The way I always thought of infections is that they happen when something “gets past” your initial immune response, and then the virus/bacteria and your immune system continue to battle it out on your tonsils. But if I get tonsilitis that is only on one side – was one of my tonsils better protected than the other? They are so close to each other, how is the infection not spreading from one to the other immediately?
In: Biology
Proximity does not matter. It is the same reason why you get inflamed lymph nodes in spotty areas of the body. When you’re sick, every single lymph node in your body doesn’t get swollen (hopefully, though very rare).
Imagine someone (a pathogen) blindly firing a gun and many targets in the distance. (Each pathogen is giving a set of target and if more of them copy enough times you have more “men” shooting (blindly) at their own targets) It’ll hit some but others won’t be hit.
In simple terms, proximity doesn’t matter. Most times lymph nodes such as the tonsils get infected by chance WHEN a pathogen hangs around that area. Most times if we are healthy, nothing happens. But sometimes too many bullets are fired and one (maybe a tonsil or both) are hit.
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