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Most COVID-19 survivors appear to have tenfold protection against reinfection
COVID-19 survivors tend to have about tenfold protection against the virus, according to a government-funded study released Wednesday. Why it’s important: There have been documented cases of re-infection, suggesting that survivors do not get any immunity. While questions remain about the length or duration of immunity and the impact of variants, this large observational body of data strengthens the evidence that there is some protection. The latest: The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, looked at commercial test data for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from 3.2 million US patients between Jan.1 and Aug.23, 2020. Baseline negative and were then tested for active infection, they found 3% were positive for SARS-CoV-2 90 days or later, of those who were initially positive for antibodies and were subsequently tested for active infection , they found that 0.3% were positive for SARS-CoV-2 90 days or later. “There’s a ten-fold decrease, which basically equates to a 90% reduction in risk for people who are antibody positive,” says Doug Lowy, co-author and deputy director of the National Cancer Institute, who led study. “This is something that has been issued for a long time, but our study is by far the largest study to look at this, particularly in the United States,” Lowy says. data in real time and was not performed in a clinical trial, it could be “confounders” or distorting factors that affect the results, Lowy points out. This means that the tenfold protection is a rough average – in reality, “maybe it’s a triple difference, and maybe a twenty times the difference.” However, the results closely match another recent study from the NEJM in the UK which also found a difference around ten times it says. What they say: Jennifer Juno, a senior researcher at the University of Melbourne’s Doherty Institute who was not part of the study, says that “several studies now suggest that a previous infection does provide protection against reinfection, as one would expect. “” The key questions we need to address now include understanding the duration of this protection and the specific immune responses that are most strongly associated with protection, “she said. Juno co-authored another article published last week in Nature Communications Research. antibody levels in humans over a period of four months after infection. They found: People tend to have strong neutralizing antibodies at first that quickly drop by about 50% in 55 days, but slow down and slow down, and then other immune system players pick up. The level of B cells that produce antibodies against the coronavirus spike protein increased over time in study participants, rather than decreased, Juno says. “This is encouraging news, as it suggests that the immune system generates a robust memory response to infection, which is likely to play a role in providing some protection against reinfection,” she adds. Overall: Vaccination is still strongly recommended for those who have been infected previously, say Lowy and Juno. “Early studies suggest that people who were previously infected show a substantial increase in their antibody levels after receiving a dose. of a COVID vaccine, which indicates a great benefit of receiving the vaccine even if you have already been infected, “says Juno.: The obstacles we face before achieving collective immunity Subscribe for free
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