Do some people have protection against the coronavirus?

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I hear underlying conditions can affect how people respond to the virus.

I have asthma so that makes me vulnerable to the virus. I could die if I get it.

Another underlying condition of concern is obesity. Obese people do not respond well if they get the virus. This may be an even larger risk than age.

Looking at obesity rates in the US, we are in trouble.
 
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I think the point is that despite underlying conditions or comorbidities, the course of the virus is still unpredictable.

That means that sweeping generalizations about it are sometimes not true.
 
I’ve been surprised at some of my patients (at the nursing home where I’ve been taking shifts) who caught the virus and who has been spared.

Every year in the fall we have some patients who are already on the slow decline, and so frail it won’t take much to overwhelm their system.

A couple of our very frail elderly caught it and died.
Another woman caught it, almost died, recovered, but now is in hospice for non-Covid19 reasons.

One “clique” of elderly friends we have—one caught it and was really sick, recovered and is back to her old self. The other was moderately sick, seemed on the mend, then decompensated suddenly and died. The two other friends, (who were and are very frail), never caught it at all (confirmed by lab testing).

And several of our patients were found to have it when they screened everybody, never had a single symptom, and the fought off the virus.

There’s definitely some connection we’re missing.
 
Given that I’m fat and have type A blood, I can only hope that my exposure to several dozen cats over time boosted my immunities as some have suggested happens when they transmit the cat COVID viruses that don’t make us humans sick.

On the other hand, my ancestors all have a history of surviving life-threatening diseases like smallpox and whooping cough, and eventually dying of heart attacks.
 
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Sarcelle said:
I hear underlying conditions can affect how people respond to the virus.

I have asthma so that makes me vulnerable to the virus. I could die if I get it.

Another underlying condition of concern is obesity. Obese people do not respond well if they get the virus. This may be an even larger risk than age.

Looking at obesity rates in the US, we are in trouble.
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Apparently having had cancer is a contributing factor. I understand chemotherapy can permanently alter immune responses. Also, if you watch TV at all, you see a lot of commercials for immunosuppressant medications for things like psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease. If there wasn’t a big market for those things, they wouldn’t be advertised so vigorously. Also, there are people with HIV which is being kept in check by medications.

Probably there are a lot more immunocompromised people than we know.

But it’s true that peoples’ immune responses vary quite a lot. I recall reading that one of the reasons Eurasian diseases were so devastating to Amerinds was that their immune systems had eveolved differently. European and Asian immune systems are geared to microbes. Those of Amerinds are geared more to parasitic diseases. That’s why even the common cold was deadly to Indians. It wasn’t just that they had not been previously exposed. A big part of it was that it’s a virus.
 
PaulinVA said:
Maybe this explains why some people are hit hard and other aren’t.
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Well, this could explain how my 18 coworkers and myself haven’t gotten noticeably ill from Covid19. Nor has any of our families.

Everyone got a nasty cold in January… 🤔
 
It’s a bacteria and not a virus, but the article reminds me of cholera and the mystery of who developed the disease and who didn’t. There are several possible answers to that question about cholera, but in the distant past it was noticed that those that alcoholic beverages such as beer tended to not develop cholera symptoms. Now we know that alcohol can kill the bacteria providing some protection from the cholera.

With viruses I tell others that I’ve had good luck, about 13 years of good luck, avoiding cold season flu viruses by sunbathing in the summer and in the winter using a UVB sunlamp. There are some small studies supporting this idea. I only get in the sunshine a few minutes, or in front of a UVB sunlamp for 5 minutes at a time, but that’s been enough to keep me free from colds/flu (I guess typically corona viruses make up about 20% of colds during the flu season. At least I’ve read that a few times.)

Unfortunately in our modern society few people spent time in the sun during the summer. I was hoping we’d see a slowing down of the virus this summer but obviously that hasn’t happened. Another possible explanation for why some become overly ill form the virus and others not might be due to the amount of time spent outdoors. Just a guess of course.
 
Of course it is a virus! You likely did what I’m prone to doing, stop reading when I run across something I disagree with.

What I was doing was rambling about what was considered a mystery in it’s time of why beer drinkers didn’t typically develop symptoms from the cholera bacteria.

I suppose there could be a connection with a virus though, possible the COVID virus and alcohol drinking. Harvard and a Spanish university conducted a wine study published in 2002. The two Universities wanted to find out if red wine or white wine had any effect on preventing and helping with the symptoms of the typical winter time cold.

What they found is that yes, moderate wine drinking can dramatically help prevent a cold from developing. Those that drank 20 grams of alcohol a day had almost 10 times fewer colds verses teetotallers. Red wine drinkers had a 60% fewer colds. White wine drinkers, non smokers, saw an 88% reduction. As the article mentions - “There is no drug, herb, or medical intervention that can come close to offering that level of protection against mankind’s virus diseases.”
 
Roselle said:
What I was doing was rambling about what was considered a mystery in it’s time of why beer drinkers didn’t typically develop symptoms from the cholera bacteria.

I suppose there could be a connection with a virus though, possible the COVID virus and alcohol drinking. Harvard and a Spanish university conducted a wine study published in 2002. The two Universities wanted to find out if red wine or white wine had any effect on preventing and helping with the symptoms of the typical winter time cold.

What they found is that yes, moderate wine drinking can dramatically help prevent a cold from developing. Those that drank 20 grams of alcohol a day had almost 10 times fewer colds verses teetotallers. Red wine drinkers had a 60% fewer colds. White wine drinkers, non smokers, saw an 88% reduction. As the article mentions - “There is no drug, herb, or medical intervention that can come close to offering that level of protection against mankind’s virus diseases.”
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This is dangerous hokum!
 
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