(AP) – If I already had the coronavirus, can I get it again?
It is possible, but such cases seem rare. There is growing evidence that people whose bodies have strongly defended against the virus are unlikely to give positive results again for at least a few months and maybe more.
It is not uncommon to develop a certain immunity to a virus after an infection, as our bodies are generally better at recognizing and combating the bugs they have encountered before. And this seems to be the case with coronavirus, although scientists are still trying to figure out how long a protection could last.
Some reinfections have been confirmed, but two new studies suggest it is very unusual.
In one, only two out of 1,265 workers in the UK who were previously infected became positive for coronavirus in the next six months. In another study of people in the US, only 0.3% of infected people tested positive for the virus in the next few months – about the same positivity rate as the UK study.
The findings bode well for the COVID-19 vaccines that are being released, which trigger the type of immune responses that studies have found protective.
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The AP answers the questions about coronavirus in this series. Send them to: [email protected].
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