‘It’s all about the T cells now’

One-third of all common cold infections are caused by coronaviruses, such as HCoV-NL63, HCoV-229E, HKU1, and HCOV-OC43. If you ever had a bad cold but tested negative for the flu, there is a reasonable chance you were infected with a human coronavirus. Some, especially the elderly and immunosuppressed, can be hospitalized from complications. It’s also possible that hundreds of years ago, these now milder infections were more virulent and dangerous.

There are no vaccines for these viruses, although they all have spike proteins that can be targeted. There are just too many of them, and although they likely result in billions of illnesses, they are rarely lifethreatening. They also undergo lots of random mutation, just like we are seeing with COVID, rendering vaccines less effective.

What we are learning about with Omicron is that nature is usually far more random and ingenious than the simple minds of humans. We encourage the spread of the virus in these ways.

⏩ The unvaccinated walk around without masks.

⏩ The person who is symptomatic relies on a single COVID test to rationalize that he is OK to go to that party.

⏩ The children who are unvaccinated but exposed go to school or a sporting event because their parents don’t want them to miss it.

⏩ Cruise lines mandate vaccinations for everyone except children, as if a 5-year-old cannot contract or transmit the disease.

We have a vaccine that was developed over a year ago that targets only a spike protein and was bound to be figured out by the randomness of billions of random mutations.

Luck and effort often win the greatest battles. It’s all about the T cells now.

In 2020, scientists found that in some people, pre-existing T-cell memory, even against those other coronaviruses, could reduce the severity of illness. What we are seeing with Omicron may be a similar phenomenon: People who were vaccinated or those who had the disease seem to often have cold-like symptoms while those without any T-cell memory may suffer the ultimate consequence.

Adding to our luck, which we desperately need, is the appearance of a highly infectious COVID variant that may have borrowed some of its genetic sequence from a common-cold COVID and become less virulent.

Getting a booster likely helps to bring back enough neutralizing antibodies for a short while to improve immunity, but unless we develop a markedly improved vaccine, ending this pandemic may require a lot of random luck.

For now, to improve your chances of getting a mild infection instead of seriously ill, vaccination is the best answer.