Imagine there is an exact copy of you, immune system and all. Both you and your clone get exposed to the virus once, the only difference being that you get exposed to 100 virions in the body while the clone gets 100,000 virions (These numbers are pretend, just meant to be relative to one another.)
What would be the difference in outcome? Would one probably get sicker than the other? Would one gain a stronger immunity than the other afterwards? My understanding of immunology is kind of limited so bear with me. I believe what I'm getting at here is something similar to original antigenic sin, but more relating to the initial viral load at exposure.
With a lower initial viral load, could the B-cells potentially quickly find an antibody that's effective enough to fight off only 100 virions, but not 100,000 (implying that a greater challenge with the same virus would blow through the relatively weak antibodies?). If you were later exposed to 100,000 of the same virions would the immune system try and find a new antibody that's effective enough to combat the higher viral load, or would it just keep trying to use the weaker antibody since it hasn't detected a new antigen?
TL;DR - Basically what I'm asking is if the initial viral load impacts the time it takes for B cells to find an effective antibody, and whether that might in turn impact the robustness of the acquired immune response. This is not exactly a COVID-19 specific question, just hoping an immunologist happens to throw in their two cents.
What would be the difference in outcome? Would one probably get sicker than the other? Would one gain a stronger immunity than the other afterwards? My understanding of immunology is kind of limited so bear with me. I believe what I'm getting at here is something similar to original antigenic sin, but more relating to the initial viral load at exposure.
With a lower initial viral load, could the B-cells potentially quickly find an antibody that's effective enough to fight off only 100 virions, but not 100,000 (implying that a greater challenge with the same virus would blow through the relatively weak antibodies?). If you were later exposed to 100,000 of the same virions would the immune system try and find a new antibody that's effective enough to combat the higher viral load, or would it just keep trying to use the weaker antibody since it hasn't detected a new antigen?
TL;DR - Basically what I'm asking is if the initial viral load impacts the time it takes for B cells to find an effective antibody, and whether that might in turn impact the robustness of the acquired immune response. This is not exactly a COVID-19 specific question, just hoping an immunologist happens to throw in their two cents.
