Some people still haven’t caught Covid-19. Why?
- Despite the more than two years of the pandemic, some people still haven’t tested positive for Covid-19 yet
- Scientists are trying to work out why that is, but it looks like there is no single definite answer
The infections became more frequent and hit closer and closer to home. Their friends contracted the novel coronavirus, and sometimes their children, grandparents and most of their colleagues too. In recent months it seemed to be only a matter of time before the luck of those so far spared from Covid-19 finally runs out.
But some people even made it through the wave of infections – now subsiding – caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant without contracting Covid-19. In the more than two years of the pandemic, they haven’t been knowingly infected.
If you ask them why, you’ll hear all sorts of suppositions. For example, regular long trips on the underground will build up your resistance by repeatedly exposing you to small viral loads.
“This hypothesis falls in the realm of speculation,” says Dr Ulf Dittmer, director of the Institute of Virology at Essen University Hospital in Germany.
Some people not previously infected attribute it to scrupulously following Covid precautions. Others thank their lucky stars for not contracting the virus from a contact person who later tested positive or while they partied at a club.
Still others wonder if they had an asymptomatic infection that wasn’t detected, for instance before testing was widely available. Or maybe they did have symptoms but tested negative because the sample was collected improperly or the timing was inopportune.