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The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will begin reporting information about coronavirus re-infection from October, according to new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As the more infectious delta variant became more prominent, the number of refinements increased, according to state health officials.
Since the start of the pandemic, 10,812 people have been re-infected with the coronavirus and 94 of them have died. Only 200 vaccinated and previously infected people tested positive for the virus a second time.
The majority of people who said they were re-infected with the coronavirus were between 25 and 49 years old, according to state data. The majority of infections were in white women, although the state pointed out that data on reinfection is underreported, especially among Hispanic people.
A re-infection is classified by the CDC as someone who tests positive for the coronavirus 90 days after previously testing positive.
This data is in line with what health experts have been touting since vaccine development – being previously infected with the virus does not make someone safe from falling ill again.
Dr David Wohl, an infectious disease expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said these figures show that vaccinated people are more protected against reinfection than people who rely on a case’s natural antibodies. previous COVID-19.
“This will help us to understand more and more the risk to people who depend on a natural infection, and I think this data will show us that there are definitely people out there, especially with these newer variants and during the flare-ups, who think they’re protected, who maybe aren’t as protected as they could be, ”Wohl said.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, addressed the idea of ”natural” immunity to infection at a meeting of the White House COVID-19 task force on September 28.
Fauci said herd immunity cannot be achieved by “natural infection” or by the immunity the body develops after being infected with the virus. The solution to the pandemic, he said, is to get vaccinated.
“Herd immunity is really a complicated issue of protection through vaccination and those who have lasting and continued protection after infection,” Fauci said. “We don’t know what that number is at the moment.”
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