3 ms·
Unraveling the Mystery of Why Children Are Better Protected from Covid
- retrac 5y agoChildren are better-protected against quite a few diseases. Polio in infants is usually asymptomatic. Chickenpox is almost always a minor illness in children, but can take a dire course in adults without previous exposure. Similarly, Epstein-Barr is a universal infection, and if caught in childhood as usual, it is largely asymptomatic but caught in young adulthood it causes infectious mononucleosis much of the time, and can even, rarely, kill. And no one knows why! Oh, there are hypotheses, some mentioned in the article. Like autoimmune disease. But they seem so unsatisfactory as an explanation. Kids go a decade on immunological hyperdrive yet they don't all get arthritis by 15. Would they if they kept it through puberty? Is it an interaction of puberty and the immune system? Maybe greater risk of auto-immune disease at that point? It's such a significant apparent disadvantage that there must be some good reason our broad and aggressive childhood immunity isn't retained. But I don't think we really have any idea why yet. Whatever the reason, perhaps there is some artificial way to keep those infantile superpowers around into adulthood without drawbacks?