BU infectious diseases expert Sabrina Assoumou says researchers are working to understand why some people have avoided the virus or showed no symptoms when infected.
If you haven’t had COVID-19 yet, explain yourself, please.
How is that possible? Globally, there have been more than 663 million cases of COVID since the virus first began circulating. Your family has probably had it. Your colleagues. Your neighbors. Your mailman, manicurist, and hairstylist. Your dog probably even had it. Stories of those who’ve somehow avoided the virus seem impossible to fathom now that three years have passed since it first started spreading around the world in early 2020.
But for scientists, these so-called “super-dodgers,” or Novids, or COVID virgins, as some are calling them, are important research subjects. If scientists can determine whether they have some unknown antibody, or genetic code, or mysterious cell makeup that has helped them ward off COVID the way Superman deflects bullets, then perhaps that knowledge could be used to create better vaccines or treatments for everyone.
According to one recent study on this subject: “Despite some inconsistent reporting of symptoms, studies have demonstrated that at least 20 percent of individuals infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) will remain asymptomatic.” The study says that while most global research has focused on understanding why some people get severely ill, or die, from COVID, it’s also vital to understand why a small population doesn’t get it at all, or shows no symptoms when infected.
BU Today wanted to understand this better, so we turned to Sabrina Assoumou, a BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine assistant professor of medicine and the inaugural Louis W. Sullivan Professor of Medicine. She is also an attending physician in infectious diseases at Boston Medical Center, BU’s teaching hospital, and has been studying SARS-CoV-2 since its earliest days.