Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Not relevant to viruses. A bacteria is an organism that might be able to live on or in your system without harming you and may be tolerated by your immune system. Obvious example is symbiotic gut bacteria.
Viruses function by re-programming specific cells to make more virus, self-destructing in the process. Your system cannot tolerate that behavior and survive.
The closest parallel is a virus which "hides out" in certain tissues where it's hard for the immune system chemistry to reach it. Obvious examples are chicken pox and herpes. If/when the immune system becomes less vigilant (time or age), the virus can then "break out" of hiding at a later date.
Respiratory viruses are not particularly prone to doing that, although it has been observed before.
Disagree. A carrier state has been described for both hepatitis C and Hepatitis B. One could, I suppose, argue that both are really just prolonged minimally symptomatic infections, but that would appear to be a distinction without a real difference. If one can potentially spread a disease for a long period of time without themselves being greatly harmed by it, the asymptomatic carrier state label seems appropriate.
But there will always be lumpers and splitters...
