Covid19 reinfection is a complicated and serious matter, according to Dr Peter Chin Hong, infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.
“It’s confusing now because different people have different levels of immunity, and immunities to different variants. It’s not like the old days where it was the same for everybody. It’s a complex equation now. You almost need an app to find out what your risk is.”
This after it was announced on the Facebook page of the Office of the Prime Minister on November 4 that PM Rowley had contracted covid19 for the third time. On Friday, his office disclosed he his since tested negative.
Rowley is not the only world leader to have had the virus more than once, as Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador were both diagnosed twice.
[caption id="attachment_985455" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, during the ASEAN-Canada summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on November 12, has had covid19 twice. - AP Photo[/caption]
Chin Hong said reinfection depended on covid19 variants, immunity and people’s behaviour.
Going in to more detail, he explained that omicron subvariants were more evasive to antibodies. For example, omicron BA.5 carried mutations that help it escape antibodies generated by vaccines or prior infection, leaving people vulnerable to reinfection. So even if a person is infected by BA.5, it would be easy for them to get infected with BQ.1, which is a subvariant of BA.5.
The last time a person’s immune system was reminded of covid19 was also an important factor to reinfection. He said protection lasted between three to seven months depending on the variant, although there had been a few cases of people being reinfected or getting infected after vaccination in under three months.
And, of course, people’s behaviour including mask-wearing, being in large groups, sanitising and more, would affect the risk of reinfection.
He stressed that a reinfected person could have a mild or severe case. But, generally, people getting very sick now were those who were never vaccinated or never had covid19, and people over the age of 65 who did not get a booster.
Multiple infections could also lead to long covid and, he said, the more times a person got the virus naturally, the higher the chances of more chronic symptoms.
According to CNN Health, repeated reinfection increased the chances of facing new and sometimes lasting health problems after their infection, even in people with mild symptoms.
It said common new diagnoses after reinfections included chest pain, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks, inflammation of the heart muscle or the sac around the heart, heart failure and blood clots. Common lung issues included shortness of breath, low blood oxygen, lung disease, and accumulation of fluid around the lungs.
Still, reinfections were more common in people with existing risks because of t
