06-10-2020, 02:32 PM
It is a tempting theory that the amount of initial inoculum of virus dictates the clinical course, with people exposed to lots of virus having more severe courses than those who had a small inoculum.
As of yet, there is no good evidence to suggest this is how covid19 works. Smallpox can behave like this, but I don't believe we have any evidence of this effect in respiratory viruses in general, in humans. Certainly there is a level low enough that exposure will not generate an infection, but I doubt those very low level exposures would generate a protective immune response either, since the innate immune response was presumably what took care of it before the adaptive response even needed to go into gear.
Would welcome any more evidence on this, as I am certainly no expert in immunology.
As of yet, there is no good evidence to suggest this is how covid19 works. Smallpox can behave like this, but I don't believe we have any evidence of this effect in respiratory viruses in general, in humans. Certainly there is a level low enough that exposure will not generate an infection, but I doubt those very low level exposures would generate a protective immune response either, since the innate immune response was presumably what took care of it before the adaptive response even needed to go into gear.
Would welcome any more evidence on this, as I am certainly no expert in immunology.