THURSDAY, February 11, 2021 (HealthDay News) – It would be nice if it were true, but a bout of cold won’t protect you from the new coronavirus infection, researchers report.
Colds are caused by seasonal coronaviruses (CoVs), and previous studies have shown that exposure to cold coronaviruses can protect against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
To find out if this is the case, the researchers analyzed blood samples taken from hundreds of people before the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 20% of the samples had CoV antibodies that could theoretically bind to both cold-causing CoVs and key points on SARS-CoV-2.
However, these antibodies did not reduce SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and were not associated with better outcomes in people who later received COVID-19, according to the study published online Feb. 9 in the journal Cell.
The researchers also tested blood from different groups of people and found that both children and adults had similar levels of CoV antibodies on average.
This suggests that these antibodies aren’t the reason most children don’t develop severe COVID-19, the study authors concluded.
“We found that many people had antibodies that could bind to SARS-CoV-2 before the pandemic, but those antibodies couldn’t prevent infection,” said study director Scott Hensley. He is an Associate Professor of Microbiology in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
“While antibodies from previous coronavirus infections cannot prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections, it is possible that pre-existing storage B and T cells may offer some level of protection, or at least reduce the severity of the disease from COVID -19. Studies needed to be completed to test this hypothesis, “Hensley said in a university press release.
Larger studies are needed to finally answer the question of whether pre-existing anti-CoV antibodies can protect against SARS-CoV-2 viruses, the researchers said.
However, one expert welcomed the results.
“The idea that the cold some time ago somehow protected you from SARS-CoV-2 infection always left me cold, but it has been an enduring urban legend throughout the pandemic,” said Dr. John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, told the New York Times. “Hopefully this new paper will finally cool everyone down and put such thoughts in the freezer.”
Comments are closed.