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Comment by TylerE | Hacker News Reader

I’ve observed the same in my peer group. There’s a reason Instill wear an N95 whenever I’m out and about and it isn’t totally impractical.

My personal pet (non scientific) theory is that repeated infections over-sensitize the immune system, almost like an allergic reaction or something. Many of them seem To be on their 3rd or 4th rodeo at this point. Comments like “the first two times it was just a cold, this time it was like a really really bad flu” are common.

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Do you have a theory for why COVID would behave in a novel way with respect to worsening on repeat infection? I have not heard of this type of behavior for other viruses. In general there seems to be a willingness to grant COVID special powers among viruses, e.g. the whole “maybe natural immunity doesn’t work at all!” saga. But maybe this does happen for other viruses and I just haven’t heard of it?

Weakening the immune system is not an uncommon property of viruses and Coronaviruses are know to not engender long term, durable immunity. So, with COVID, what we have is not “special powers,” but a combination of both qualities in a more (at the population-level) virulent disease. Natural immunity for COVID works pretty much the same as it does for other Coronaviruses (you can get the same one multiple times per year), but that’s problematic given the disease’s overall severity and propensity to damage people’s immune systems in a way that makes them susceptible to other illnesses (see the recent spate of post-COVID fungal infections).

Dengue is such a virus: repeated infections get worse.

Quoting: 'repeated infections over-sensitize the immune system, almost like an allergic reaction or something."

Try the 'R' in the (Strain-) Sequency (RRRRR) maybe it matches your thought (not an expert...) regards...

> My personal pet (non scientific) theory is that repeated infections over-sensitize the immune system, almost like an allergic reaction or something.

There have been a few variants that have a markedly change in their ability to spread and also their severity. They might be hitting people differently. I mean, if the same person is getting infected multiple times with carrying degrees of severity, something is changing in the infection.

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