Older people can become extremely vulnerable to reinfection of the novel coronavirus if they don’t get the COVID-19 vaccine, The Washington Post reports.
What’s going on?
A new study — published in The Lancet medical journal — found that reinfection can happen for people who naturally became infected with the coronavirus.
Chances of getting the coronavirus again were reduced by 80% for most people who got infected with coronavirus but didn’t get a vaccine. Chances for reinfection (again, without the vaccine) were reduced by 47% for people over 65 years old, according to The Washington Post
Two British researchers said — in a piece connected to the study — natural immunity isn’t a good strategy for keeping the world safe from the coronavirus.
- “The hope of protective immunity through natural infections might not be within our reach, and a global vaccination program with high efficacy vaccines is the enduring solution,” two British researchers wrote about the study.
How long does immunity last?
The same study had another major finding — the majority of people who recovered from natural infection of the coronavirus stayed protected for six months, The New York Times reports. Previous studies said immunity can last 90 days of immunity, if not longer.
Any problems with these studies?
Still, the study had some questions to answer. It only based its information on test results for COVID-19, “so it’s possible that only people who were mildly ill the first time became infected again and that the second infections were largely symptom-free,” according to The New York Times.
The researchers also didn’t look into how variants affect reinfection, either, according to The New York Times.