Haven’t had COVID yet? Here are some possible reasons why

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The nation is 2½ years into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The coronavirus is everywhere with each mutation being more contagious than the last.

But, some have managed to stay healthy and safe from infection this whole time. News 8 spoke with Dr. Christopher Doehring, vice president of medical affairs at Franciscan Health, who shared some possible reasons why.

“For that really small subset who truly have been exposed but didn’t get it for some reason, we really don’t understand the science behind it,” he said. “There are several theories. For some reason, the virus may not bind to their tissues like it does in most people. Maybe they are lacking a receptor to get infected, or perhaps their immunity is somewhat supercharged from a prior COVID-like infection and they have maintained persistent immunity.”

Doehring also says it may come down to the fact that a lot of people just aren’t testing anymore regardless if they’ve been exposed, or maybe they are testing but testing with at-home kits.

Home-based rapid-tests, he says, are less sensitive to the virus. It’s very possible when a person was exposed, they did, in fact, catch COVID but the test wasn’t able to detect it and show the positive result.