Getting Sick All the Time? Don ’ t (Necessarily) Blame COVID-19

Respiratory disease season is in full swing, with influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 case counts rising in various parts of the U.S. Hospitals in some states are also reporting upticks in pediatric pneumonia diagnoses, which experts say seems to be unrelated to the recent spike of pneumonias reported in China. On the heels of last year’s severe flu and RSV reason, all this contagion has some people wondering if SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be to blame. Some studies suggest the virus leaves its mark on the immune system even after an acute illness passes, raising an important question: does having COVID-19 increase your risk of getting sick from other viruses in the future? [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Any time that we get an infection, it changes us,” says Dr. David Smith, chief of infectious diseases and global public health at UC San Diego Health. “It changes our B cells, which make antibodies, and it changes our T cells, which do cellular functions to clear out infections.” Sometimes, these changes can be long-lasting. After a case of chickenpox, for example, the body typically builds lifelong immunity that prevents future bouts of the illness. But other viruses have more insidious effects. Measles essentially forces the body to re-learn how to fend off other infections, research shows, while HIV leaves people severely immunocompromised. SARS-CoV-2 seems to fall somewhere between those two poles, thou...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news