More likely to infect those who’ve already been infected

[Getthefireon]

Omicron.

Just read this today. I had covid March 2020, have long covid. Haven’t been vaccinated yet due to resulting heart and mcas issues.
Can anyone reassure me please

Where have you read this?

I read about the reinfection too.
It’s on the bbc site @Smartiepants79

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59520945

@Smartiepants79 I just saw a video by Dr John Campbell, he’s fairly level headed and gives factual info as far as I can tell

I thought having had it before, people would be better off?

www.ft.com/content/df3738ab-ea2b-438c-96ed-aa7eb75451a2

Maybe those people are just more susceptible to the virus, it seems to bypass, or have had minimal impact on a large proportion of people?

@Pigeoninthehouse I don’t know, I’m
Trying not to be anxious

I can’t find anything about this.
They are suggesting that reinfection is more likely with this variant - still fairly rare.
That doesn’t mean your more likely to catch Omicron just because you’ve already had covid previously.
It’s not attracted to people who’ve had covid.

I don’t think this means that omicron is more likely to infect previously infected people than never infected people. Rather, it is more likely to infect previously infected people than earlier strains of COVID were. However, I think that most scientists still expect that previous infection will in most cases help to prevent serious disease.

Sounds like the vaccines are faring better than previous infection with this variant. Can you get the vaccine if you’re worried?

They mean that someone with prior infection is more likely to be reinfected with this variant than with any of the other known variants.

It doesn't mean that someone with prior infection is more likely to be infected than someone without prior infection.

But risk of reinfection is still low.

Ok thanks, I think I was interpreting it in the wrong way

Who knows. All a bit soon to know how this variant will impact. It’s very transmissible looking at the news coming from S Africa.

As long as symptoms are mild it will be ok
tired of worrying about it all!

Sorry, we’re taking at cross purposesz
Yes, the very early data is suggesting that reinfection is more likely with this varient.
But the likelihood of reinfection with delta or whatever was fairly small to begin with so even at nearly 3 times the amount it’s quite a small risk.
Also the data seems to show that the reinfection is usually less severe.
Nobody can really answer this yet though, we simply don’t know enough. The early signs are fairly optimistic.

@Smartiepants79 🙏

It looks like from research that omicron can evade immune response from previous infections. Some quoting 3x more likely. The severity isnt very clear yet

www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-preprint-looking-at-risk-of-reinfection-associated-with-emergence-of-the-omicron-variant-in-south-africa/

@Overthebow

Sounds like the vaccines are faring better than previous infection with this variant. Can you get the vaccine if you’re worried?

No one knows this yet. Even wet lab neutralising studies haven't concluded yet. And I am yet to see any justification of why that might be - especially as with the wild infection you are exposed to the whole virus, but with the vaccine only to the selected areas (spike protein) where the majority of omicron's mutations reside.

@forinborin Sorry can you break that down a bit? Foggy head doesn’t understand, I’m sorry

@Hankunamatata This sounds worrying to me

Previous infection is still protective to some extent but to less extent than with other variants.

Boosters look to be very effective according to data that came out this week.

Previous infection + booster is "super" protective apparently.

To sum up: get a booster (available to all over 18s in the next few months)

[quote Getthefireon]@forinborin Sorry can you break that down a bit? Foggy head doesn’t understand, I’m sorry[/quote]

1. There is indeed preliminary evidence that a previous infection with another variant of coronavirus is not protective against omicron. It is not shocking news, really - it was expected that a variant like that will emerge earlier or later. Same as with the "common cold" coronaviruses (quite a diverse bunch), you can catch many of them.

1. There are claims that vaccines might provide protection against omicron even though the natural immunity does not. I haven't seen any justification for such claims, and I cannot think of any good reason, as vaccines trigger a much narrower immune response (to a part of the virus compared to the whole virus).

This info from the summer shows extremely low rates of reinfection- less than 0.5% of infections were reinfection.
So even if you multiply that by 3 to 1.5% that’s still pretty low. Only 1.5% of infections are reinfections. Of course this is still a bit speculative as we don’t have a lot of data.

Sorry link -
www.gov.uk/government/news/new-national-surveillance-of-possible-covid-19-reinfection-published-by-phe