4 ms·

> Anyone that would have bad outcomes has died or been taken out of productive life so they don't matter. That's just not how it works though. Each subsequent

> Anyone that would have bad outcomes has died or been taken out of productive life so they don't matter. That's just not how it works though. Each subsequent infection increases the risk of bad outcomes (1) The CDC must know this 1) https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/12/27/every-covid-infection-increases-your-risk-of-long-covid-study-warns https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/12/27/... https://time.com/6553340/covid-19-reinfection-risk/ https://time.com/6553340/covid-19-reinfection-risk/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/23/repeat-covid-infections-health-risks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/23/repeat-covid-i...

superkuh 3y ago
True enough. I didn't want to complicate my message. I only meant the risk of the first exposure is much, much greater than subsequent ones. It is unarguable that the risk of the first exposure to a novel virus is much greater than subsequent exposures. I say this because T-cells generalize across mutations. And T-cells stay tissue resident for years to decades (unfortunately sars-cov-2 IgG and IgA antibodies are gone by 6 months). Your T-cells from the first sars-cov-2 exposure will start killing infected cells much faster once you've been exposed. This limits the replication earlier and reduces the viral load. This reduces damage done. Weird side effects like the collection of things called long-covid have been shown in study after study not to be related to viral load. So whatever risk is associated with reinfection does not decrease in that sense. But in the dying sense? It decreases a lot.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > I only meant the risk of the first exposure is much, much greater than subsequent ones. I have heard of some people whose second case of COVID (Dec 2023) was significantly worse than their first (summer 2022). This might be due to the amount of time since last vaccination, or the amount of exposure to an infected person. But I was interested to hear from a couple friends that the second time isn't always lighter than the first.
  - superkuh 3y ago
    This is not mutually exclusive with what I have said. The risk is greater in the first infection. It does not mean risk goes away with subsequent infections.

superkuh 3y ago

True enough. I didn't want to complicate my message. I only meant the risk of the first exposure is much, much greater than subsequent ones. It is unarguable that the risk of the first exposure to a novel virus is much greater than subsequent exposures. I say this because T-cells generalize across mutations. And T-cells stay tissue resident for years to decades (unfortunately sars-cov-2 IgG and IgA antibodies are gone by 6 months). Your T-cells from the first sars-cov-2 exposure will start killing infected cells much faster once you've been exposed. This limits the replication earlier and reduces the viral load. This reduces damage done. Weird side effects like the collection of things called long-covid have been shown in study after study not to be related to viral load. So whatever risk is associated with reinfection does not decrease in that sense. But in the dying sense? It decreases a lot.

gnicholas 3y ago
> I only meant the risk of the first exposure is much, much greater than subsequent ones. I have heard of some people whose second case of COVID (Dec 2023) was significantly worse than their first (summer 2022). This might be due to the amount of time since last vaccination, or the amount of exposure to an infected person. But I was interested to hear from a couple friends that the second time isn't always lighter than the first.
- superkuh 3y ago
  This is not mutually exclusive with what I have said. The risk is greater in the first infection. It does not mean risk goes away with subsequent infections.