The COVID-19 pandemic has focused on a singular target—SARS-CoV-2—and how to neutralize it using an injection. But the issue of viral illness is so much larger than a single virus or one pandemic. Humans and viruses coexist. It’s a daily reality that you’ll be exposed to one or more of them, but not everyone will get sick. What determines how you fare when exposed to any given virus is a complex mix of genetics and toxic stressors that degrade your immune system. Those “toxic stressor exposures,” which can be chemical, physical, biological, or psychological in nature, hinder your immune system’s ability to fight off viruses, and they deserve greater recognition in the fight against COVID-19 and future pandemics. As noted by a team of researchers in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, the role of toxic substance exposures is underreported in the COVID-19 pandemic: “Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and previous …