GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Remember that miserable cold you got a few years back? Turns out that fever, runny nose, and down right miserable feeling may be protecting you from the coronavirus.
"There's four different coronaviruses that cause the common cold. Even thought they aren't directly related to the coronavirus that causes COVID 19 there are similiarities between them." Dr. Liam Sullivan is an infectious disease specialist with Spectrum Health he says new research published in the Journal Cell found an interesting connection. "They took patients that knew they had COVID and then patients that didn't have COVID and they found a little bit of cross reactivity in the patients that didn't have COVID and they found that they had T Helper cells as well."
Sound confusing?
Let's break it down.
T-Helper Cells tell B Cells to make antibodies which creates T-Cells that kill off the virus.
So if you have enough of those T-cells as a result of having a conoronavirus related cold then you might be able to fight of COVID-19.
"It might explain why some people are not getting very sick from this virus." Dr. Sullivan says it's just one more piece of the puzzle that makes up COVID-19 and may just help to control the virus, "It's strengthening the information we have and helping us develop better vaccinations and therapeutics in the future."
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