Quote:
Originally Posted by brainz01
This statement may be true, but for reasons other than a cultural proclivity to don masks when the biannual pandemic escapes from the local virus factory, wet market, or whatever.
COVID19 is in the SARS family of viruses, so prior exposure to SARS could potentially have primed the immune systems of many Asian residents to be able to cope with COVID19 unlike those in the West.
|
Previous exposure to the family of viruses may be a piece of this puzzle along with rapid test/contact trace/quarantine protocols.
Emerging data from central Africa suggests a high covid infection rate yet an extremely low rate of serious illness and death. Far lower than the most advanced country, South Africa and no one can explain it. One theory is that these people have been exposed to all kinds of disease since birth and if a virus was going to kill them they died under 5 yrs old.
Perhaps living in abject poverty with limited sanitation they have developed a very powerful innate immunity that protects them when 1st world countries get hit hard with disease. The situation in South America is very different and Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia are getting hit pretty hard. More unknown unknowns with this Wuhan flu.