If You Never Got Sick From Covid, Thank Your Genes
Researchers are learning that asymptomatic bouts of the virus are often due to variations in the human genome.
So much comes down to genetics.
Photographer: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty ImagesEven as Covid has faded into the background for most of the public, our curiosity about the virus’s idiosyncrasies hasn’t waned. Why does one member of a household suffer a hacking cough but another not even a sniffle? Why does long Covid afflict some and not others? A cluster of new studies suggests some of the answers lie in our genes. What scientists are learning could help them develop better vaccines in the future — either for new variants of Covid-19 or entirely new forms of SARS.
Mild cases or asymptomatic infections have been relatively unstudied. Scientists’ focus on the sickest patients wasn’t just because of the urgency to save lives, but because it’s simply easier to study people in a controlled setting like a hospital. Collecting DNA, sequencing it and then tracking healthy people out in the community is an impossibly tall order.