Reinfected COVID survivors less likely to spread virus: study

COVID-19 survivors who are re-infected may be less likely to spread the disease or have severe symptoms, according to a new study.

Patients had lower viral loads during their second episodes of the disease than during their initial infection, according to a study by the UK Office for National Statistics.

Scientists have examined around 200 people who contracted the virus again more than 90 days after their first positive test or after four consecutive negative tests.

Most people who were re-infected also produced so-called “significantly lower” cycle threshold results in their tests during the first episode of illness, the researchers said.

When the value is lower, the viral load is higher – and that could indicate the patient is more contagious, the researchers said.

“Most people had a high viral load (low Ct value) during the initial episode and a lower viral load (high Ct value) during the reinfection episode, which suggests that these people may have had a stronger immune response to the initial infection, which helped them. respond more effectively to reinfection, ”the researchers said.

The study found the risk of re-infection to be low, with an estimated rate of 3.1 per 100,000 participants producing a “strong positive” test, meaning the results indicated significant levels of viral load in their swabs. .

Those who were re-infected also appeared to have milder symptoms than when they first contracted the disease.

“People were more likely to report symptoms within 35 days of the first positive test seen in their initial episode than in their re-infection episode, suggesting that re-infections may be more likely to be asymptomatic,” wrote the researchers.

The research, which was part of a partnership with the University of Oxford, was conducted between late April and mid-July as the highly contagious Delta variant spread to become the dominant strain in the UK and has caused a new wave of cases.