WASHINGTON (AP) – If I already had the coronavirus, can I get it again?
It is possible, but they seem rare cases.
It is not uncommon to develop some immunity to a virus after an infection, as our bodies often recognize and fight the mistakes that have been found before. And this seems to be the case with coronavirus as well, although scientists are still trying to figure out how long any protection can last.
Some reinfections have been confirmed, but two new studies suggest it is very unusual.
In one of them, only two of the 1,265 UK healthcare workers who were previously infected ended up testing positive for coronavirus in the next six months. In another study on people in the US, only 0.3% of people who had been infected tested positive for the virus in the coming months, around the same positivity rate as the UK study.
The findings bode well for the COVID-19 vaccines that are being rolled out, triggering the kind of immune responses that studies find protective.
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The AP answers your questions about the coronavirus in this series. Send them to: [email protected].
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