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Comment by teruakohatu | Hacker News Reader

Slightly off topic question: do people who have been infected with those varieties have any sort of immunity against covid-19?

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Some health professional floated the theory that kids aren’t getting it as much as the rest of the population because they’ve recently been hammered with all the coronaviruses at daycare.

I’m hoping this is true, since it suggests new parents are mostly OK too.

The theory I've heard: Children mostly rely on their innate immune system compared to adults, where the adaptive immune system is more fully developed. In elderly people, the immune response of both systems is slower/weaker.

I keep searching for animal studies on this and come up empty - all I can find is some studies on serological cross response when testing people for SARS exposure.

Vaccines are obviously the best bet, but I wonder whether deliberately exposing the healthy to common cold Coronavirus might improve herd immunity against this Coronavirus. E.g. maybe in late summer it can be used to forestall a second wave of Coronavirus spread in the winter.

Do it like we did smallpox? Worth a shot...

No immunity. but they develop antibodies. More info here:

"FDA is working on treatment of coronavirus with blood from recovered patients"

"The method — essentially harvesting virus-fighting antibodies from the blood of previously infected patients — dates back more than a century"

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-working-treat...

Potentially.

If true, we might rush to get everyone cold and then be immune to coronavirus.

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