Swedish researchers have discovered the obvious about the human immune system: When a person "catches" a common cold and recovers, he or she develops lasting natural immunity to coronaviruses.
The common cold is a type of coronavirus, in case you were unaware. And if you have ever had a cold, especially as a child, then your immune system already knows how to fight off coronaviruses, including the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19).
For their study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers looked at 48 blood samples collected from two- and six-year-old children, along with 94 samples collected from adults between the ages of 26 and 83. They also looked at blood samples collected from 58 people who recently recovered from a covid infection.
It apparently came as a surprise to the experts at the Karolinska Institutet who piloted the study that prior infections to coronaviruses train a person's immune system to naturally fight off coronaviruses – and without the need for any "vaccines."
Cross-immunity to covid is formed, they found, when memory T-cells generated by more common coronaviruses develop following natural infection. Blood samples collected from children before the "pandemic" was launched show that these memory T-cells do, in fact, react to cells infected with SARS-CoV-2.
(Related: Conversely, a New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM] study from last year found that covid "vaccines" destroy this natural immunity.)
Natural immunity to coronaviruses develops as early as age two
There are four different coronaviruses that are primarily responsible for seasonal common cold systems, the researchers said. And exposure to all of these coronaviruses stimulates an immune response that also goes after covid.
Even T cells that have previously been activated by the OC43 virus, as one example, cross-react against SARS-CoV-2, demonstrating what grade school-level science used to teach children from an early age: that natural immunity develops following natural exposure.
"These reactions are especially strong early in life and grow much weaker as we get older," said Annika Karlsson, the study's corresponding author and a research group leader in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet.
"Our findings show how the T-cell response develops and changes over time and can guide the future monitoring and development of vaccines."
The next step for this particular area of research is to conduct analogous studies of younger children, older children, teenagers, and young adults to more closely track how the immune response to coronaviruses develops in every stage of life from childhood to adulthood.
Similar research published in The Lancet in February also found that natural infection with and recovery from covid provides lasting immune protection against further covid infections.
Researchers analyzed 65 different studies on natural immunity, finding that the average effectiveness of natural immunity is at least 88 percent against hospitalization and death for at least 10 months following infection with all covid strains and variants.
"I had covid in 2021," one commenter wrote in response to these studies. "I have no comorbidities – it was rough, worse than flu. I treated myself and I was fine after about a week. I never had any of the vaccines, I do not social distance, I don't wear a mask, I don't use hand sanitizer and I work with the public and I know that I was exposed several times as late as last week when everyone in my circle tested positive."
"I didn't get any more than a sore throat," this person added. "I cannot help but to think that I have long-term immunity from having covid early on. The people in my circle who have had confirmed cases in the past also had milder symptoms to varying degrees."
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