Even people who have recovered from COVID-19 are urged to get vaccinated, especially as the extra-contagious Delta variant surges, and a new study shows survivors who ignored that advice were more than twice as likely to get reinfected.
Even people who have recovered from COVID-19 are urged to get vaccinated, especially as the extra-contagious Delta variant surges -- and a new study shows survivors who ignored that advice were more than twice as likely to get reinfected.
Scientists say infection does generally leave survivors protected against a serious reinfection at least with a similar version of the virus, but blood tests have signaled that protection drops against worrisome variants.Researchers studied Kentucky residents with a lab-confirmed coronavirus infection in 2020, the vast majority of them between October and December. They compared 246 people who got reinfected in May or June of this year with 492 similar survivors who stayed healthy.
There's little information yet on reinfections with the newer delta variant. But U.S. health officials point to early data from Britain that the reinfection risk appears greater with delta than with the once-common alpha variant, once people are six months past their prior infection. Vaccinated survivors "can make antibodies that can recognize all kinds of variants even if you were never exposed to the variant," Crotty said. "It's pretty sweet."
After either vaccination or infection, the body develops antibodies that can fend off the coronavirus the next time it tries to invade. Those naturally wane over time. If an infection sneaks past them, T cells help prevent serious illness by killing virus-infected cells -- and memory B cells jump into action to make lots of new antibodies.
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