"I've already had covid"

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People who say this, thinking this means that they can't catch it again, are thickos?

They're up there with the nose sticking out above the mask types.

I think there have been 5 confirmed cases worldwide of someone catching it twice, out of how many millions cases?

Which makes it hundreds of thousands of times more effective at preventing reinfection than the 90% effective vaccines we are all pinning our hopes on

So not quite sure why that makes anyone thick
It just means they understand risk and statistics

Does that make you the thicko because you don’t..?

There is likely to be some immunity for a while. Yes not impossible to be reinfected but rare so I dont think its necessarily a thick thing to say (I actually already had it in November so I think I probably do have some level of short term immunity, we still had to reisolate just in case when DD had a fever last week and we did as we were supposed to)

Sorry, that should have said 25 cases, but my point still stands

You have less than a 1 in a million chance of getting it twice
You have a 1 in 10 chance of catching it after the vaccine

I know which I would trust more to protect me

I am fairly certain that I've had it twice. I was very ill in March/April, obviously at the time there was limited testing. I was tested positive in November, all the same symptoms as in March, it's affected me badly, I got pleurisy on top and I have asthma too. I honestly cannot wait for the vaccine as I think next time I'll be in hospital.

I think the bigger danger with the "I've already had covid" is the people who think they had it but never actually tested positive, this includes people who may have been advised by health professionals that they had covid before testing was widely available.

@TeenageMutantNinjaCovid

28 people worldwide- I will take my chances.

Is it really only 28, only in that case I know one of them. A paramedic caught in in March and again in July, both times had symptoms, the second time was worse that the first.

Proven reinfection is extremely rare. We are gathering evidence on how long immunity lasts, and data on reinfection, but so far the evidence is that reinfection is unlikely.

Interesting.
I am pretty sure I had covid in March as I was caring for DS15 who had it and was quite sick. I had mild symptoms but could have been anything I guess. A recent antibody test was negative and I was told by someone who works for a pharma that you don't necessarily have antibodies but your white blood cells have memory lymphocytes so the antigen will be recognised and killed. Apologies if I am being a bit thick but I was really annoyed that the antibody test was negative (I did it as part of a study btw).
28 people world wide is incredibly rare. Thanks for the info.

Thing is that you wouldn't expect many people to have had it twice... yet.

If the antibodies last about 6 months, then people would only have been able to catch it again since September.

And a relatively small proportion of people were tested in March, so a fair number who may have had it twice, won't know for certain.
Certainly at one point they only considered it twice if they could confirm that the structure of the virus was different-and they don't check the structure of most positives.

Up to the end of June there were only 316184 positive tests-that's approximately 0.5% of the population, and they're the only ones who could test positive twice if immunity lasts only 6 months.
I think on that basis that reinfection is very unlikely currently, so you wouldn't expect to see many reinfections.

However the new variant seems to have a higher rate of reinfection than we've seen before, Whether that's because they can say this variant wasn't about back when they had their first positive test, or because immunity is wearing off from the first set of people who had it, or because it has mutated enough (like flu does) for reinfection, I will leave up to the scientists to investigate.

The reason for not testing again within 3 months, I thought was because you will continue to test positive for some time afterwards as the virus will still be there.

@SunshineCake

My friend has two friend who have caught it twice. One mildly the first time, the second more severely.

28 cases worldwide and already 4 on this thread

People may test positive twice- that is due to the testing but only 28 people have been proven to have it twice- ie they can find covid a second time in more robust lab testing.;

However the new variant seems to have a higher rate of reinfection than we've seen before

This isn’t something I’ve read. Where did you see it?

If you have had covid, could you be a carrier whilst you are 'immune' (so you dont get it/ are asymtomatic) but could still pass it to others or does it not work like that?

The numbers are low, because to be a proven case of second infection there needs to be samples from both illnesses from which the virus can be typed and shown to be a slightly different variant.

People who are ill twice will not be showing up in the numbers if there is not a retained sample from their first illness to be used to compare.

We have only seen covid cases in large numbers since late March - say 9 months ago. There are no known coronaviruses which confer less than 3 months immunity, but many examples where it wears off.

The bottom line is that we simply do not know how long immunity will last.

Friend of ours had Coronavirus in October (was in hospital for 2 weeks) and has been warned by his GP to carry on taking precautions.

@TwoCupsOfLemonTea

Calling anyone a 'thicko' automatically makes you a twat a and puts you in the 'nose over the mask' bracket of folk!

This ^

I think it's highly likely that those who've had it have a good level of immunity. If not, how would a vaccine work?

Just like other illnesses, like chicken pox, it doesn't guarantee you won't get second dose but it does significantly reduce the chances and often, the subsequent illness will be milder.

28 people worldwide have been proven to have been infected twice.

Every year more than 28 people catch chickenpox for a second time in their life. Yet we still count chickenpox and something you 'don't catch twice' because the number of people that do catch it twice is so tiny it's statistically negligible. We can't live and limit our life by the exception. You want to follow the science and the statistics. This is what they say.

More annoying are the many people who say they had it last Nov/Dec/jan or sometime after that and were never tested so don't actually know. I spoke to someone today who is seeing family over Xmas (we're in Tier 4) as 'we all had it in Nov last year so we don't need to worry'.

I know two people who have tested positive and symptomatic twice 🤷‍♀️

Those who say they have had it twice based on one or no actual lab tests...

On any given day, the national testing system has a positive test rate of between 3-10%
Which means 90-97% people who think they have COVID, don’t
Which means there is a very very high chance that if you have Covid-like symptoms, it is something other than COVID

So rather than assume you are a medical miracle who has had it twice, it is far far more likely that it was one of the many other illnesses that presents with similar symptoms in at least one of those cases

Testing positive and ‘having it’ are not the same thing

@TheNortherner

If you have had covid, could you be a carrier whilst you are 'immune' (so you dont get it/ are asymtomatic) but could still pass it to others or does it not work like that?

You can be a ‘transport vector’ and carry it on your hands, but there is no evidence you would be a an asymptotic carrier who can transmit it by, for example, coughing

Which underlines the importance of strict hand hygiene for everyone, including those who have been vaccinated or previously had covid

I know someone who thinks they had it in March (not tested as barely anyone was then as we know). All throughout this she’s said she doesn’t have to worry about catching it again. When she had symptoms of covid down the line she didn’t get a test as she thought she already had it. But she doesn’t know for sure and we also don’t know how long you are immune. Very recently she had an antibody test which was negative. Meaning she either never had it or the antibodys are gone!

Better than the "we've already had covid early this year, not tested but symptoms the same"

Symptoms similar to a cold, some worse, some the same, some people dont even know they have had it. But oh yes, your feeling run down, unwell and living in london in February, means you must have had it.

@TeenageMutantNinjaCovid

28 people worldwide- I will take my chances.

Completely agree. This website is tracking the confirmed cases:

bnonews.com/index.php/2020/08/covid-19-reinfection-tracker/

There have only been 2200 suspected cases, even. It’s not a thing. Except on mumsnet where apparently every other person knows someone who’s had it twice.