Updated on May, 12, 2021
Nowadays term ‘herd immunity’ is part of our everyday conversations. If most people get infected with SARS-CoV-2 the virus we will no longer cause COVID-19.
While studies about it are controversial and we don’t actually know if it’s possible or achieved soon there is another thing which protects us – memory T cells which are responsible for the cross-immunity.
But how is possible immunity to other pathogens to help us with COVID-19?
Well these pathogens are 4 other coronaviruses causing common cold. These viruses are closely related to SARS-CoV-2 and yes thanks to them we are protected. The fact young and kids rarely get sick could be explained with it. They are in contact with many similar viruses.
This of course is supported by plenty of recent studies (take a look at the end).
Why cross-immunity is so important?
Cross-immunity against SARS-CoV-2 means we can go back to the normal life. COVID-19 is not as deadly as initially thought. Don’t forget that millions die from malaria yes I know that doesn’t affect you since you live in the West but it is a fact. Western way of living is killing more people than SARS-CoV-2. The way we were trying to defeat it until now is wrong since as more we isolate as weaker is our immunity. In fact lockdowns are deadlier than COVID-19. But to find out why lockdowns will kill more people read the next post.
List of science articles on the topic
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22036-z
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595599/
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.14.095885v2
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00460-4
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20061440v1
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.19.344911v1.full
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/11/05/science.abe1107
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