system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does COVID viruses stay dormant in your body after you recover?

Hi all, just wondering can COVID viruses stay dormant in your body even after you have recovered from it? I know cold sores & chickenpox can stay in the body for long periods of time without being activated, and I was wondering since all of these are all categorized as a viral infection, could this apply to COVID as well? Thanks in advance guys, genuinely curious about this.
gpt
Not in the same way. SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. It has to keep replicating to stick around. So it's not dormant. Chicken pox and wart virus can splice their genome into our genome and just wait. Later the virus genome is activated and starts replicating again.