Dumb question: The asymptomatic carriers for Coronavirus.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Why is this?

Is it a matter of certain people having a stronger immune system to stave off the virus that's entered their system?

Or is it a matter of the virus only activating in certain instances and not in others?

Would like a brief explanation from someone more versed in knowledge than myself.

[CountAllVotes]

1. Some people are immune to the flu

Persons with rh factors in their blood tend to be a sickly lot. However, many never get the flu.

I am rh- myself as were both of my parents.

I do not recall that they ever had the flu nor have I.

I really wish they'd study this as if you have an rh factor, you have an extra layer of protein that surrounds the red blood cells. Perhaps this is why persons with rh factors seem to often have immunity to the flu (??).

Children seem to be immune to a point it seems.

Otherwise, I do not know what I can add to this thread.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. If you are immune, are you just immune to the symptoms?

Or are you immune to even carrying the virus at all?

[CountAllVotes]

7. If you are immune it means if exposed, you do not contract it

I suppose you could be a carrier.

They know so little about this virus that they cannot say who/what are and are not carriers or may be immune due to natural immunity (which is possible regardless of what your overall health may be like).

Because of all of the lies and poor information being given to the public, we do not know. They need to figure this part out and all studies must be done according to established protocols for if not, they are useless.

The other problem I see is the face mask thing.

They were saying you do not need a face mask.

You do, and an N95 is what you need, as the COVID particulates are so small that they can easily pass through a cheap mask. The N95 mask is the best protection for YOU but they don't want YOU to know this because there is a shortage of them.

I have a small supply in the garage luckily as I had to de-contaminate the house in 2014 due to a severe moth infestation of all the damned things. I had to clean and sanitize every square inch of this house and had the laundry machines going non-stop for a month straight to kill the larvae hiding in the house. For this reason, I have N95 masks, gloves and goggles here fortunately as unfortunate as the situation was that required the need for such items.

I lost thousands of $ worth of *things* but managed to knock it out after endless days of hard ass-busting work that went from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. without a break. That was a hell I thought but then came this!

[LisaL]

3. Some people can be carriers of virus or bacteria but not develop sympoms.

Remember Typhoid Mary?

[BComplex]

8. Back in the day, they had on the news people who were immune to the AIDs virus

I remember reading about it.

[Coleman]

9. Magic Johnson as a example

It's estimated that 10% of the human population is immune to HIV. Just like Magic, they are carriers of the HIV, but do not show any signs of the effects of having it, like AIDS. However, they can infect other people just like any AIDS infected person. One of the interesting facts. A decade or so ago, a cheetah was discovered to have FIV (cat version). Panic hit, biologist were concerned that there was going to be a major exinction event, being a wild cat is kind a messy. They started testing wild cats in zoos and the wild, discovering every cat (lions, tigers, leopards ...) were FIV positive. Subsequent studies estimate about 700 years ago wild cats were almost extinct, the only survivors were those immune to FIV.

[unblock]

4. Could be that the initial viral exposure was low

That may give the immune system enough time to respond without going into overdrive and unleashing obvious symptoms.

But some people just don't react symptomatically to certain illnesses, such as Typhoid Mary, but many people are asymptomatic spreaders or the flu or common cold. Others just ignore their mild symptoms and don't ever realize they're sick.

[Native]

5. Even more perplexing since they've determined the viral load is like 5x greater in asymptomatics.

[uppityperson]

6. They don't know yet. Simple answer.

[intrepidity]

10. It is a mystery

For a virus to be transmissible means, by definition, that it has successfully infected a person's cells, hijacked it's resources and machinery, and replicated itself millions or billions of copies.

Why the person remains asymptomatic could depend on any number of variables, such as: which cells specifically became infected; the type and degree of immune response mounted by the body; and I can't really think of any others besides those two.

Just based on functional analysis, whatever is happening in their body, it's not compromising enough to the host (infected person) for them to notice symptoms, but yet the virus has successfully hijacked some of their resources, enough to replicate at sufficient levels, that the person sheds infectious virus.

Brilliant engineering on the part of the virus.