Common cold antibodies could help protect against COVID-19

Some antibodies created by the immune system during infection with common cold coronaviruses can also target and provide a degree of protection against COVID-19, finds new research by scientists at UCL and the Francis Crick Institute. In response to infection with a virus, the immune system creates antibodies to help fight it. These antibodies remain in the blood for a period after infection, and in the case of re-infection, they are able to tackle the virus again. In the research, published in Science , scientists found that some people, notably children, have antibodies reactive to SARS-CoV-2 in their blood, despite not ever having being infected with the virus. These antibodies are likely the result of exposure to other coronaviruses, which cause a common cold and which have structural similarities with SARS-CoV-2. The researchers made this discovery while developing highly sensitive antibody tests for COVID-19. To see how well their assay tests were performing, they compared the blood of patients with COVID-19 to patients who had not had the disease.