Is there any freedom in having had the virus?

[SuperAlly]

Just that really. I can’t find a straight answer to this.

If you’ve had the virus (and a positive result), can you (or should you be able to) move freely? Are you any less of a risk to other people?

I have a feeling the answer is no...but I don’t know anyone who has had the virus or anything

I had it in June and in the immediate aftermath I felt invincible although I still did the hand washing, social distancing etc. I think I certainly enjoyed the summer more than I would have had I not been fairly convinced I had some immunity. I'm a bit less confident now and really don't relish the idea of a second bout. I'm actually self isolating at the moment and although I'll do it and stick to the rules I do wonder if it's strictly necessary.

Sadly it would be too difficult to have staggered rules depending on antibodies, especially as T cells do a great deal of the hard work for many so that no strong antibody response has to be produced.

@Redolent

Prof John Bell of Oxford was arguing last week that those who test positive for the virus should be given a 3 months 'freedom' period during which it is judged that they are extremely unlikely to contract the virus again.

But there is evidence that antibodies wane particularly after 6 months.

Good grief - does he want people to start having 'coronavirus parties', like chickenpox parties so that they can have 3 months' freedom?

People who have had Covid-19 seem to be less scared of the virus in some cases. Most people who I have heard say 'I'm not scared of the virus' have actually had it. Those who haven't had it might be more scared as they don't know what it will/would be like and how their body will react. It is a bit annoying actually since it kind of belittles the fear of those who haven't had it before, since only the healthy survivors of Covid-19 are going to be claiming this fearlessness, not those with long Covid or those who died.

Recent paper in bmj says that t-cell response lasts at least 6 months. Fingers crossed it’s an indication of longer term protection. Time will tell.

[quote Smelliethenelephant]@QueenStromba thank you but if you are pointing towards the first report on the link you sent, it does not provide evidence of your assertion.[/quote]
I said that it was proven that it is possible to catch it again and that it's possible for it to be worse the second time. The report includes details of a man in Nevada who was hospitalised the second time after having fairly mild symptoms the first time and a man in Ecuador who had worse symptoms the second time but fell short of requiring hospitalisation.

@smelliethenelephant I agree with you. Only one case in that report suggested that someone had worse symptoms when infected for a second time.

[quote rc22]@smelliethenelephant I agree with you. Only one case in that report suggested that someone had worse symptoms when infected for a second time.[/quote]
Two. Out of six.

My sister (a nurse) had it in the spring with a positive test and then a positive antibody test. She has still had to do two more tests when she has had symptoms since as well as routine tests and has had to self isolate when her child had symptoms.

If people had more freedom if they had had it there would be people deliberately seeking to get infected

Potted summary of my understanding of the current state of knowledge, gleaned from multiple sources:

1). It is possible to catch it again. But the number of people who have done so is vanishingly small compared to the number who have had it

2). Of the verified cases of reinfection, most were asymptomatic or milder than the first bout.

3). Add 1 and 2 together, the implication is that the chance of someone who has had it once going on to get it worse at a later date is really minuscule.

4. All of the above is “from what we know so far”. It’s only been 11 months. So it may be that as time goes on, reinfection becomes more common. Only when we have larger numbers can we know just how likely a 2nd infection is to be worse than the first.

My hunch - based on the presence of T-cells in people who had recovered from SARS 17 years later - is that catching it twice is going to continue to be uncommon. But people who have had it should still be as cautious as everybody else, because we don’t know for sure.

I think we don’t know enough about the role of t-cells. We know that some people who have had the virus don’t produce antibodies but do produce t-cells. But we haven’t studied or researched the impact of this on immunity.

I think you have to behave as though you have no immunity.

SIL had it in March, my bro didn’t get it then. He got it in October and she did t catch it. Such a strange virus. You could take from that she still had some immunity maybe in the form of t-cells from March but then he didn’t catch it from her the first time round.

Hopefully we’ll study more on t-cells as I think this is key to understanding immunity.

Yes I read that about SARS and t-cells still being present 17 years later.

Also 40 million people world worldwide have had this virus now since last January. If there was zero immunity we would be hearing about more than a handful of cases having it the second time. We just don’t know enough yet.

I would put money on having had covid in March. I ticked every symptom box. Never tested as it wasnt a thing in tbe uk then
Actually tested positive 3 weeks ago, only symptom was loss of taste.