I was scouring this forum for information from a thread from many months ago, and went down a couple of rabbit holes, including rereading some discussions about herpes, and I formed an interesting question in my head and was wondering if anyone knows the answer.
Suppose there are 2 people kissing, both of whom have HSV-1, or they’re having sex and both have HSV-2. One of them is dealing with an active outbreak and is therefore significantly more contagious than they would be if the virus was dormant. The other person is dormant.
Does the active outbreak from one of the participants make it more likely that the second participant will develop an active outbreak? Or does the active outbreak only make them more transmissible to someone who doesn’t actually have the virus already? Does anyone definitively know or care to speculate?
Note: I don’t have herpes (that I know of). I’ve never shown any symptoms nor been tested. My curious brain just works in mysterious ways.
Suppose there are 2 people kissing, both of whom have HSV-1, or they’re having sex and both have HSV-2. One of them is dealing with an active outbreak and is therefore significantly more contagious than they would be if the virus was dormant. The other person is dormant.
Does the active outbreak from one of the participants make it more likely that the second participant will develop an active outbreak? Or does the active outbreak only make them more transmissible to someone who doesn’t actually have the virus already? Does anyone definitively know or care to speculate?
Note: I don’t have herpes (that I know of). I’ve never shown any symptoms nor been tested. My curious brain just works in mysterious ways.
