{"id":5827,"date":"2024-02-06T16:36:36","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T22:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5827"},"modified":"2024-02-06T16:36:39","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T22:36:39","slug":"are-you-a-novid-or-covid-super-dodger-someone-whos-never-had-covid-science-has-some-clues-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/02\/06\/are-you-a-novid-or-covid-super-dodger-someone-whos-never-had-covid-science-has-some-clues-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You a Novid, or COVID Super-Dodger\u2014Someone Who\u2019s Never Had COVID? Science Has Some Clues Why"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Boston University<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BU infectious diseases expert Sabrina Assoumou says researchers are working to understand why some people have avoided the virus or showed no symptoms when infected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you haven\u2019t had COVID-19 yet, explain yourself, please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is that possible? Globally, there have been more than\u00a0663 million cases of COVID<\/a>\u00a0since the virus first began circulating. Your family has probably had it. Your colleagues. Your neighbors. Your mailman, manicurist, and hairstylist.\u00a0Your dog probably even had it<\/a>. Stories of those who\u2019ve somehow avoided the virus seem impossible to fathom now that three years\u00a0<\/strong>have passed since it first started spreading around the world in early 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for scientists, these so-called \u201csuper-dodgers,\u201d or Novids, or COVID virgins<\/a>, as some are calling them, are important research subjects. If scientists can determine whether they have some unknown antibody, or genetic code, or mysterious cell makeup that has helped them ward off COVID the way Superman deflects bullets, then perhaps that knowledge could be used to create better vaccines or treatments for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to one recent study on this subject: \u201cDespite some inconsistent reporting of symptoms, studies have demonstrated that at least 20 percent of individuals infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) will remain asymptomatic.\u201d The study says that while most global research has focused on understanding why some people get severely ill, or die, from COVID, it\u2019s also vital to understand why a small population doesn\u2019t get it at all, or shows no symptoms when infected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BU Today<\/em>\u00a0wanted to understand this better, so we turned to\u00a0Sabrina Assoumou<\/a>, a BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine assistant professor of medicine and the inaugural Louis W. Sullivan Professor of Medicine. She is also an attending physician in infectious diseases at Boston Medical Center, BU\u2019s teaching hospital, and has been studying SARS-CoV-2 since its earliest days.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston University BU infectious diseases expert Sabrina Assoumou says researchers are working to understand why some people have avoided the virus or showed no symptoms when infected. If you haven\u2019t had COVID-19 yet, explain yourself, please. How is that possible? Globally, there have been more than\u00a0663 million cases of COVID\u00a0since the virus first began circulating. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5829,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827\/revisions\/5829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}