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Who are the 'never-COVIDers' and why are scientists interested in them?
Who are the never-COVIDers that have scientists fascinated? Thanks for asking. During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us managed to avoid getting infected by following social distancing and hand hygiene guidelines. But the virus caught up with most people sooner or later, even those who were particularly cautious.
And yet, over three years later, there are some people out there who have still never had COVID. Scientists believe some of them may be naturally immune, thanks to their genetic makeup.
Is that the same as being asymptomatic then?
No, you're asymptomatic if you get COVID but have no symptoms. Nevertheless, asymptomatic people still show up as positive when tested. Meanwhile, never-COVIDers are people who have never even tested positive to start with. Since the introduction of vaccines, it's become even more difficult to find never-COVIDers because the vaccines have made some people completely immune.
At the beginning of the pandemic, scientists had started studying non-infected individuals, but when the highly contagious Omicron variant came along, they more or less had to start their research from scratch.
It's also difficult to distinguish between people who are potentially immune and those who aren't immune but have been extremely cautious ever since the start of the pandemic, or healthcare workers who have developed immunity through repeated exposure.
How can we identify Nevercoviders then?
A French researcher called Jean-Laurent Casanova has developed a pretty accurate method. He's the head of the Imagine Institute in France and an international consortium called the COVID Human Genetic Effort, which has been investigating COVID immunity for some time. The consortium launched a recruitment campaign through about 40 centers worldwide.
They were looking for people who could prove that they'd been exposed to COVID-19 prior to being vaccinated. but still tested negative by PCR. The campaign yielded over 10,000 responses from around the world, from which less than 2,000 people were selected as being possible Covid immunity candidates. Each of them were sent a saliva collection kit so they could submit their DNA for examination.
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