It seems that Covid reinfections are clearing faster, according to the latest reports. Check out the new details about all this below.
The latest news on Covid
A recent study has shown that people who experienced a reinfection of COVID-19 had a faster recovery time compared to their initial infection, even if they had not received the vaccine.
The study, conducted by researchers from the United States and Britain, found that individuals who were infected with COVID-19 for a second time cleared the illness in an average of 6.6 days, while the average for the initial infection was 9.3 days.
The study included 1,796 first infections and 193 second infections, and among a subset of 71 individuals with two well-documented infections, the mean clearance time was 6.3 days, down from 9.2 days.
“Immunity from a first SARS-CoV-2 infection affects the viral kinetics of a second SARS-CoV-2 infection principally by speeding up viral clearance and thus shortening the overall time of acute infection,” the researchers, including Dr. Yonatan Grad of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote.
According to a study published in Nature Communications, individuals who cleared COVID-19 infections quickly during their first occurrence also cleared them quickly during their second infection.
The researchers suggested that besides prior infection and vaccination, there could be an immunological mechanism that determines an individual’s strength of immune response against SARS-CoV-2 in comparison to others in the population.
The study relied on COVID-19 test results from March 11, 2020 to July 28, 2022, taken from National Basketball Association players, staff members, and affiliates.
Limitations include the population being primarily young, male, and healthy, though adjustments were made for age. Researchers also said that people who were infected multiple times “may differ in important immunological and behavioral ways from those who only underwent one infection during the study period.”
Previous research suggests that natural immunity or prior infection provides strong protection against severe illness, but the protection against infection diminishes over time.
