Just when you think things can’t get much worse, a study finds that the number of people testing positive for antibodies to COVID-19 has fallen by 26% over 3 months, indicating that any immunity gained by having caught the disease once is pretty short lived. Just like the common cold, which you can get every 6-12 months, but, of course, with potentially much more serious consequences.
Apparently your immunity is stronger the worse your symptoms first time round, or if you have have pretty continuous exposure to the virus since, such as working in healthcare.
If this is accurate, that’s ‘herd immunity’ (which is actually a nuts concept in the absence of a vaccine anyway) totally out of the window.
And the more I read the less likely I think it will be that we get a very effective vaccine, especially one that works for the most vulnerable, in the near future. We’ll have something, but we will be living with the virus for the rest of our lives, like colds and flu. Treatments which reduce the impact of the disease in the short and long terms offer more realistic hope for turning this into another ‘routine’ seasonal bug, I think.
Apparently your immunity is stronger the worse your symptoms first time round, or if you have have pretty continuous exposure to the virus since, such as working in healthcare.
If this is accurate, that’s ‘herd immunity’ (which is actually a nuts concept in the absence of a vaccine anyway) totally out of the window.
And the more I read the less likely I think it will be that we get a very effective vaccine, especially one that works for the most vulnerable, in the near future. We’ll have something, but we will be living with the virus for the rest of our lives, like colds and flu. Treatments which reduce the impact of the disease in the short and long terms offer more realistic hope for turning this into another ‘routine’ seasonal bug, I think.