Experts suggest that the amount of COVID-19 you get determines if you get severely ill, mildly ill, or asymptomatic.
Here’s something that might ease your mind if you catch COVID-19. Your level of illness might depend on how much virus you get. So, you could be severely or mildly ill. You could even show no symptoms at all.
Virus “Dosage”
CNN reports that you will need to get a specific dose of a virus before an infection starts. Moreover, this behavior is the same for many viruses. For example, these viruses include the flu, pox, and others.
If a person gets a low virus dose, they can fight it off without falling sick. However, if this virus dose reaches a magic number, you will fall ill to the disease. The level of sickness also goes up as the dose gets higher. So, if you get a high virus dose, you will also get severely ill.
Getting high virus doses increases the odds of the virus infects one cell. This attack starts the chain reaction of infection.
Getting the Virus
Your virus doses also add up over time. So, you don’t just get infected if you get a high enough virus dose at once. You also get sick if you get enough doses over time. So, even brief interactions with an infected person could still get you sick. You would have to spend 15 minutes in total with them.
Why Masks Are Important
If you get a low virus dose, your body can generate an immune response, like a vaccine. This situation explains why masks are important.
If you wear masks, you could still get exposed to COVID-19. But you’ll just get a low dose. This dose could trigger an immune response, but it wouldn’t make you sick.