DWQA QuestionsCategory: Coronavirus COVID-19A viewer asks: “Why do some people recover from this coronavirus COVID-19 infection? What unique aspect of their personal body chemistry supports their recovery?”
Nicola Staff asked 4 years ago
This is simply normal healthy immune system functioning that is able to detect the presence of the virus and react in a timely way to destroy infected cells and inactivate the virus particles themselves. This the immune system was designed to do and in healthy people, particularly young people, there is a robust defense present that can keep the infection from reaching a severe level of symptoms. So this is not a magical property, it is simply an immune system operating within normal limits in all respects and not being subpar due to the ravages of aging or illness. Most medical therapies are built around using inhibitors of something—typically, a drug of some kind that blocks or inhibits function of something to prevent a symptom. When that function is deficient, it is very difficult for your current science to enhance something in the body as opposed to inhibiting it and reducing it. That is why most immunomodulating strategies are centered around restoration of essential components needed for wellbeing when these may be underexpressed or not taken in at sufficient levels through a faulty diet but can be substituted for through taking appropriate nutritional supplements. There is not one magic physiologic mediator whose presence could be increased through exogenous administration of an overabundance and make a person invulnerable to the consequences of infection. The best one can do is promote having a healthy body and a healthy immune system at all times. There are ways to inactivate the virus chemically, but this will take quite some time to create and verify its effectiveness and will likely be an imperfect strategy in the end because of side effect problems if nothing else. It will be needed because the virus will be persisting in the environment and there will be successive waves of infection recreating epidemics each time. So inhibitors that can kill the virus will have a place in minimizing the ongoing carnage of a persistent presence of this scourge.