A new study in Nature Communication-sTrusted Source looked at people who were ex-posed to the coronavi-rus early on during the pandemic.
They found people with certain T-cells ap-peared less likely to develop COVID-19.These T-cells are likely made after a person develops the common cold.
People who have recovered from the common cold may be significantly less likely to de-velop COVID-19, according to a new study.
The study was published Janu-ary 10 in Nature Communica-tionsTrusted Source and looked at people who were ex-posed to the coronavirus early on during the pandemic.
They found people, who had certain types of T-cells that were likely created after having a common cold, were less likely to develop COVID-19.
“Findings of the study suggest that the immune response spurred by prior exposure to common cold viruses may pro-tect against COVID-19,” Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospi-tal in New York, told Healthline.
Researchers believe these findings could provide the “blueprint” for a universal vac-cine that might prevent infec-tion from current and future variants.
Participants all lived with someone who had COVID-19 Researchers at Imperial Col-lege, London began the study in September 2020 when most of the U.K. hadn’t been in-fected, or vaccinated, against COVID-19.
The study included 52 people who lived with some-one ex-periencing a PCR-confirmed infection. Par-ticipants were given PCR tests at the start, and then 4 and 7 days later, to find out if they also became in-fected.
All participants provided blood samples within 1 to 6 days of exposure. This enabled scien-tists to analyze existing levels of immune system T-cells pro-duced from a previous cold, which also recognized proteins in the pandemic virus.
The study findings indicate that participants who didn’t develop COVID-19 from exposure had higher levels of certain T-cells compared with the 26 who did. According to researchers, this is because those immune cells could target internal proteins of the virus, not just the spike pro-tein on its surface.
According to researchers, COVID-19’s internal proteins are much less subject to the mutations that create new vari-ants.
“The spike protein is under in-tense immune pressure from vaccine-induced antibody, which drives evolution of vac-cine escape mu-tants,” Professor Ajit Lalvani, the senior author of the study, said in a statement.
