Why isn’t our immune systems completely immune to things like the common cold?

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I mean common cold has been around for a long time. How has the immune system not learned how to fight it?

In: Biology

26 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The main reason is that “the common cold” is not a specific virus it’s a series of symptoms.

It’s a bunch of things your body does when being infected by some pathogens.

It’s a bit like saying “why aren’t we immune to fever or diarrhea”.

We know of more than 200 virus than cause common cold, so even if you catch 2 colds per year and get lifelong immunity, you can still get new ones all your life.

In addition every year we add 1-2% of fresh humans (babies). This provides a pool without immunity at all where this viruses can survive even if a lot of adults are immune.

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