How many times can a person get Covid-19?

Antibodies are proteins made by the body’s immune system to help you fight disease. They are created after you have had an illness or been vaccinated. The antibodies can protect you from getting sick for a while afterwards.

Similar to Covid-19, after contracting and recovering from the disease, the body will produce antibodies to the virus. According to doctors, immunity itself SARS-CoV-2 unsustainable, whether acquired or immunized by vaccination. Therefore, the possibility of long-term protection is not available.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) report shows that since Covid-19 pandemic During the outbreak, England alone recorded 62 people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 virus 4 times, each time separated by at least 90 days. Meanwhile, data collected until March 6 shows that 7,640 other people have had Covid-19 three times.

Case tracking reports Covid-19 and UKHSA’s latest weekly flu also recorded 715,154 reinfections. People who have been reinfected many times may have been infected with different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

However, even if the virus stops mutating now, immunity to nose and throat infections won’t last long. As a result, many people are likely to be reinfected every 2 years or so.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Huy Nga, former Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health, said that basically, people who have been vaccinated as well as those who have had Covid-19, the body produces antibodies in 3-6 month. Therefore, people who have been infected, within 3 months can still be infected but very mildly, or have no symptoms. Infections can occur in people with weak resistance, who do not create immunity. Therefore, if people have been infected with Covid-19, people still have to absolutely do 5K, monitor their health, not be subjective.

Sharing the same opinion, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Dac Phu, former Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health also said that the possibility of reinfection is completely possible, but how long it takes depends on the individual and the strain. virus, if infected with other strains, it will be faster. Therefore, even though people have been infected with Covid-19, people still should not be subjective, still need to absolutely comply with 5K, especially masks.

Vietnam currently has no research on reinfection, but in fact has recorded 2nd and even 3rd Covid-19 cases.

Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen said that the Ministry of Health is assigning the Department of Preventive Medicine, together with Pasteur institutes and the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, to conduct an evaluation study on the infection of Covid-19 after vaccination as well as the prevention of Covid-19 infection. like re-infection – people who have been infected the first time are still infected for the second time. This will take a while to see results.

“In the past few days, we have seen that the rate of new cases in our country is very high over 140,000 cases/day, some days are close to 180,000, but the rate of transition from mild to severe form, from severe to fatal, has decreased markedly. People should still not be subjective, even after vaccination, if they do not continue to take measures to prevent the epidemic, the number of cases may increase,” said Deputy Minister Tuyen.

In addition, there have recently appeared sub-variants of the Omicron variant, so community transmission is still possible.

According to the US CDC, available evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people and those who have previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2 are protected for at least 6 months. Immunity from vaccine and previous infection is both high but not complete. For certain populations, such as the elderly and immunocompromised, the level of protection may be further reduced.

Current evidence also indicates that the degree of protection may not be the same for all variants of the virus. There is growing evidence that vaccination after infection significantly enhances protection and further reduces the risk of reinfection.

Viruses are always changing, including the virus that causes Covid-19. These changes can lead to the emergence of new variants and may increase the risk of reinfection.

Also according to Dr Soumya Swaminathan, an expert from the World Health Organization (WHO), after recovering from Covid-19 everyone will have immunity to protect, but this is different for each person and it depends on whether you have a mild or severe illness. Many studies now even show that if you have very mild disease or no symptoms, in many people very little antibodies are formed.