useruserB said:
Why wouldn't it be with us forever? Other human coronaviruses have been and will probably always be circulating forever. If I remember, the Oxford vaccine given to monkeys didn't prevent re-infection, but it did prevent severe disease, no pneumonia. To me, it sounds like reinfection to some extent is probably way more common, the recent reports are the only officially confirmed/documented cases. but the good news is, the guy that was reinfected was asymptomatic, indicating resistance/some degree of immunity "The man, 33, who was "young and healthy," had mild symptoms the first time - cough, fever, sore throat, and headache, according to Stat News - and his reinfection was discovered four and a half months later on Aug. 15 after he returned from Spain via the UK. Researchers said he probably got the strain circulating through Europe in July and August, and he had no reported symptoms the second time around." "It may be that second infections, when they do occur, are not serious - though we don't know whether this person was infectious during their second episode." |
Based on what I've read:
Chicken pox (varicella zoster virus) leads the body to build up life long immunity for almost everyone.
The flu leads to the body building up an approx 2-10 year immunity depending on the strain for almost everyone.
A cold leads to the body building up an approx 1-6 month immunity depending on the strain for almost everyone.
HIV leads to little to no immunity for almost everyone.
It's basically a scale, and depending on where the illness lands on that scale, suggests how strongly your body can combat it.
Everything I've seen says covid 19 is closer to a cold than the flu, meaning you're looking at something like a 6 month immunity tops. If it mutates, or survives and makes it way back to you, you could very well get infected again. Whether or not you get as sick as last time, if at all, remains to be seen. Your body can react much quicker however if it comes up against the same strain later on.
This is part of the reason why we don't have cold shots and why a covid 19 shot isn't that simple. If the covid shot is only good for 6 months tops, if that, then you would have to take the shot at least twice each year, if not more for it to be effective. It's tough enough to convince everyone to get one shot per year, so imagine if it's two or three.
I'm rather surprised the amount of people who've contracted it a second time isn't higher, or perhaps those individuals are having a quick enough immune response that they aren't seeing symptoms, so they don't know they've got it again. It's also possible covid 19 is a really weak strain and will just die off for good in time, so it's only impacting the weakest among us a second or third time.
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