Rich-Juice2517 t1_iypetnu wrote on December 3, 2022 at 3:04 AM

With recently learning that covid basically nukes your tcells and makes your body forget diseases, it's going to be a rough few years

Get your shots people and make sure you're up to date with your other ones

apathy-sofa t1_iypr476 wrote on December 3, 2022 at 4:52 AM

Wait what is this about T cells and covid? I saw that long-haulers typically have lower than average T cell memory. I thought that the suggestion was that reduced T cell memory may be part of what causes long-haul covid. Is that backwards? Is the thinking that long-haul covid causes T cells to be amnesiacs?

Rich-Juice2517 t1_iypss6m wrote on December 3, 2022 at 5:09 AM

That's a part of it. Seeing if i can find the article again

Found it

>Leonardi was one of the first experts to recognize how SARS-CoV-2 damages T cells, which worsens with repeat infections. In late 2020, he and Rui Proenca, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, published research in Frontiers in Immunology describing SARS-CoV-2 as a "lympho-manipulative pathogen," meaning it alters the immune organs called lymph nodes, and "distorts T cell function, numbers, and death, and creates a dysfunctional immune response."

It's linked also in r/everythingscience

ktbug1987 t1_iyqacz6 wrote on December 3, 2022 at 8:53 AM

I’m a scientist and this is now well established (that COVID weakens your immune system through m a host of interactions with T cells, regardless of if you get long haul symptoms). It’s also well established that multiple COVID infections are associated with more impacted T cells. Population wise, since most have had COVID at least once and sometimes more than once by now, it is likely one of the things contributing to the current surge of viral illness this cold and flu season.

Rich-Juice2517 t1_iyr02ov wrote on December 3, 2022 at 2:16 PM

How long has it been since it was first established?

ktbug1987 t1_iysym65 wrote on December 3, 2022 at 10:37 PM

End of 2020 was the first paper suggesting it — as it states above, but there have been many many papers further elucidating the mechanisms since then.

holmgangCore t1_iyqtg6f wrote on December 3, 2022 at 1:14 PM

Here’s another study from Feb 2020:
Reduction and Functional Exhaustion of T Cells in Patients with COVID-19

In short: In some cases (unknown exactly who or why) SARS-2 can directly infect the T-cells. This results in a milder set of symptoms, but serious immune system debilitation. This leaves people vulnerable to other opportunistic infections.

One marker from other studies I’ve seen: A second Covid infection is somehow much worse —for the immune system— than a first case.

And yes, one possibility is SARS-2 infecting T-cells could be one of the causes of long-Covid. There seem to be several different causes of long-Covid symptoms, it’s still unclear wtf is going on. Probably multiple things, IMHO.

Don’t catch Covid. But if you’ve had it once, definitely don’t catch it again! That seems to be a good rule of thumb so far.