There’s growing evidence that the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus can reinfect previous omicron variant patients.
What’s happening: A large amount of anecdotal evidence points to the omicron variant reinfecting people who already had it, signaling another shift in the coronavirus pandemic, according to Fortune.
What they’re saying: “People are being reinfected immediately again after omicron infection,” Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, wrote on Twitter.
- “Yes, you can get omicron twice,” Stanley Weiss, an epidemiologist at Rutgers School of Public Health, told Yahoo.
- He added, “If you had a mild infection, didn’t get a very good immune response, and you get exposed again with a big dose of the virus, it’s definitely possible.”
Flashback: Experts said back in January the potential for reinfection was high with the omicron variant, specifically among those who had natural immunity, as I reported for the Deseret News.
- Dr. Amesh Adalja, the senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told KHOU 11 that researchers are still unsure about immunity among omicron variant patients.
- “It’s unclear, at this point, what level of immunity occurs after an omicron infection. I suspect over time, yes, you probably can get reinfected. But we don’t have that data yet because omicron has only been around since October/November.”