Past COVID infections may help protect against certain colds. Could it lead to better vaccines?

Past COVID infections may help protect against certain colds. Could it lead to better vaccines?


By LAURA UNGAR 2:46 PM CDT, June 12, 2024

If you’ve been sick with COVID-19, you may have some protection against certain versions of the common cold.

A new study suggests previous COVID-19 infections lower the risk of getting colds caused by milder coronavirus cousins, which could provide a key to broader COVID-19 vaccines.

“We think there’s going to be a future outbreak of a coronavirus,” said Dr. Manish Sagar, senior author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. “Vaccines potentially could be improved if we could replicate some of the immune responses that are provided by natural infection.”

The study looked at COVID-19 PCR tests from more than 4,900 people who sought medical care between November 2020 and October 2021. After controlling for t...........................


Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist in Texas who was not involved in the study, said the findings shouldn’t be seen as a knock against current vaccines, which target the “spike” protein studding the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.


These vaccines, he said, are “still your best defense against severe COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death.”

But he added:........................

Link to tweet

FILE - This 2020 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows SARS-CoV-2 virus particles which cause COVID-19. If you’ve been sick with COVID-19, you may have some protection against certain versions of the common cold. A study published Wednesday, June 12, 2024, in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggests previous COVID-19 infections lower the risk of getting colds caused by milder coronavirus cousins, which could provide a key to broader COVID-19 vaccines. (Hannah A. Bullock, Azaibi Tamin/CDC via AP, File)