The receptors SARS-2 uses are also used by multiple ordinary respiratory crud viruses we get all the time. What was special was not the virus, it was just us, that we had no preexisting immune reaction and were forced to see it for the first time as adults, which we are NOT built for. - ThreadSky

begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social • 101 days ago

The receptors SARS-2 uses are also used by multiple ordinary respiratory crud viruses we get all the time. What was special was not the virus, it was just us, that we had no preexisting immune reaction and were forced to see it for the first time as adults, which we are NOT built for.

Comments

rf2048.bsky.social•101 days ago

Flu uses ACE2 receptors?

rf2048.bsky.social•100 days ago

One thing I’m curious about is if H5 would mutate for years and rapidly reinfect like Covid or achieve herd immunity within a year like Spanish Flu (sans vaccine)

begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social•100 days ago

The 1918 flu did not achieve immunity within a year. It circulated as the ordinary seasonal flu until 1957, when it got displaced by another flu pandemic. Immunity just got widespread enough that severe disease stopped.

begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social•100 days ago

On top of that, the 1918 H1N1 re-emerged (complicated story as to how) in 1977 and co-circulated as seasonal flu alongside the H3N2 that emerged in 1968 until 2009 (that same H3N2 continues to co-circulate).

begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social•100 days ago

On top of THAT, in 2009 a close relative of the 1918 H1N1 that had been in the pig population (the 'swine flu') since right about that time (was complex series of multiple spillovers circa 1918) entered the human population and displaced the human H1N1, and has circulated ever since in its place.

begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social•100 days ago

Generally speaking, viruses that have to go through your blood as a core part of their life cycle are one-and-done, your immune system can stop them in their tracks. Stuff that just hits the skin or respiratory surfaces you are readily reinfected by, but immune memory stops bad things happening.

begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social•101 days ago

No, but the endemic human coronavirus NL63 which you've had every two years or so for your entire life does.

begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social•101 days ago

Right now we are all against it the way a 4 year old is against flu, getting it more frequently and harder than we will in equilibrium, and its getting less interesting as it takes its eventual place over time as ordinary respiratory crud nobody needs to care about buffered by old immune memory

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply