*** OFFICIAL BREXIT SUNLIT UPLANDS and #MEGA THREAD ***

[MadMojoMonkey]

I think the influenza virus is a different type of virus than coronaviruses (which are generally associated with colds, not 'flus), and the reason 'flu shots are yearly is because there is a different strain that predominates each year, and the vaccine gets customised to that strain.

Influenza, rhinovirus, and coronavirus are 3 different viruses.

Coronavirus is not some kind of cold, it's a different virus. Some of the symptoms overlap with symptoms of the cold. The association is based on symptoms, not on the actual virus itself.

There are certain vaxxes that are good for life because the immune system has a better memory for certain antibodies than for others. Coronaviruses are a type of virus the immune system has a poor memory for, and this is why we benefit from having frequent boosters. It's also why you never become fully immune to colds the way you do to, say, chicken pox or mumps; even after multiple infections your immune system does not remember colds. But chicken pox or mumps it remembers for life, so you get them once and that's it.

This is incorrect, as I understand it. The issue isn't memory, it's mutation. You're immune to every cold you've ever caught, but the rhinovirus mutates at a decent pace and tends to be mostly unrecognizable by your immune system within about 10 - 18 months after your last cold.

You are immune for life to everything you've ever developed an immunity to. That cold you got in '97? Immune. That different cold you got in '98? Sill immune.

The immune system doesn't have a memory; you have a memory. Your immune system is a bunch of unthinking chemicals and chemical processes.

[Poopadoop]

The issue isn't memory, it's mutation.

Not how I understand it. Antibodies are specific to specific proteins on the virus. Not all antibody instructions or blueprints or whatever you want to call it ("memory" in lay terms) stick around in your system for a lifetime. Very simplified secondhand version of what I heard, so take with pinch of salt.