Waning immunity - is now the best time to catch covid after all?

[nordica]

Reading about waning vaccine immunity and rising infection numbers on the news this morning has made me wonder if it would be best to just "get it over with" and catch covid now, within a few months from my 2nd vaccine?

I've been careful throughout but it feels inevitable I'll get covid sooner or later with all restrictions and mitigations gone (like isolation for household contacts). My age group (late 30s) is unlikely to be offered booster shots anytime soon, if ever, and if vaccine protection is waning, then I'd just be more at risk getting covid a year down the line, wouldn't I? Especially as they say actually getting covid acts as a kind of a booster and also that re-infections are likely to be milder as the body builds up more immunity from previous infections.

@HesterShaw1

Out of interest do you know how long ago you caught it and how many days past testing are you? My one worry is that the worst is yet to come.

I'm not of the school of thought that says thank goodness I was jabbed, otherwise I would be much worse. I just think I was unlucky and my jab didn't work! After all, there's a certain percentage that don't work. I have felt pretty poorly the last couple of days, but only in a shitty stinking cold kind of way plus a real lightheaded weakness. I felt really sinesey and tired on Monday morning, which developed into sore throat and runny nose so I did a LFT on Tuesday morning which was obviously positive. Stupidly I hoped it was wrong so I did the PCR on Tuesday midday, and had the notification that night. It's mainly been like a bad cold, and I feel a bit better this evening. But I think the smell and taste will be a long time coming back, and the tiredness feels like it will last a while.

I don't really know where I caught it, but I live in Cornwall so it's pretty rife at the moment.

I just find it really odd that my boyf didn't get it from me on Sunday night :o He had Pfizer and I had AZ so maybe that's it.

Oh well, was always going to happen. And they say that Delta is mostly just like a grotty cold for most young(ish) healthy people anyway.

Sounds like we are following pretty much the same trajectory.
This morning I am sneezy with a bit of stomach-ache and still very bunged up.

I know my exposure was on the Saturday night as a friend and I were both pinged after attending the same gathering (she is negative). I am pretty sure I will give this to my unvaccinated 10 year old.

And yeah, not a single call from the tracers here.

It’s both antibodies and t-cells that provide the immune response. In fact t-cells are looking to be more important against Covid. Antibodies will wane it’s the t-cells that provide the long lasting immune response.

With SARS people have been shown to have t-cells 15 years later...

Immunity is very complex. Some people fight Covid with just t-cells as a first line response and never produce antibodies. They still have protection in the future.

I’ve currently got Covid. I’m immunosuppressed CEV and was double jabbed in February so I’m assuming my immunity has waned a bit. It’s been quite mild so far, I’m definitely unwell but sats are good.

I would have chosen not to have it at all but I’m thankful it’s now as it’s not impacted DS’s schooling. I’m hoping since the whole household has it, we should be reasonably ok not catching it again this side of Christmas.

Its warm enough for us to be in the garden and I think fresh air and vitamin D are important for wellbeing.

JCVI haven’t confirmed yet but I think I’d be in a booster group.

We will all catch Covid several times over the course of our lifetime. It isn't going to stop infecting people ever. Our great-great-great grandchildren will get Covid 19, just like they will get all sorts of other coronaviruses.

Fortunately, all evidence currently suggests infections get milder each time. Add to this that vaccines make infections milder as well and that better drugs continue to be developed to treat infections that are severe. It will be no more severe a virus than any other respitory illness. In fact, we may already be near that point (winter will tell how near).

I hope my parents catch it much further down the road as I think the later we get it, the less dangerous it'll be.

The difficulty is that I can't see the general public accepting this as we have all been so scared as it has been a brand new virus so has been deadly while we have been developing medication to fight it. It'll be hard to switch off the fear and impulse to test.

On the plus side, I think we as a society are more thoughtful about being ill now. For example, pre-pandemic I might get a virus and be ill but not too bad so I pop to the shop. I would never have considered that I might have given someone in the shop my illness and they might have then gone home to their grandad and given it to him and he died of it. I feel like we will be more naturally inclined to stay at home when we have symptoms of any bug and be more aware of hygiene etc. So we have a new virus doing the rounds now but maybe all viruses might be spread a little less than before.

@Delatron

It’s both antibodies and t-cells that provide the immune response. In fact t-cells are looking to be more important against Covid. Antibodies will wane it’s the t-cells that provide the long lasting immune response.

With SARS people have been shown to have t-cells 15 years later...

Immunity is very complex. Some people fight Covid with just t-cells as a first line response and never produce antibodies. They still have protection in the future.

That's interesting, @Delatron. Thanks.

Although so much is still unknown about long term immunity, unfortunately Covid is NOT like SARS, so we cannot expect 1 exposure to produce the same long term immunity…

I have thought so, op, since June last year.
But I am not a medical person.

I got covid March 2020.
Since then, I have purposely not gone out of my way to avoid it. My theory has been, build up as much natural immunity as possible.

I should have added, I got long covid too. It took 8 months to fully recover.

We don’t know that though @DespairingHomeowner

I’m guessing they didn’t know that t-cells from SARS would last 15 years until recently. They are from a very similar family of viruses. So whilst we can’t say t-cells from Covid will last 15 years you also can’t say the opposite is true. The point is nobody knows yet. But from what I have read t-cells (and other complicated parts of our immune system) are an important part of the puzzle. Antibodies will wane. They do. But that doesn’t mean you have zero immunity. It’s far more complicated than we know right now.

We can’t say anything about long term t-cell
Immunity right now as it’s such a new disease. It’s also much more complicated to measure t-cell immunity than antibodies.

My point is that saying you have no immunity as you have lost all your antibodies is not true.

@Delatron: I don't pretend to be a scientist/medic, but the fact that many many people have had covid multiple times shows that 1 infection does not give immunity - so it is clearly unlike SARS

@DespairingHomeowner well obviously. But that doesn’t mean that t-cells are not an important part of the immunity from Covid.

It’s a different disease but they are part of the same family of diseases. It acts differently, it’s more infectious and people can become infected twice. That doesn’t mean we dismiss the importance of t-cells. It’s encouraging they lasted so long from people who had SARS. They may not last as long with Covid but we can’t dismiss the role they play. Which scientists don’t understand yet but from what I’ve read it looks promising.

Covid is called SARS coV-2 because the two viruses are genetically related.

[quote DespairingHomeowner]@Delatron: I don't pretend to be a scientist/medic, but the fact that many many people have had covid multiple times shows that 1 infection does not give immunity - so it is clearly unlike SARS[/quote]
Rate of reinfection is actually quite low. (PHE)

Yes @bumbleymummy I thought the rate of reinfection was low too but didn’t have stats to hand. Certainly less than many claim on here if you look at official stats.