Allergies As Protection Against Coronavirus?

Several weeks back my allergy symptoms were pretty active.  Watery eyes, coughing, sneezing...I was a walking ad for Coronavirus!  I found myself feeling as though I had to continually explain myself as just having allergies!  Turns out there is an allergy/Covid connection.

The Daily Mail reports Doctors and researchers have started sifting through statistics and discovered that the number of allergy and asthma patients who were severely affected by COVID-19 is lower than in the general population.

Men are more susceptible than women and certain blood types seem to be predictive of fewer infections and so this allergy thing goes down as a win in my book.

A paper published in April found that cells in the lungs of children and adults with allergic rhinitis (cold-like symptoms such as a runny nose, caused by an allergy) and allergic asthma (asthma triggered by things such as cats, dust, or pollen) have lower numbers of ACE2 receptors-- the same receptors that COVID-19 uses to enter the cells in our bodies.

Researchers say that the most common medications used to prevent and treat asthma—such as steroids and airway-dilating medicines—may also help reduce the risk of a serious COVID-19 infection.