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Do childhood colds help the body respond to COVID?

A mechanism known as ‘original antigenic sin’ protects some people from flu; whether it helps immune reactions to coronaviruses is still unclear.
  1. Rachel Brazil
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Some people are better at fighting off seasonal flu when the strain of influenza virus is similar to the first one they encountered in childhood — a phenomenon evocatively dubbed ‘original antigenic sin’, or OAS. Now, there is increasing evidence that people’s immune responses to COVID-19 could be shaped in a similar way by previous infections with common-cold coronaviruses.

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Nature 599, 540-541 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03087-0

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