My mum gave me HSV, she currently has Alzheimer's and has forgotten who everyone, including me is. She is 64.

Sorry to hear that, my mom is in similar shape. As is my wife's. Fucking awful.

Like the article says, 80% of people have herpes wether they know it or not.

The article says 80% of people aged 60 or over have contracted it at some point, not 80% of people.

Some people have it, but some people have it worse. Some people get it and build an immune response quickly, limiting the spread it seems. Others don't and the virus seems to take a stronger foothold.

My wife has oral HSV. I don't. We're not careful and we've been together for years with many breakouts. I don't think I've avoided it because I'm magically immune. My guess is that I have it, but I managed to limit it to the degree that I never get a breakout.

Now that I think about it, my wife hasn't had a breakout in two years, pretty much since getting pregnant. Weird.

I suspect there is a degree of ‘magical immunity’ present for the people who don’t test positive for it.

I know I’ve been exposed countless times from similar experiences, and have always (100% of the time, n==10ish by now) tested negative for it.

Is that so weird? With how prevalent it is, I don’t see how it’s actually possible for <100% of people to not have it otherwise. Unless some large percentage of people are literally living in a bubble, anyway.

Pregnancy boosts the immune system, so that may be it. Btw, the amino acid L-Lysine may also help. Many people report positive results on regular intake and one of them is me.

Pregnancy does the opposite of boosting the immune system system

It's a mixed bag.

During pregnancy the mothers immune system is muted, which prevents "rejection" of the fetus.

However, in an almost "parting gift" fashion, the departing fetus actually leaves behind immune cells that can provide years of boosted immune activity.

What’s the connection?

I Googled "redhead herpes" and the first result was for "Virucidal activity of ginger essential oil against caprine alphaherpesvirus-1". I found that a weirdly funny bahaviour of the Google search natural language parser

I find it an extremely annoying behaviour, and it seems to be implemented in such a simplistic way. If one searches for "redhead" then it's likely one also wants results for "ginger", but not all such results, only the one where "ginger" has the same meaning!

We're super hot

Either super hot or super not.

slayyyy

I've just always been told all redheads have it. I've gotten cold sores as long as I can remember.