Even if the alternative is minimal exposure but regular vaccination? I would have expected that to give most of the immunity boost at significantly lower risk.
One thing I’m not clear on is the effect of exposure that doesn’t lead to a detectable infection. (I mean a situation where a person has definitely breathed in or otherwise ingested some virus particles, but they don’t last long enough or multiply sufficiently to cause symptoms or register on a test.) My current impression is that it probably tends not to make any significant difference to the body’s ability to deal with subsequent exposures, but I haven’t seen strong evidence either way. (It seems like observational studies would struggle to distinguish between those casual contacts who breathed in some virus and those who didn’t; and for household contacts who ~certainly must have got some virus in them, but didn’t get infected, it would be hard to tease out the protective effect of this exposure from the selection effect.)
I find it plausible it’s better to be exposed to covid early and often, so your immunity never wains.
Even if the alternative is minimal exposure but regular vaccination? I would have expected that to give most of the immunity boost at significantly lower risk.
One thing I’m not clear on is the effect of exposure that doesn’t lead to a detectable infection. (I mean a situation where a person has definitely breathed in or otherwise ingested some virus particles, but they don’t last long enough or multiply sufficiently to cause symptoms or register on a test.) My current impression is that it probably tends not to make any significant difference to the body’s ability to deal with subsequent exposures, but I haven’t seen strong evidence either way. (It seems like observational studies would struggle to distinguish between those casual contacts who breathed in some virus and those who didn’t; and for household contacts who ~certainly must have got some virus in them, but didn’t get infected, it would be hard to tease out the protective effect of this exposure from the selection effect.)