When COVID-19 burst on to the scene, tests quickly showed that the everyone was susceptible – no pre-existing antibodies were found that bound to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This led to dire predictions that over 80% of the population might eventually fall ill.
Now more than six months in, this has not happened, and it does not appear to be close to happening. A few months ago, noted virologist Christian Drosten mused in his (German) podcast that some people might have a level of immunity after all, but he wasn’t yet sure. Turns out he may have been right.
In this post, I hope to cast some light on:
-
The slightly mysterious slowing down of the COVID-19 epidemic
-
The several layers of our immune system
-
Cell Mediated Immunity / T cells
-
How around 50% of us appear to have (some?) Cell Mediated Immunity against COVID-19
-
What this might mean (spoiler: not sure)