[Aerroon]

I thought this is how viruses operated in general. If somebody gets infected by herpes they basically have it for life. It only rarely flares up, but it's clearly still there. I figured this applied to all/most viruses because of the way viruses reproduce. The immune system just takes care of them and prevents the viral load from increasing. Is that not the case?

[nradov]

That is not always the case. Only certain types of viruses such as herpes viruses remain dormant in the patient's body. Most respiratory viruses are completely cleared out within a few weeks, assuming the patient survives and has a functioning immune system.

[Aerroon]

But how? I'm genuinely curious. Don't viruses reproduce by getting cells to make copies of them? Is the immune system really capable of removing all of the affected cells?