A joint study by researchers from the Ministry of Public Health and Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar, suggests that people who get reinfected with COVID-19 are not as susceptible to hospitalization or death compared to the first infection.
Signs that You've Already Had COVID
Even if a person has already had Covid, it is vital for them to get vaccinated. Not only does it ensure that you are less likely to get severe symptoms, but it also keeps the people you interact with safe from the virus' onslaught.
Experts have also warned that those who have already been infected with COVID-19 may experience long-term COVID symptoms that have affected 10-30% of the infected population according to, EatThis,NotThat.
There have been reports of people first infected with COVID experiencing ongoing symptoms for weeks or months at a time. Some of these symptoms include difficulty in breathing, fatigue, chest pains, pounding heart, aching joints & muscles, diarrhea, sleep problems, rash, mood changes, and changes in smell or taste.
Some have reported neurological symptoms after getting infected with COVID, including short-term memory loss, aphasia, word-finding inabilities, and more.
ALSO READ: COVID-19 Delta Variant May End Soon As It Mutates Itself, Losing Capability to Replicate and Spread
Decline in COVID Severity After Reinfection
In a study published in the journal The New England Journal of Medicine, titled "Severity of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfections as Compared with Primary Infections," researchers analyzed COVID-19 infection waves hitting Qatar in 2020 and back-to-back waves in the winter and spring of 2021.
Researchers found that patients reinfected with COVID-19 the second time around had 90% less likeness of falling severely or critically ill, or worse, dying.
The joint team analyzed over 353,000 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 between February 2020 to April 2021. The study was split into three waves--first, February-June 2020; the second Alpha variant wave from January-March 2020. Lastly, the Beta variant wave in March-May 2021.
The team was able to identify 1,300 people that were reinfected with the virus and matched them according to sex, nationality, age. Wherein the median time between reinfection and the first infection was approximately nine months. Where four people, 0.3%, had severe reinfection compared to 2.5% with primary infection. Moreover, 0.4% became critically ill with 0.1% death in the group of primary infection, reports DailyMail.
In contrast, in the reinfection group, no one fell critically ill or, worse, died. Overall, only 3.1% of people had severe or critical COVID-19 compared to the 0.3% in the reinfected group. It translated to 90% reduced odds of reinfected patients ending in hospitals or the ICU compared to their initial infection.
However, there are significant limitations in the study, such that it was conducted in Qatar, which doesn't have cold weather compared to the majority of the world that may present different sets of odds. Additionally, researchers were unable to observe patients infected with the COVID Delta variant, which has become the most dominant strain circulating the globe. With that said, the study should be taken with a grain of salt and should serve as a benchmark for what can occur during reinfection.
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