The Livin’ on a Prayer singer, 60, recently did his first interview with the media since 2019 ahead of a show at the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota. In it, he recalled how the pandemic has made him well aware of how “volatile” and “fragile” human beings are. The star was infected during his rehearsals for the show – despite taking monoclonal antibodies and being double vaxxed, he said.
“It didn’t matter if you were young or old, American or Egyptian, no matter who you were or where you were from, the COVID-19 pandemic affected you. I was aware of that when I was writing the record.”
The latest record he was talking about was aptly called “2020” which came out in October of that year.
But the release of it was postponed.
“Just shy of 40 years of my career, it was the only record that I ever released that I didn’t do something for,” said Bon Jovi.
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“I couldn’t promote it, I couldn’t perform it, I couldn’t discuss it,” added the singer.
“I had to put it out when we did because it was such a timely record.”
Luckily, the star was Livin’ on a Prayer of his own and escaped his own infection without severe symptoms.
But he admitted it affected his practicing at the time.
Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have been trying to work out why some people have severe Covid symptoms but not others.
There have been several theories put forward explaining the disparity.
A study published in Science Immunology suggests that it’s how the immune systems of individuals react rather than the virus itself which determines the risk of severe symptoms.
The Imperial College London researchers found elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines in cases of severe COVID-19 – particularly Interleukin 6 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor.
During illness, cytokines can help to trap bacteria and dangerous viruses in the body and work to heal the body.
But the uncontrolled release of the proteins can trigger what’s known as a “cytokine storm” – where too much inflammation starts to affect cells and organs.
Why do some people experience a cytokine storm?
There are specific genetic syndromes that predispose people to experience cytokine storms.
Recent data has found that obesity is linked with the development of cytokine storms in COVID-19 as well.