WarExciting t1_ivh660w wrote on November 7, 2022 at 10:59 PM

Reply to comment by theanti_girl in Local part time bartender here, stop coming to the bar sick .. by [deleted]

Some people don’t get that exposure to a relatively mild virus (the cold) prepares the body to fight off a multitude of other viruses. The reason that we’re having such a noticeable uptick in upper respiratory viral infections is because there has been very little low level exposure for the last two years resulting in the viruses continuing to mutate naturally and our immune systems not keeping up.

BBKing-13 t1_ivjhwn1 wrote on November 8, 2022 at 12:53 PM

There are some hypotheses about this but not a lot of evidence to support it. Yeah, if you didn’t interact with other ppl for some time, you may get a cold or other virus when you start interacting socially again, but that doesn’t mean that the mild infections protect against more severe ones down the road. Immunity is largely pathogen-specific, and even for the non-specific part of the immunity, it will develop regardless of having contact with actively sick people at a bar. Preventing obvious exposures shouldn’t be discouraged— you’ll get exposed to stuff anyway.