How soon can you be reinfected with COVID? Quicker than you may think, studies find
Yes, it’s possible to get reinfected with COVID-19 after catching the coronavirus once — and it can happen quicker than you may realize, recent studies have found.
That’s the case even if you’re fully vaccinated.
The record for the quickest recorded COVID-19 reinfection was reported Wednesday, April 20, after a healthcare worker got sick with the virus 20 days after an initial infection, according to researchers in Spain.
The 31-year-old woman, who is fully vaccinated and had received a booster shot, tested positive for the coronavirus omicron variant 20 days after getting sick with the delta variant, a news release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases said.
This comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported an individual between the age of 12 through 17 was reinfected with omicron 23 days after a previous delta infection, according to a study released April 7. They were unvaccinated.
In the case of the healthcare worker, she had gotten a booster shot 12 days before her initial delta infection on Dec. 20, the news release said. She was asymptomatic during her first bout with the virus.
On Jan. 10, she again started feeling sick — this time coughing and running a fever — so she took a PCR test, which came back positive for COVID-19, according to the Spanish researchers. Genome sequencing confirmed the two separate infections as delta and then omicron.
The news release noted how omicron is much more infectious compared to delta.
“This case highlights the potential of the Omicron variant to evade the previous immunity acquired either from a natural infection with other variants or from vaccines,” study author Dr. Gemma Recio, of Institut Català de Salut in Spain, said in a statement.
“In other words, people who have had COVID-19 cannot assume they are protected against reinfection, even if they have been fully vaccinated.”
Dr. Otto Yang, a professor at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine and an infectious disease expert, told McClatchy News in an email that “reinfections are common” but the recorded case of the healthcare worker following the CDC’s report was “slightly surprising.”
“This is a little faster than prior reports.”
In the U.S., the omicron variant — and its subvariants including BA.2 — is responsible for all COVID-19 infections, according to CDC data estimates.
The delta variant made up .1% of U.S. cases the week ending March 19 but hasn’t been detected since, agency data shows.
“Nevertheless, both previous infection with other variants and vaccination do seem to partially protect against severe disease and hospitalization in those with Omicron,” Recio said in the news release.
Can you get omicron twice?
While the Spanish researchers and the CDC focused on omicron infections after an initial delta infection, it has been suggested that omicron has the ability to infect a person twice, McClatchy News previously reported.
A Danish study that hasn’t been peer reviewed found that omicron reinfections after an initial omicron infection can occur — but it’s rare.
These cases were found “mostly in young unvaccinated individuals with mild disease” that didn’t result in “hospitalization or death,” according to the work published as a preprint on MedRxiv in late February.
Cases of COVID-19 reinfections
In February, British royal family member Prince Charles, 73, was reinfected with COVID-19, CNN reported. He’s fully vaccinated.
Charles previously tested positive for the virus in March 2020, according to the outlet. It wasn’t specified what virus strain he was reinfected with.
In 2020, a family of 13 in California all tested positive for COVID-19 before the virus came back in 2021 to reinfect a few members of the family, NPR reported.
“The second time it was scarier because I’m vaccinated,” Vanessa Quintero, 31, told the outlet, saying she tested positive again for COVID-19 after her 8-year-old daughter was reinfected.
However, fewer family members were infected with the virus the second time, according to NPR.
“Reinfections, even in those people who have been fully vaccinated, can be expected,” professor of molecular virology Jonathan Ball of the University of Nottingham said in a statement, Science Media Centre reported.
“As antibody levels wane or following the appearance of a new variant — like Omicron — your levels of antibody immunity are not sufficiently high to prevent infection.”
The CDC says online that “after recovering from COVID-19, most individuals will have some protection from repeat infections. However, reinfections do occur after COVID-19.”
Yang said that “if someone has had COVID-19, they should consider that they may be susceptible to getting it again if they are exposed.”
When asked whether the Spanish researchers’ and the CDC’s reports on the reinfections were a reason to worry or not, Yang said “yes and no.”
“At the personal level, someone who is relatively healthy and not too elderly probably has minimal risk of severe illness if they get reinfected if they weren’t severely ill the prior infection,” he said. “On the societal level, it’s bad news for reducing circulation of the virus, which keeps certain people (elderly, immunosuppressed, unvaccinated) at risk for their health.”
He said “easy and common measures” to reduce the circulation of the virus should be continued to protect those who are at a higher risk.
”While the zero tolerance approach in China is completely untenable, the other extreme of dropping all public health measures seems too far in the other direction,” he said. ”For example, if something as simple as masking on public transport can reduce circulation and save lives, that would seem worth doing.”
This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 2:22 PM with the headline "How soon can you be reinfected with COVID? Quicker than you may think, studies find."
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