London
A study launched Wednesday in The Lancet magazine reveals that reinfections due to covid-19 they are “rare”, although they are “more common” in people over 65, who have only 47% protection against a second infection, compared to 80% of younger people.
In the first large-scale investigation of this issue, experts from Serul Instituto Statens (Denmark) found that most people who have already contracted coronavirus are protected from a new infection for at least six months.
The analysis assessed the reinfection rates detected in Denmark in 2020 and focused exclusively on strain original al virus, and not in the new variants that appeared later.
This evaluation confirmed that a small proportion of people (0.65%) tested positive for tests.t PCR twice.
After you have had a previous infection by virus provided around 80% protection against reinfection for people under the age of 65, while providing only 47% protection for people aged that age and over.
They found no evidence to suggest that protection against reinfection declined over a six-month follow-up period.
The findings emphasize the importance of taking measures to protect the elderly, such as the application of social distance rules and the prioritization of the elderly in vaccinations.
The analysis also suggests that the citizens who had virus should be vaccinated.
“(The study) gives us another piece among many others in the puzzle of our understanding of covid-19 as a disease “, the author of the article, Steen Ethelberg, told EFE, while stressing that the conclusions also” strengthen the importance of vaccination among the elderly in our societies, even if they have been previously infected “.
“Vaccination of the vulnerable and, in the long run, of the majority of the population certainly seems to be the best way forward,” he concluded.
The data were obtained from the testing strategy of covid-19 applied in Denmark, for which more than two-thirds of the population – 69% or 4 million people – were tested in 2020.
Specifically, among those who had COVID-19 in the first wave -between March and May 2020- only 0.65% tested positive again in the second outbreak -September to December 2020-.
With 3.3%, the rate of infection was five times higher among those who gave positive results over time second greeting after having previously tested negative.
Of those under 65 who had disease on the first wave, 0.60% tested positive again in the second, and among those who did not suffer, the percentage was 3.60%.
Older people were at higher risk reinfection, and 0.88% of those who were infected in the first wave tested positive again in the second. EFE