For example there are viral infections (actual viruses) that infect us humans and usually if left alone either go away with enough time, or we can take anti virals to help our immune system along.
Hell even in warts which are caused by the HPV virus, if left untreated can go away in as little as 2-5 years without any sort of treatment, so what makes herpes or any virus that never does away, different from the other viruses that can go away?
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Each virus that hides in you for an extended period of time has its own way of doing that. Even within the Herpesviruses, of which there are 9 that infect humans, have different ways of doing this. HSV-1, which is probably the one you’re thinking of, can infect cells around the skin. It makes a bunch of copies of itself and then some of those can ride into the neurons in that area. It can then hide out there for a very long time, reemerging at certain times.
We know lots of details of how this works, but not all of them yet.
I think that is about right for a five year old.
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