Can You Get Coronavirus Twice? How Long Are You Immune After COVID-19?

Forbes ^ | 03/15/2020 | Bruce Y. Lee

[SeekAndFind]

A sequel to a movie that you didn’t want to see in the first place is one thing, like Ghost Rider 2 after Ghost Rider. A sequel to having a COVID-19 infection would be something completely different.

You may think that the one “positive” of testing positive for the COVID-19 causing coronavirus (SARS-CoV2) and surviving would be that you won’t get infected by that virus again. At least not during this pandemic. Ah, but is this assumption really true? Will you indeed be immune to the SARS-CoV2 after you’ve recovered from a COVID-19 infection? Some reports out of Japan and China seem to suggest otherwise.

For example, Daniel Leussink and Rocky Swift reported for Reuters about a female tour bus guide in Japan who tested positive for the virus after recovering from a COVID-19 infection. Here is a UNTV news report on the case:

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

Does this case actually prove that re-infection with the virus is possible? Or was this just a mistake in the testing? Or did the person have a particularly weak immune system so that she couldn’t generate immunity? After all, one case can be an accident, an aberration, an anomaly, an aardvark in a sea of anemone.

Well, oops something like this happened again, according to a more recent NHK-World Japan report. This time it was a man in his 70’s, who first tested positive for SARS-CoV2 on February 14 while on a Diamond Princess cruise ship. After being transferred to a medical facility in Tokyo, he stayed there until testing negative for the virus. On March 2, he left the facility and traveled home via public transportation. However, the man eventually began feeling sick with a fever, which prompted him to go to a hospital on March 13.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

For years now we have been told that when producing the yearly supply of flu vaccine the manufacturers have to make a guess at what strain of flu will be most likely that season. Most times they guess right, but occasionally they get it wrong and the flu vaccine is less helpful.

It is my understanding that covid-19 is similar. Going forward it may mean that whatever vaccine is created each year they are just going to have to guess what variant is most likely to hit the population.

If covid is like other viral infections then this will be with us for the foreseeable future and the recent panic will be seen as an overreaction that decimated the global economy.

[Bob434]

thanks for the explanation-

[daniel1212]

“To get reinfected again when you’re in that situation would be quite unusual unless your immune system was not functioning right.”

That presumes that the virus does not morph - as the flu does - and become Covid-20.

[Svartalfiar]

There are over 200 viruses that cause the common cold. Probably not getting the same virus when you catch multiple colds unless there is something wrong with your immune system.

And millions of people get several colds every year. Do you really think every single one of those is a different virus every time?