The coronavirus appears to have "one big trick," Shane Crotty, a professor in the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, told Bloomberg.
That trick — avoiding the human body's "initial innate immune response for a significant period of time," and, particularly, the response of a substance called interferon that typically helps orchestrate the defense against viral pathogens — is linked to more severe cases. Indeed, new studies published last week in Science found that an insufficient amount of interferon, the production of which may sometimes be inhibited in people with previously "silent" gene mutations and other times is actually disabled by a person's immune response, could signal a more dangerous infection.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
'This is a coordinated campaign of harassment'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's studySpeed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet underseaSpeed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 yearsSpeed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study findsSpeed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
-
Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves babyspeed read KJ Muldoon was healed from a rare genetic condition
-
Sea lion proves animals can keep a beatspeed read A sea lion named Ronan beat a group of college students in a rhythmic dance-off, says new study
-
Humans heal much slower than other mammalsSpeed Read Slower healing may have been an evolutionary trade-off when we shed fur for sweat glands
