Covid's Immune Response Suppression

For many, Covid seems milder now, closer to a regular flu, but yet another new study suggests otherwise.

I like this analogy from Tern to help explain a recent study from Nature Microbiology. 

"Do you know why it can be a bad sign that an acute covid infection seems more mild? 🔥👉Covid evolved TO SUPPRESS YOUR INITIAL RESPONSE TO INFECTION 😮 I'm going to try to explain this really important concept. 

So when Omicron turned up, the initial or 'acute' stage of infection seemed to be 'milder', but that wasn't because your body was handling it better. It was because Omicron was switching off your body's ability to respond. 😮 When you encounter an invasive pathogen like a virus or bacteria, your body responds, but your first response is generic. It's not tailored to the infection. It's the Innate Immune Response. Like you call 999 or 911 and some police turn up whether it's a fire or crime or medical emergency. And you can tell there's been an incident because there's all these sirens and flashing lights and emergency services vehicles.

With omicron and subsequent infections, that paper is saying that Omicron and its babies can suppress the response. So fewer emergency units turn up so quickly. So you look out the window and say. "Oh, there's only one uniformed policeman there, it can't be a real emergency". What does that look like in an infection? Well, you can't see stuff like how many cytokines are being produced, but you can see stuff like fever, aches, fatigue. Lower fever doesn't necessarily mean more harmless virus. It can mean the virus is suppressing your body's realisation it needs to turn up the heat. Lower fever doesn't necessarily mean more harmless virus. It can mean the virus is suppressing your body's realisation it needs to turn up the heat. 

That paper is specifically and expressly saying that Covid evolved to suppress your emergency response. Not that it evolved to become more mild. Not that you became able to fight it more effectively. But that it evolved to give itself an advantage in infecting you. You might be saying to yourself, "That's fine, isn't it, because that initial cytokine response could go wrong, couldn't it? Wasn't that one of the big problems?" 

Yes. It was. One of the initial problems with Covid was some people's bodies were encountering the virus and calling EVERY emergency service, and the army, navy, and air force, a 'cytokine storm', that didn't stop the virus but destroyed the body's ability to function. So it's good that's not happening so frequently. BUT. Suppressed innate immune response has several bad repercussions. You may end up with the virus reproducing far more in your body, far more quickly, far more extensively. Other parts of your immune response may get it under control eventually, but you may have unusual consequences. Like it may have been able to get into your brain more. Or reproduce more in your heart. 

Suppressed immune response may mean that an infection that has got into your body can reproduce in one part of your body more than others. Like your kidneys. Or liver. Or nerves. Or it may have been able to do more damage to your vascular system. A higher viral load would normally make you more contagious. You might seem to get better and then have an unexpected period of deterioration. Like a rebound. 

And because Covid has suppressed your innate immune response, your first responders, your body might be vulnerable to EVERY OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTION THAT COMES YOUR WAY. So you might get waves of people who are 'constantly sick'. And we've seen all of this. Reduction of initial symptoms. Increase in secondary health conditions like heart disease. Vulnerability to secondary infections. Covid not evolving to be milder. Covid evolving to not set off the alarms. Covid evolving to reproduce more in the cells of your body. 

And THAT'S BAD."

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COVID BASICS: (1-3 from Dr. Joe Vipond): 

"1. Covid is predominantly airborne. [It can cross a room in minutes and linger for hours.]

2. Over 50% of transmission is from asymptomatic people. [They feel perfectly healthy!!]

3. Long Covid is real and impacts a substantial number of people. We've NEVER EVER EVER had these three things told to us by the system. Not once. Not by our leaders." And also...

4. Vaccines help reduce severity of cases, but can't eliminate transmission (yet), and they wane in effectiveness within months because Covid mutates so fast (because of all the spread!) 

5. N95s trap Covid using inertial impaction, diffusion, interception, and electrostatic attraction. They really work!!

6. Covid's the #3 killer in Canada, and we don't know how many people it has disabled. Avoid being one of them. There is no effective treatment for Long Covid, only prevention. Be wise with N95s! 

Well-fitting N95s reduce transmission by about 95% - even higher if everyone wears them; cleaning the air helps by about 30%, and vaccines reduces hospitalization by 60%. Put together, we could ALL be 99.999% protected from this mess and more! We don't have to get sick every winter; it's a choice.