Reinfection With Covid

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Anchor lead: More cases of reinfection with Sars-CoV2 are turning up, Elizabeth Tracey reports

More than a dozen cases of reinfection with Sars-CoV2 have been reported worldwide, causing alarm over just how protective antibodies to the virus are and how long they remain that way. Arturo Casadevall, an antibody expert at Johns Hopkins, says almost everyone who is infected is protected for a time.

Casadevall: If the antibody responses do drop, to a point at which they’re no longer measurable, or they’re not made, we should consider as to whether they’re candidates for vaccination. The same thing can be said for the asymptomatic individuals, who got through it but mount a very weak response. We don’t really know what is protection, now, I am very encouraged that the reinfections are going to be the exception rather than the rule, at least in the short term, because these antibodies that are being made in this infection they are neutralizing. The evidence is that they’re making good reponses.  :31

Casadevall says many details of reinfection cases are unknown, so research is ongoing. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.