My Immune System

One outcome of the pandemic is that I have not had any illness (knock on wood), nary a cold nor sniffle, in a year and a half. On the other hand, my skin has fallen apart. I am constantly inflamed and itchy. I have no proof that the two are connected but my working hypothesis is that my immune system is hypersensitive right now because it has had little to do since the spring of 2020. It now overreacts to every mold spore, pollen grain, and speck of dust it runs into. The immune system is extremely complex, perhaps as complex as the brain. Its job is extremely difficult. It needs to recognize threats and eliminate them while not attacking itself. The brain and the immune system are intricately linked. How many people have gotten ill immediately after a final exam or deadline? The immune system was informed by the brain to delay action until the task was completed. The brain probably takes cues form the immune system too. One hypothesis for why asthma and allergies have been on the rise recently is that modern living has eliminated much contact with parasites and infectious agents, making the immune system hypersensitive. I for one, always welcome vaccinations because it gives my immune system something to do. In fact, I think it would be a good idea to get inoculations of all types regularly. I would take a vaccine for tape worm in a heartbeat. We are now slowly exiting from a global experiment in depriving the immune system of stimulation. We have no idea what the consequences will be. That is not to say that quarantine and isolation was not a good idea. Being itchy is clearly better than being infected by a novel virus (or being dead). There can be long term effects of infection too. Long covid is likely to be due to a miscalibrated immune system induced by the infection. Unfortunately, we shall likely never disentangle all the effects of COVID-19. We will not ever truly know what the long term consequences of infection, isolation, and vaccination will be. Most people will come out of this fine but a small fraction will not and we will not know why.