One universal antiviral to rule them all?

> When he and his colleagues looked at the individuals’ immune cells, they could see encounters with all sorts of viruses—flu, measles, mumps, chickenpox. But the patients had never reported any overt signs of infection or illness.

Given that the article goes on to talk about mild persistent inflammation, is it possible that these individuals are sometimes asymptomatic but still capable of carrying/transmitting viruses at least temporarily? The article talks about potentially immunizing healthcare workers during a future pandemic, but if this was just allowing people to never develop symptoms (and not have to leave work) while having low-grade infections, would we accidentally create a work-force of Typhoid Marys?

Excellent point, and it seems plausible in my opinion.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10....

Even worse, that type of chronic inflammation might cause premature death. Or cancer. Or other disease states.

> “In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that if we could produce this type of light immune activation in other people, we could protect them from just about any virus,” Bogunovic says.

This sounds terrifying. There's a reason our bodies do not regulate like this.