Common cold and COVID
The four endemic coronaviruses (eCoV: HCoV-OC43, -HKU1, -NL63, and -229E), the most common etiologic agents for the seasonal “common cold”, share sequence homology with SARS-CoV-2. Here, Joseph Mizgerd, Manish Sagar and colleagues show that individuals with a previously detected eCoV infection had less severe COVID-19 illness. They report the analysis of 15,928 patients who had at least one CRP-PCR (comprehensive respiratory panel polymerase chain-reaction) test. A positive test was previously detected in 875 of these patients (termed eCoV+), and the remaining 15,053 individuals (classified as eCoV-) never had a documented eCoV infection. The authors suggest that pre-existing immune responses against endemic human coronaviruses can mitigate disease manifestations from SARS-CoV-2 infection.
| eCoV- | eCoV+ | |
| SARS-CoV-2 tested (% of total) |
1679 (11.2) | 133 (15.2) |
| SARS-CoV-2+, no.
(% of tested) |
437 (26.0) | 33 (24.8) |
| Hospitalized, no.
(% of SARS-CoV-2+) |
231 (52.9) | 21 (63.6) |
| Intensive care unit, no.
(% of hospitalized) |
65 (28.1) | 1 (4.8) |
| Mechanical ventilation, no.
(% of hospitalized) |
38 (16.4) | 0 (0) |
Sagar M, Reifler K, Rossi M, et al. Recent endemic coronavirus infection is associated with less severe COVID-19. J Clin Invest. 2020 Sep 30:143380. PubMed: https://pubmed.gov/32997649. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI143380
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