Is natural Covid immunity possible?

[Thudthudthud]

3 weeks ago DS(6) started with a cough and fatigue. It later transpired that his best friends dad had a confirmed case of coronavirus so it’s likely he had it too.

Since then everyone else in the family has had it as well to varying degrees and symptoms (cough and chest pain being the moment common symptoms). All except me who had a day of a runny nose and since then nothing.

Is it possible I have some kind of natural immunity or is it more likely it’s still going to hit me?

Blood group is interesting. There may be a link with group A from Chinese data. But what is interesting is there is a link with blood group A and longevity. So in China people with group A live longer. The % of people with group A is higher in the most vulnerable age group than in other age groups.
Blood group in isolation is not a factor to be worried about.
Until we have a much better database worldwide we cannot make conclusions. Clutching at straws creates fake news.
Historically before modern medicine the only way to stop pandemics was to self isolate. The human race survived those pandemics as it will this one.
I think we have to accept as a species we cannot fight everything. Nature always wins.

So the likelihood of you getting very ill a second time from Covid (at the moment as I know it can mutate) would you say are 0 as there no known cases?

It’s impossible to say if it is 0, it hasn’t been round long enough to make those assertions. Plus of course we don’t know the accuracy of the data coming out of China and other countries.

There are no reported cases, which doesn’t automatically translate to no known cases.

Well from the worldwide data that we have, this is all we have go on, it looks very promising, especially when you think of all the medical staff having virus load and we haven’t heard of one case?

Yes, but as the virus has only been in existence since November, and has only been here since approx February, no real conclusions can be made. It’s possible for example that immunity could only last for 6-12 months, but we just don’t know.

OP, I don’t think anyone knows or possibly will ever fully know.
Viruses behave in unpredictable ways. Even top immunologists don’t know exactly how some people are highly susceptible or highly immune to certain viruses. Even those people who you might expect to be very healthy & therefore have good immune systems will succumb to certain viruses, and conversely those who you might expect to be susceptible to viruses (those on immune-suppressive medication for example) will get exposed to something but not develop it. This may be due to viral load of course but not in every case.
What is certain is that natural immunity is always preferable to injected immunity because it tends to not ‘wear off’. But even this isn’t failsafe.
Re:viral load, my DH is HIV+ and his infection is classified as ‘undetectable’ since his viral load is so low it doesn’t show up on a standard blood test (due to the excellent drugs he’s on). We conceived all of our children naturally and I remain HIV-. This exemplifies why viral load is so important.

I would prefer natural immunity, it would be good to get it mildly but like you say there is no guarantees how your body will react to it.

@HoffiCoffi13 does that mean they won’t be able to find a vaccine for at least 12 months as they won’t be sure what the virus is capable of until then?

This study (Diamond Princess) shows more people who tested positive were asymptomatic than symptomatic.

If you read down the report you’ll see that the true number of asymptomatic people is somewhat less at around 20%.

Re chicken pox, I’ve never had it and never have it present as anything else even when my kids all had it last year. When I started my nurses training they test you for immunity to all sorts hep c etc and the chicken pox strain was one of the tests, I was then told it came back as already having immunity. So unless I’ve had it as a child and just didn’t have any spots but my parents say I’m the only one who didn’t have it or show any symptoms of having it

Well at least two other posters on this thread have said they've never had chicken pox. Neither have I (although I've now been vaccinated) although my 3 siblings had it and obviously I was exposed to them. So I guess some people just are asymptomatic with certain viruses. It will be very interesting to find out who and why with COVID 19.

Gin96 I don’t know much about vaccine development, sorry.
They won’t have a vaccine 12-18 months minimum as that’s how long it takes to carry out the testing from what I understand, and that’s their ‘rushed’ timescale. Vaccines usually take around 4 years to develop and test.

I fed silly writing this . Nevertheless.. in January I had a virus with different symptoms than you would expect with a cold.
A dry cough, sinusitis and terrible neuralgia.
About a week after I felt better I developed breathlessness on excersising.
I recovered.
The. I started noticing a sharp pain, an ache and at other times just general discomfort at the top of my left arm. Quite a localised spot.
I finally worked out that this was the site of my BCG jab 40 years ago.
I’ve never noticed any discomfort there before.
I’ve just read this thread and it made me wonder?
I caught the original infection from some visiting Americans . Who both arrived with dry coughs.
Any thoughts ?

That sounds interesting? I can’t remember if I had my BCG or not. Hopefully they will do tests and we’ll find out in ten years time 😊

The test for it when I was at school (80s) as to see if a bump appeared on your arm, if you had a raised bump they said you were immune and you weren't vaccinated. We queried it but I had same reaction twice so they said they were certain.

The thing is with natural immunity is that they don't know how long you will be immune for, in the case of Norovirus for instance you are only immune for around 13, weeks or something, then you can catch it again and have the same severity of symptoms. Hoping this isn't the same, as if it is there will be no getting rid of it!

It's possible that some people would have natural immunity - some did to HIV and "only" 1/3 of the then population died of the plague so 2/3 must have been able to get over it or didn't get it at all.

I'm 43 and still have the scar from my BCG if that helps anyone who can't remember. Look for a round circle at the top of your left arm. I am left handed and still had to have it in my left arm, which meant I was excused from writing for the rest of the day. Best day of high school.

I'm another one who's never had chicken pox. My sister got it very badly, we were on holiday in a small village at the time, most of the local kids we'd been playing with prior to her becoming ill went on to get it as well (very popular holiday makers we were that year) but I never did and we shared a bedroom the entire time. I've also never had a coldsore either. I've been exposed to chicken pox since on a few occasions and still nothing. I had the whooping cough vaccine but still got a mild case of that as a child. I remember the BCG test, a little daisy wheel thing on your forearm and if it went red and blotchy you didn't need the actual injection a week later. We all stood in the queue frantically scratching at the daisy wheel marks to make them look bad because we'd heard they used a needle on a par with a javelin for the actual jab.The school nurse was having none of it. A lot of people had really bad injection site reactions to the actual jab though, took ages to heal and left the scar so many people have.

I am amazed at the lack of understanding about immunity

Do enlighten us.....

Snorkelface I've got a huge scar from my BCG on my arm. My brother hit me on the arm a few days after the jab and it turned really nasty.
I'm one of the people who hasn't had chicken pox. I'd never thought about cold sores, but I've never had one of them either.

This is probably the first time we've really had to consider what it means in the middle of a pandemic.