While five waves have swept, the last of which was particularly contagious, why do some still escape the disease? Here are some answers
Some lucky people ask themselves the question: after five waves, when the virus has been circulating everywhere around them for two years, when everyone around them has ended up having it – some twice – and when the opportunities to contract it have been multiple, why did they never catch the Covid-19? A question that is all the more lively as with the dazzling omicron variant Who has infected more than 300,000 people daily in France for several weeks, it is currently difficult to avoid going from the status of contact case to that of contaminated.
So, apart from the case of the hermits who have not met anyone for two years, those who have no children or the ayatollahs of the barrier gesture, how have others escaped? Several factors seem to emerge.
The blood group
Not all blood groups seem to have the same ability to resist the virus. Group O would be relatively spared from infection and severe forms of the disease, according to an Inserm study (the National Institute of Health and Medical Research). Conversely, a canadian study shows that groups A and AB are “more at risk of staying in intensive care for a long time or having recourse to mechanical ventilation”.
And according to the scientific journal Epidemics, the risk of transmission would be higher between people of the same rhesus. Other immunological factors could also be involved, says Inserm, without it being possible today to identify them all precisely.
Super immunity, or luck
The other explanation could be genetics. Some benefit from a kind of “super immunity” in the face of Covid: the same physiological inequality which means that, outside of a pandemic, some are never sick, others much more often.
In the same category are those who have had it and have developed asymptomatic and undetectable forms of the disease. But who can obviously transmit it to people in whom the symptoms will be much more serious. Hence the reminder in each of the studies of the need to respect health protocols, which are admittedly very restrictive.
The benefits of… the common cold
Good old colds are also coronaviruses. According to an English study, the body could remember having fought them and would apply the same defense, successfully, against Sars-Cov-2. This would be particularly the case in children, particularly prone to runny noses and very resistant to Covid-19, although heavily infected.
A track currently being studied by scientific laboratories like Moderna, consists in developing new “universal” vaccines against coronaviruses, and more effective.
Scientists finally warn against false remedies, to guard against the disease, which circulate on the Internet. According to a page on the WHO website that lists misconceptions about the virus, minerals and vitamins, despite all the benefits they provide, are useless in the face of Covid-19. Neither does preventive treatment with hydroxychloroquine. Much less alcohol…