarily favored to cause that coughing response strongly in order to spread. Coughing too long seems like a very possible consequence of those.
noselasd 6y ago
The irritation still persists from the damaged tissue after the virus is eliminated. It takes time to rebuild.
- nikolay 6y ago
  So, senescent cells are just left for days to build up damage? We have mechanisms to clear up dead cells, many of them which actually killed themselves via apoptosis and were not directly killed by the virus.
roenxi 6y ago
Live virus doesn't really cause symptoms as such, although they evolve to take advantage of it. The virus is basically re-purposing then melting a bunch of cells. The body's immune response is killing the viral structures and turning whole areas into the cellular equivalent of a battleground, killing off anything that is or is likely to be controlled by the virus. Many of the worst symptoms aren't related to the presence or absence of the virus itself. If someone is turning blue from lack of oxygen, it isn't that the virus is doing anything here and now. It is that their lungs are non-functional from damage that the virus already did (note: past tense). You could remove every trace of active coronavirus from them and while they'd probably not get worse they also wouldn't get better very quickly. New lungs don't grow overnight.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  This is not true. Viruses can directly kill the cells, by interfering with biological processes, necessary for cellular survival.
  - grayhatter 6y ago
    The clarification is helpful, but everything said was in fact true. Omitting this clarification doesn't negate everything else they said.
    - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
      What the poster said above is incorrect. Covid does produce damage directly to the lung and neural cells, which especially evident as loss of smell and taste. The severe, deadly reaction is indeed of the immune system.
      - nikolay 6y ago
        That's what I saw in many explainer videos, too.

squarefoot 6y ago

Are also the loss of smell and messed up taste effects of the immune system? I caught Covid at the end of October, and those symptoms lasted well beyond the final negative molecular swab test, so it seems the case.