Corona Virus - Microbiology And Virology Concept - 3d Rendering

Say it Isn’t So!

Angie SzumlinskiStudies

In a study published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine on April 15th, more than 3,000 young, healthy members of the U.S. Marines found that “reinfection by SARS-CoV-2 in healthy young adults is common,” said Stuart Sealfon, MD the Sra B. and Seth M. Glickenhaus Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“Despite a prior COVID-19 infection, young people can catch the virus again and may still transmit to others. This is an important point to know and remember as vaccine rollouts continue. Young people should get the vaccine whenever possible, since vaccination is necessary to boost immune responses, prevent reinfection, and reduce transmission.”

To understand why these reinfections occurred, the authors studied the reinfected and not infected participants’ antibody responses. They found that, among the seropositive group, participants who became reinfected had lower antibody levels against the SARS-CoV-2 virus than those who did not become reinfected. There is no “sure thing” in today’s pandemic other than it will change again tomorrow!

Stay well and stay tuned!