Man gets Covid twice with second infection much more severe

[Chickenandrice]

Article in bbc. He is young -only 25. It does say reinfection is rare and let’s hope that remains the case. This virus has so many unknowns associated with it we just don’t know much about it all yet.

Yes. Try not to worry. Bbc breakfast this morning im sure said out of the millions who've had the virus, only 5 have had it twice.
I do feel for the person. But how many people get cancer more than once? How often is that plasterers all over the news?

He's not the first. I very much doubt he will be the last. Herd immunity without a vaccine was a massive gamble

If immunity starts to wane at around the 6-8 month point, then it's about now we would expect to see reinfections.

It is still entirely possible that these second cases are in outliers , and immunity will last longer. Unfortunately right now we do not know.

So once immunity wanes let’s hope reinfection is not more severe

My mum had chicken pix twice. Most people don't. This has made the news due to it's rarity.

My work colleague had a positive test in April and has now just had another positive test. She said it was slightly milder this time around. No surprise really given we have been told antibodies last a matter of weeks

There have been quite a lot of unofficial reports of reinfections for a while now. It's hard to tell what the trend is because it's people who get it worse that come to the attention of medical staff.

Maybe the first was a false positive, they are common

False positives are not common - unless you mean the ones following an actual coronavirus infection which happen because you've still got dead bits of virus DNA in your system.

The time line from symptoms to positive tests was all a bit strange...

As someone said, it’s not unheard of to get CP twice. There’s false positives too.... who knows what’s going on with this bloody virus?!

Gosh, @Alex50 will be on in a minute wanting to see all of their medical records 🙄

@CrazyCatMamma

If this is true herd immunity with a vaccine is a massive gamble!

Basically this is either a rare specific case or were all fucked including the “oh just lockdown until a vaccine” group..remember if the body has such an ineffective immune response to the virus they can become reinfected after two months then really there is nothing for vaccine developers to mimic.

@Qasd quite the opposite. If this is common (its certainly true) that makes an effective vaccine even more vital.

@CrazyCatMamma

Gosh, *@Alex50* will be on in a minute wanting to see all of their medical records 🙄

Is there any need to be nasty about someone who isn't even on the thread

DS1 had chicken pox very mildly at 18m (still breastfeeding so I guess had my antibody)
Then got it properly at 3 when it went round nursery.

I think (as a layperson) it'll end up like flu where the vulnerable get a slightly tweaked vaccine each year.

It may be vital to have a vaccine but it would be medically impossible.

Vaccines mimic the bodies national immune response if the body doesn’t have one we won’t get a vaccine however much we want one!

The first result wasn't a false positive - they actually sequenced the whole virus from the sample! (And false positives aren't 'common')

Agree - if immunity lasts only about 2 months, you'd need at least 60% of the population having booster shots every 6-8 weeks, which would be very hard to achieve.

First reinfections now are at about 6months, but we don't know yet if these are outliers or if it really is very short duration.

If over a year, then booster could be given at same time as flu jab to the vulnerable, and that would be much more achievable

We don't know how common reinfection is currently because most people at the beginning weren't tested, so if they now get a positive test, they'll just assume the symptoms they had back in March/April were another bug.

It really depends on what the vaccine is designed from, the Oxford group vaccine is based on a chimp adenovirus, with the Covid protein spike inserted in. Their previous adenovirus vaccine for SARS gives long-lasting antibodies.

I feel terrible for him, as a separate issue people have always been able to get covid more than once so that side of it is not news itself

I do wonder tho.... early on in the UK we were only testing people who were seriously ill in hospital, not those seriously ill at home. I do wonder if some people thought they had had Covid but hadn't? And therefore assume they have immunity so taking more risks? It would be useful to know if those who are getting it a second time were tested first time.

@RockingMyFiftiesNot

I do wonder tho.... early on in the UK we were only testing people who were seriously ill in hospital, not those seriously ill at home. I do wonder if some people thought they had had Covid but hadn't? And therefore assume they have immunity so taking more risks? It would be useful to know if those who are getting it a second time were tested first time.

The only officially accepted cases of reinfection are where the virus has been sequenced both times and the sequences are different enough to be clearly from 2 separate instances of infection.

"It would be useful to know if those who are getting it a second time were tested first time."

Confirmed reinfections have been confirmed by virus genomic sequencing, so only involve people who have also been tested the first time.

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30764-7/fulltext