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T, B, or Both ?


How do we fight infections? 

We are not born with resistance to infection, but rather acquire some resistance to common infections as we age. Newborns basically have the ability to fend off a lot of early infections due to the immunity that is acquired from the mother. It is well known to anyone who has, or has had, kids in pre-school or kindergarten, that these youngsters get colds easily and often when they start to interact and mingle with other young children. These early colds are a part of growing up and developing their own sort of immunity. Both pre-school and early grade elementary school teachers will often relate that they were “seemingly always sick” in the early days of their careers, but as time went on they were sick much less. Why? . . . Because due to repeated exposure to viruses, they developed immunity to a varying degree. The same thing applies to pediatricians who are constantly exposed to kids with coughs, fevers, and mucous coming out of a lot of different orifices. Who would ever choose to be a pediatrician if all they could look forward to was forty years of almost constant sickness? Again pediatricians develop their own brand of immunity that in essence precludes them from being sick all the time, despite their constant exposure and  re-exposure.

How does one’s body fight off infections? Basically there are two types of mechanisms to fight infection . . . B-cells, which produce antibodies and a second equally important defense against infections provided by T-cells. One function of T-cells is to stimulate B-cells to produce antibodies. But T-cells can also fight off a virus by directly attacking and killing infected cells.

At this point, let’s switch gears to COVID-19, which is supposedly a new virus dating to the latter part of 2019. However, there appears to be a few discrepancies about the lack of immunity to this new virus, Covid 19.

From James Todaro M.D.:

In a study of 23 people who survived SARS in 2003, every single one had memory T cells that recognized the SARS virus 17 years later. (Nature)

Moreover, blood samples from all 23 individuals showed “robust cross-reactivity” against SARS-CoV-2.

This can be called crossover immunity. Crossover immunity is not limited to just people who were infected with SARS years ago though.

In the same study, in 37 persons with no history of SARS or COVID-19 (negative serology and/or samples taken before COVID-19), over 50% had SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells.

This is not surprising because there are at least 4 strains of coronaviruses that cause the “common cold”.

The above study is not the only one to show this level of cross-reactivity.

 In a study from April 2020, in 68 healthy donors never exposed to COVID-19, 34% had T cells that reacted to SARS-CoV-2.

This finding was confirmed in yet another study published in Cell in June 2020 showing that 40-60% of unexposed individuals had T cell recognition of SARS-CoV-2. The authors hypothesized that crossover immunity came from “common cold” coronaviruses.

Whoa! This information allows us to look at SARS-CoV-2 in a different light, and may explain why the elderly and immuno-compromised are more seriously affected (less T cells). Likewise, crossover immunity may explain why so many young and middle-aged individuals are asymptomatic even when testing positive for coronavirus.

Furthermore, although this T cell recognition and crossover immunity seem to be unrecognized by the esteemed Dr. Fauci, they could be valuable clues with regard to herd immunity.

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