People who recently had cold may get less severe form of COVID-19, study shows

Had a cold within the past five years? Well new research shows that people who recently had a common cold may get a less severe form of COVID-19.

51-year-old Robert Josephs was hospitalized with COVID-19 in August and is still recovering.

Now, the father of 7-year-old twins is trying to help other patients through science.

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“That was the most interesting thing for me is to say, ‘Hey, why does someone in my position have good oxygen levels while other people are on incubators?’”

Dr. Michael Misialek in Boston said he had the same question and is trying to figure it out. He recruited Josephs to join a study looking at why the virus hits some patients so hard while others are not impacted at all.

“It’s research like this that’ll further enhance our care of patients, and also potentially lead to better vaccine development too,” Misialek said.

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Across the country in San Diego, Dr. Joanna Davies is also part of the study.

“We’re all different and our response to the same virus is going to be different,” she said.

According to Davies, when people who have recently had a common cold get COVID-19, they get a less severe form of it. She said recent doesn’t mean the last few months, it could be a cold in the last few years.

The study looked as far back as 2015. The next step would be to come up with a wide-spread blood test to check for those antibodies.

“There are four different strains of the common cold that are that are most common and we develop antibodies to those throughout life. What we’re seeing here and early results are that some of those may be protective against the coronavirus,” Misialek said.

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Davies said the research could help with deciding who should get the COVID-19 vaccine first.

“If we can identify characterize that piece in the blood, then we can say, okay, those people who are protected who have that piece, maybe can go a little bit further down the list in terms of getting vaccines, and those people who do not have protection can be vaccinated a little earlier,” she said.

There are currently more than 60 people in the study. Misialek says they would like to have more than 200 patients, including asymptomatic and those with mild, moderate and severe symptoms.