[Kim Jaeho's Life Story]<224> In the With Corona Era, It's Time to Reflect on My Body

The COVID-19 virus, first discovered in China at the end of 2019, transformed the world into a "COVID era" over nearly two years, leaving a tremendous impact. With nearly 250 million confirmed cases and 5 million deaths, it has caused the greatest loss of life since the 1918 Spanish flu, which claimed 25 to 50 million lives. However, as vaccines have been rapidly distributed, the rate of increase has somewhat slowed, and the situation is stabilizing.

COVID-19 is highly contagious, spreading rapidly and causing a surge in deaths. Vaccine developers rushed to create vaccines, foregoing the usual practice of taking over ten years to develop virus vaccines and proceeding without sufficient clinical trials. As vaccination reduced the incidence of severe cases and fatality rates, countries have begun to gradually ease lockdown measures.

Nevertheless, it remains difficult to say that COVID-19 infections are being properly controlled. The virus is spreading regardless of season, showing no signs of naturally disappearing. Efforts to develop vaccines and treatments continue, but their effectiveness has been limited and below expectations, leading many countries to shift policies toward a "with COVID" approach.

Vaccines have succeeded in somewhat mitigating the pandemic situation, but as an RNA virus, COVID-19 has a characteristic of easily generating variants, limiting vaccine effectiveness. It has been predictable from various cases that antibodies produced by vaccination can only neutralize viruses with similar structures.

The ease with which COVID-19 variants are created remains the greatest challenge in responding to the virus. Fortunately, variants identified so far have been somewhat controlled by existing vaccines, but if a variant emerges that is so different that vaccines become ineffective, new vaccines will need to be continuously developed. This ongoing game of hide-and-seek raises concerns about how well the virus can be controlled.

Side effects of vaccines are expected to some extent even with vaccines developed over more than ten years. Moreover, since sufficient verification time was not secured this time, unless severe cases such as death after vaccination occur, some side effects must be tolerated.

Among the uncertainties related to vaccines, an important issue is the duration of antibody effectiveness and how many additional booster shots will be needed. Several countries, including South Korea, are already administering booster shots, but it remains to be seen how many doses will ultimately be required.

Effective treatments have yet to be developed, and it will likely remain difficult to create treatments that completely eradicate the virus. Viruses replicate only inside host cells with the help of those cells, and outside the host, they are non-living substances. Therefore, drugs that kill viruses are almost impossible to develop. Some antiviral drugs developed so far do not kill the virus but inhibit its replication, limiting their effectiveness, which is why they are called antiviral agents.

If it is difficult to block infection and vaccines and treatments are not complete solutions, what is the best way to overcome COVID-19? Thankfully, every person’s body is equipped with the best physician?the immune system?that can overcome any virus that enters. People tend to think that infection inevitably leads to illness, but thanks to the immune system, many people do not develop symptoms or recover easily even without vaccines or treatments.

Our bodies have an excellent shield?the immune system?that can overcome any virus or bacteria. So why do infectious diseases like COVID-19 cause such global turmoil? The effectiveness of this immune system in controlling viruses depends on our lifestyle habits. Unfortunately, many people live in ways that prevent this precious immune system from functioning properly.

We must cultivate a life that turns on the life switch to maintain high immunity (see Life Story Part 6), creating an environment where the immune system can actively function. Meals should be healthy, including fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to supply sufficient nutrients, while limiting sugar, saturated fats, salt, and alcohol (see Part 33). Quitting smoking, engaging in appropriate exercise (Part 39), getting enough rest and sleep (Parts 47, 48), and managing stress well (Part 52) are also very important.

Jaeho Kim, Independent Researcher

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.