Thread by @NjbBari3

I’m vaguely following the chatter on the comparisons of COVID with HIV.

I’ve never been a fan of this, because there are so many unanswered questions.

One thing I am sure of. Research shows the immune system does get damaged.

It does.

Which bits? How much? Recovery? What opportunistic infections? Impact on global disease patterns? Impact on animal disease patterns (ecology and food chain threats)?

All questions that will be answered over time.

No one should be surprised by this. It should not be even vaguely controversial. Plenty of viruses damage the immune system. We will find out exactly the extent of the nature of COVID on this aspect of health.

Another thing I can say with a some certainty.

Your chances of recovery from a depressed post viral immune system will not be improved by further infections.

I can see a lot of people replying with those threads that I have already seen directly comparing COVID with HIV. Rest assured. I am concerned. I just don’t find that particular comparison helpful.

As many have already pointed out, there are significant differences too. ->

You don’t walk into the supermarket and catch a new strain of HIV starting a whole new acute infection every 6-8 months for example.

But there are also signs that some immune cells are recovering many months after infection too ->

then again there are probably reservoirs in the body that could potentially continue to mutate, and then cause other pathology down the line, as some animal coronaviruses do.

I think COVID is quite an interesting and horrible disease. I expect we will see what repeated infections really do as time goes on. Excess deaths are already through the roof.

Post acute infection I should say. There is evidence that some virus remains…

One last attempt to clarify.

Trying to make COVID into either a cold, or HIV and ending up with “half way between” when in reality COVID is doing 100% COVID, which is turning out to be really, really bad in its own right… and it’s airborne… and we are catching it all the time

That’s the part I find frustrating with this comparison.

SARS is a dangerous, dangerous disease. It always has been. Both of them.

Yes, there are threads of similarities, and we can use our wealth of knowledge to extrapolate possible outcomes and test treatments…

But SARS is not half way to anything. It is, in itself, a giant problem.