New study warns of another risk for older people

At the start of the pandemic, it looked like the coronavirus contraction gave those who had conquered the disease the opportunity to become “super humans” immune to the virus that is rampant in the world. But we soon found out that was not the case and that re-infections did exist. Now, what is the likelihood that a person who had coronavirus will be infected again? And are there some people who are more sensitive than others?

A study published this Wednesday in the scientific journal The Lancet confirms that re-infections of Covid-19 are “rare” although they are “more frequent” in people over 65, who benefit from protection against only 47% against a second contagion against 80% of the youngest individuals.

In the first full-scale investigation into this matter, experts from the Statens Serum Institute in Denmark found that the majority of people who already had coronavirus are protected against further infection for at least six months.

The analysis assessed the rates of reinfection detected in Denmark in 2020 and focused only on the original strain of the virus, and not in the new variants that appeared later.

This assessment confirmed that a small proportion of people (0.65%) tested positive in PCR tests twice.

Having had a previous infection with the virus offered about 80% protection against re-infection in those under 65, while people this age and older only provided 47% protection.

They found no evidence to suggest that protection against reinfection decrease over a six-month follow-up period.

The findings underscore the importance of taking measures to protect older people, such as enforcing social distancing standards and prioritizing older people in vaccinations.

This discovery adds another risk to this population, most vulnerable to Covid-19. Older people have already been shown to be at increased risk for complications and severe forms of the disease, and mortality is also higher. In Argentina, for example, while the death rate is 2.44% in the general population, among those over 60, it climbs to 13.54%.

Research published in The Lancet also suggests that even citizens who they already had the virus they should be vaccinated. “(The study) gives us another piece among many in the puzzle of our understanding of Covid-19 as a disease,” research author Steen Ethelberg told EFE, while stressing that the results also “they reinforce the importance of the vaccination of the elderly in our societies, even if they have already been infected.”

“Vaccinating the most vulnerable and, in the longer term, the majority of the population certainly seems the best way forward,” he concluded.

The data was obtained from the Covid-19 testing strategy applied in Denmark, according to which more than two-thirds of the population – 4 million people, 69% of the total – were tested in 2020.

Specifically, among those who had coronavirus in the first wave – between March and May 2020 – only 0.65% tested positive again in the second outbreak – from September to December 2020.

At 3.3%, the infection rate was five times higher among those who tested positive in Wave 2 after testing negative previously.

Among those under 65 who had the disease in the first wave, 0.60% tested positive again in the second and among those who did not. the percentage was 3.60%.

The elderly had a higher risk of reinfection and 0.88% of those who had been infected in the first wave tested positive again in the second.

With information from EFE

AS