COVID-19 autoimmunity: only theory left standing
The concept of autoimmunity in COVID-19 came to me as a thought flash in April of this year, which I shared on LinkedIn. It seemed far-fetched at the time, but has gradually become the only testable theory left to explain all the presentations of COVID-19.
This journey, with collaboration from Prof Bruce Uhal (Michigan State) has borne two papers with another in the making. Definitely challenging on many levels for me personally as it has opened the research world to a clinician.
One of our great moments was getting credit for highlighting this theory from Prof Alain Townsend (Oxford University - internationally acclaimed for his work on influenza). He had also come to this conclusion and they were looking at it as well.
Our third paper is now looking at strategies to manage the disease if autoimmunity is proved correct. Still a long way to convince the scientific community but it is a journey of a thousand miles.
The answers will come, but they may not be what we expect.